Soldiers: Heroes of World War II
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| Soldiers: Heroes of World War II | |
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| Developer(s) | Best Way |
| Publisher(s) | Codemasters |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Release date(s) | June 30, 2004 |
| Genre(s) | Real-time tactics |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: T |
| Media | CD |
| Input methods | Keyboard and mouse |
Soldiers: Heroes of World War II is the first in a series of real-time tactics video games set in World War II, developed by or under the supervision of Ukrainian company Bestway.
While the most widely distributed edition by Codemasters bears the name Soldiers: Heroes of World War II, its original English language title is Outfront, and its original Russian title is В тылу врага.
The player could take control of American, British, Russian, or German forces to play out battles that are set in World War II. The game is primarily a strategy game, but the player can take control of his or her forces and direct them with the keyboard and mouse for additional depth of control.
In foreign markets, the series has been plagued by many publisher and name changes, making its chronology difficult to follow.
Game scenario writers include Alexander Zorich.
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[edit] Spin-offs
Outfront: Saboteurs (В тылу врага: Диверсанты) was released by 1C in 2005. Development was outsourced to studio Dark Fox, using Bestway's Heroes engine. The game remained without an official release in many markets until Paradox Interactive acquired international rights from 1C mid 2006 and renamed it Silent Heroes: Elite Troops of World War II, axing the original version's multiplayer in the process.
Outfront: Saboteurs 2 (В тылу врага: Диверсанты 2), again developed by Dark Fox, followed in 2006. This product is seemingly unreleased outside of Eastern Europe.
[edit] Sequels
The first full fledged sequel, В тылу врага II, appeared in 2006. Its intended international title was Outfront II, but that moniker was scrapped after a distribution deal was struck with Ubisoft. Rechristened Faces of War, the game was released on September 12 2006 [1].
The next intallment in the series was a joint development between Bestway and German partners Digitalmindsoft. Russian publisher 1C marketed it as a two part standalone expansion for В тылу врага II, consisting of В тылу врага 2: Братья по оружию, released in 2007, and В тылу врага 2: Лис пустыни (Men of War), due to be released later in 2008.
However, early English language press releases and artwork by Digitalmindsoft suggested that the international version of the expansion would be issued as Outfront 2, which led to some confusion since Outfront II (with Roman numerals) was the working title of Faces of War. A number of media preferred to call the project Faces of War 2. Eventually 505 Games acquired distribution rights to the game, and settled for Men of War as its definitive international title.
[edit] Gameplay
In the single player missions, players were generally allotted a very small amount of soldiers, and losing just one soldier could be a huge loss. Thus, the game was about conserving your soldiers and keeping them safe for most of the time. The game simulates close combat military tactics, allowing the player to place their soldiers behind cover and move them around all at once, yet also allowing the player to take control of their soldiers to make them do more advanced commands.
There were many types of vehicles, ranging from tanks to anti-aircraft vehicles to simple jeeps. Any soldier could drive or man any position in a gun, which, albeit unrealistic, allowed for many interesting gameplay implications.
Further, soldiers had inventories, which allowed for the implementation of an ammunition system, as well as for soldiers to loot better or simply different weapons and grenades from dead enemies, as well as dead friendlies. Even vehicles had ammunition, which players could scavenge from disabled (though not destroyed) vehicles.
Another interesting side effect to using vehicles under direct control was that this allowed the user to aim at specific points on enemy vehicles. A player could aim for an enemy tank's treads for example, which would prevent it from moving, but still allowed it to fire. Thus, by doing this, a player can stop a tank from harassing him, while creating a "dead zone" that he can't move in without getting attacked.
Aside from realistic location damage on vehicles, the game offers a virtually completely destructible environment. This is especially taken advantage of when using a vehicle in direct control, in which a player can aim the turret and literally blow buildings apart.
Originally, the only way a player could play this game multiplayer was to play a cooperative game mode which took up to four players through any mission from the single player mode. The soldiers in each map were divided between the players, but otherwise this mode was exactly the same as single player. However, there was no server browser, and players were forced to directly connect by IP Address to play.
In a more recent patch, players are able to play different multiplayer modes, including escort missions and king of the hill type scenarios. No in-game server browser was created, but a player could use GameSpy Arcade as a server browser.
[edit] Notes
Soldiers under Vista: There is a patch for vista users, but it doesn't always work. One workaround for this is to play the game using compatibility mode for Windows 98/Windows Me.
The GoG version of Soldiers is fully compatible with Windows Vista.
