World War II : Frontline Command

WWII:Frontline Command

The Bitmap Brothers are the famed creators of such PC classics as Speedball and Xenon. They are now turning their hands towards the wartime RTS genre in an attempt to steal the crown from Command and Conquer makers Westwood studios. The result of these efforts is the World War II game Frontline Command.

Frontline Command provides two modes for play – Recruit and Veteran. Although the names of the modes suggest that the only difference between them is the difficulty it is more pronounced than this.

Additional troop commands are available via a context menu

The Veteran mode is more difficult but primarily because the ammunition is limited in this mode where it isn’t in the Recruit mode. The Veteran mode also opens up more missions including an additional block. Recruit mode missions must be played through in a specific sequence but the Veteran mode opens the sequence up so that they can be played in any order and additional objectives in each mission directly affect the events in other missions.

Life’s a beach

During the D-Day beach landings troops are dropped into the heat of battle.

The game consists of four or five mission blocks depending on whether the game is played in Recruit or Veteran mode. Each mission block contains 3 or more missions, which range from defending sites from enemy onslaughts, search and destroy missions to targeted destruction missions. Each block targets a specific part of history starting with missions to pave the way for the D-Day landings and the D-Day landings themselves right through to the final stages of the war.

The D-Day landings are a very frantic affair. Troops are divided into three sections, the middle of the beach, the top and the bottom of the beach. As you move up the beach re-enforcements are constantly delivered although by the time you get to them to move them up the beach to join the rest of your forces they’ve stood there long enough to be mostly killed. It creates a very frantic feeling as you try desperately to save enough troops to complete the other mission objectives.

Orienteering

Your troops sometimes know where enemies are without being able to see them.

The major gripe with the game play is the path finding routines for your troops. The controls are much like any other RTS (select the troops you want to move and then click where they should go to). When you move them, however, they do not take the most direct or most discreet route, they take the road. They don’t just take as much road as possible to get to where they’re going, they go out of their way, regardless of the danger, to get as close as possible to where they should be by road. I even saw several troops run to their death underneath a Panzer IV tank just so that they could take the road (which the Panzer was guarding)!

Enemy AI is varied for the different mission types. For instance, in missions where you attack an enemy base, the AI will hold its ground and summon troops from other parts of the map that you have not yet destroyed as reinforcements; in other missions the enemies will retreat and try to regroup during fights. This helps to give the impression of realistic battles against a suitably intelligent enemy commander.

Listen up soldier

Missions are selected by selecting an area on the map.

The sound quality in Frontline Command is standard fare. The different troop types announce themselves appropriately when selected with different voices; vehicles announce themselves as “Armour” when selected. Gunfire sounds sufficiently weighty and the general sounds during combat, soldiers cries for “Medic”, mortars being fired and guns banging all around. The soundtrack does help to create a believable atmosphere

Look sharp soldier

The different missions take place in different weather conditions.

The graphics in Frontline command are very impressive. The system requirements for the game are modest meaning that even a mid-to-low range machine will be able to get good quality visuals from this. When mortars are fired or tanks shoot their rounds the trails of the shots are drawn and the explosions are suitably impressive. The vehicles and troops move well and are smoothly animated. The “fog of war” is implemented as a low lying ground fog so that large, fixed items can always be seen. Low-level items cannot be seen such as troops or armour.

Line of sight can, however be shared. This allows small, fast vehicles or soldiers to be sent ahead and clear the FOW so that tanks and mortar troops can attack enemies that they would not otherwise be able to see. Some troops have more than one weapon (riflemen have grenades and engineers have TNT for instance) and these can be switched between. When a troop is selected a weapon icon appears in the corner of the screen, when clicked it allows the weapon to be switched.

Squad life

The fog of war is implemented as an obscuring low lying fog.

Troops cluster together into squads. When you select a single squad member you select the entire squad. From here you can change the formation that the squad lines up in (forward wedge, backward wedge, vertical line etc) or command the squad to crawl, kneel or walk. Squads cannot be separated (unless some get killed off!) and so your strategy must revolve around groups of squads.

The game’s strategy element is geared heavily towards the military portion. There is no resource management to be concerned with, no base to defend and so you are free to just look after the troops. This means that the game must be structured slightly differently than traditional RTS games. With no base to defend the game drops you at the start and you must navigate your way to the final objective encountering enemy troops en-route. Re-enforcements are only available in certain missions and, since more cannot be built, it adds a respect for the life of your soldiers.

Frontline Command is a well thought out RTS game based around a historical subject. It looks good and sounds good. The game play is well thought out with a variety of mission types, which vary in difficulty and intensity. The two difficulty settings are well implemented ensuring that gamers want to complete both sets. The Recruit setting can be completed in around five to 10 hours whilst the Veteran difficulty contains much more gameplay with extra missions and objectives.