Men of War
Encyclopedia
Real-time tactics
Real-time tactics or RTT is a subgenre of tactical wargames played in real-time simulating the considerations and circumstances of operational warfare and military tactics...
video game and the sequel to the 2006 game Faces of War
Faces of War
Faces of War is a real-time strategy and real-time tactics computer wargame published by Russian publisher 1C Company and developed by Ukrainian developer Best Way. The game is a sequel to 2004's Soldiers: Heroes of World War II...
(which was a sequel to the 2004 Soldiers: Heroes of World War II
Soldiers: Heroes of World War II
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 Best Way....
), developed in partnership with Best Way
Best Way
Best Way is an Ukrainian company which designs video games from RTS genre. The company was founded in 1991. Its first title was Soldiers: Heroes of WWII...
and published by 1C Company
1C Company
1C Company is one of the largest independent Russian software developers and publishers. Its headquarters are in Moscow, Russia. It is best known outside of the former Soviet Union as a video game developer whose presence has come to dominate events like the KRI, and whose products have begun to...
, 505 Games
505 Games
505 Games, formerly known as 505 Game Street, is an Italian video game publishing division of Italian company Digital Bros. group founded in 2006...
, and Aspyr Media
Aspyr Media
Aspyr Media, Inc. is an Austin, Texas based company that specializes in porting Windows games to Mac OS. It has been in business since 1996, and as of 2003 owns 60 percent of the Mac entertainment market...
.
The single player campaign takes place during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and features battles set in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, and North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
, across three different campaigns for the Allies
Allies
In everyday English usage, allies are people, groups, or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out between them...
, Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
and Soviets. Men of War features Japan as a new multiplayer faction.
Gameplay
Men of War plays similarly to Faces of War and Soldiers: Heroes of World War II, with a few major differences. In Soldiers, the player controlled a small group of soldiers fighting the enemy. In Faces of War, the player controlled a few men while fighting in large battles alongside many allies. In Men of War, both of those scenarios do take place, but sometimes the player is given complete control over dozens of units. It is not uncommon for a player to have simultaneous control over many lines of defense. To make micromanagement simpler, the player is able to organize his troops into squads. In addition, the player is able to assign individuals into cover for more precision. The player is also able to call in reinforcements in the form of units, artillery barrages (from guns or offshore ships), and air support. Naval units, such as torpedo boats and submarines, are controllable for the first time.The game includes the soldiers and arsenals of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
(as well as Canada, Australia, and other Commonwealth states), the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, and various resistance movements (particularly the Russian
Soviet partisans
The Soviet partisans were members of a resistance movement which fought a guerrilla war against the Axis occupation of the Soviet Union during World War II....
and the French). The expansion, Red Tide, adds the Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n and Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
armies.
Campaign
Men of War features 19 single player missions spread across three different campaigns. The game features a Soviet, German, and Allied campaign.The Soviet campaign spans the early battles of the Eastern front
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
, through to the start of the Soviet counter-offensive. The campaign begins with the Battle of Rostov
Battle of Rostov
Three battles of the Eastern Front of World War II around the city of Rostov-on-Don on the Sea of Azov are known as the Battle of Rostov:*In the Battle of Rostov , the German 1st Panzer Army captured the city but was driven out by the Soviet 37th Army...
and ends after the Battle of Seelow Heights, with an epilogue showing Berlin days after its capture
Battle of Berlin
The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European Theatre of World War II....
.The Player is represented by Alexey Kuznetsov and Victor Smirnov.
The German and Allied campaigns take place largely within the North Africa theatre. The German campaign follows a young, ambitious commander called Gunther Borg who fights as a paratrooper
Fallschirmjäger
are German paratroopers. Together with the Gebirgsjäger they are perceived as the elite infantry units of the German Army....
in Greece (Battle of Crete
Battle of Crete
The Battle of Crete was a battle during World War II on the Greek island of Crete. It began on the morning of 20 May 1941, when Nazi Germany launched an airborne invasion of Crete under the code-name Unternehmen Merkur...
) before being redeployed after temporary leave to join the Afrika Korps
Afrika Korps
The German Africa Corps , or the Afrika Korps as it was popularly called, was the German expeditionary force in Libya and Tunisia during the North African Campaign of World War II...
in Libya (Tobruk
Siege of Tobruk
The siege of Tobruk was a confrontation that lasted 240 days between Axis and Allied forces in North Africa during the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War...
) and Tunisia. The Allied campaign follows an elite American squad under the command of Terry Palmer and a Cpl. Robinson during Operation Torch
Operation Torch
Operation Torch was the British-American invasion of French North Africa in World War II during the North African Campaign, started on 8 November 1942....
as they fight alongside the British "Desert Rats" of the British 7th Armoured Division, other American soldiers, and Henri d'Astier's French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
.
There are also a number of bonus missions, which involve both defending and attacking objectives.
The single player campaigns can be played through cooperatively over a local TCP/IP network, or over the internet.
Multiplayer
In multiplayer, there are 5 different factions to choose from; The United States, Commonwealth forces, Germany, Soviet Union and Japan (though Japan is only available in further patches).There are a variety of game modes including Combat, Battle Zone, Frontline and Cooperative, all of which were featured in Soldiers, and two new modes - Victory flag and Valuable Cargo.
Men of War will introduce a ranking system based on the ratio of a player's wins to losses with the various multiplayer factions.
The game has the "Direct Control" feature characteristic of the series which allows the player to take over control of a unit's movements and actions with the keyboard and mouse, adding a tactical 3rd person shooter element to the game.
Modifications are still officially supported, and will still have their own Tab in Options. Games using modifications will also go under the name "Modded Game".
Steam has updated the game since 1.17.5, and other US users must manually modify their installations to patch their game for the latest multiplayer versions.
Reception
Men of War has received generally favorable reviews, garnering a MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
score of 80 out of 100. GamingShogun called the game a very 'in-depth, tactical game of combat' and stresses its mixed bag of highs and lows while also pointing out the game's budget-minded pricing. IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
agreed with the mixed sentiments, conceding that the game was "tedious and hard as hell" but also that it "offers a view of combat that's every bit as thrilling as the more accessible strategy games that dominate the sales charts". IT Reviews was more positive, claiming that it "puts the emphasis firmly back on strategy, using your meagre troops cunningly to out-think and out-gun the enemy even when they have vastly superior numbers."
Patches
There are a number of different versions made by different companies, with different patches for each version due to them having different copy protection systems.Men of War: Red Tide
Four months after the release of Men of War, a stand-alone expansion pack called Men of War: Red Tide was announced.The expansion adds 20 new single player missions, where the player take the control over the Soviet Marine forces in the Black Sea campaigns in World War 2, fighting against Italian, Romanian and German forces.
The story is based on the writings of Alexander Zorich
Alexander Zorich
Alexander Zorich is the collective pen name of two Russian writers; Yana Botsman and Dmitry Gordevsky. The two write in Russian, in genres such as science fiction, fantasy and alternate history, as well as PC game scenarios.- Yana Botsman :...
.