PREVIEW
Last week, we got a late beta of the newest entry in the Close Combat series—Close Combat III:The Russian Front. While we’re big fans of Atomic Game’s first two efforts in the series, Close Combat and Close Combat 2: A Bridge Too Far, we’ve always wondered what the engine could do if brought to bear upon the East Front, every WWII gamer’s favorite. Well, if our early impressions hold up, this could easily be the best Close Combat game yet. It’s much grander than the earlier games, which merely covered the Normandy campaign until St. Lo and the Market-Garden drops. This game covers the entire war in the East, from 1941 to 1945; from the dusty summer battles of Kursk to the icy winter counterattacks in front of Moscow.
In CC3, you’ll be able to fight 27 stand-alone historical battles, 16 historical operations—which consist of a series of battles fought in sequence, and 15 historical campaigns—a series of operations fought in sequence. Or, for the ultimate East Front gamer’s challenge, you can fight the Grand Campaign, in which you’ll fight all 16 operations, battling from the opening moves of Barbarossa to the final curtain in the streets of Berlin. I found the game’s selection of battles to be very good—the usual suspects are here, including Moscow, Stalingrad, Kharkov and Kursk. But there are some surprises as well, including the Korsun Pocket, a battle I’ve been fascinated by since reading Paul Carrell’s Scorched Earth as a kid and playing Jack Radey’s old Korsun Pocket board game. As you progress in the campaigns, you’ll be able to buy new troops and upgrade old units, and your troops will gain in experience as the war grinds on. It’ll hurt to see the trusted veterans that have slogged across Russia with you decimated in the urban nightmare of Stalingrad, but it’ll be a big thrill to get that first T-34 or Panther under your command, too.
The game’s grand scale is reflected in its maps as well, which are three to four times larger than those in CC1 And CC2. Many gamers complained of the smallish maps and claustrophobic play of the first two games, which didn’t allow many of the grand sweeping maneuvers that characterized mobile warfare in WWII. It didn’t bother me that much, though, since the hedgerow fighting of Normandy before St. Lo and the urban combat of Market-Garden were claustrophobic. But that excuse won’t fly on the East Front, where you’ve got lots of room and lots of mobility, so Atomic’s maps allow you plenty of space for maneuver. Watching your own flanks and working the enemy’s are important tactical principles in this game. And the maps also look splendid, with a hand-painted look in the tradition of Panzer General II. The also introduce elevation differences to the CC series, and with a pretty good degree of success. It’s easy enough to tell where the big hills are, but the maps are full of folds and rises that aren’t always readily recognizable. While I realize the difficulties of representing 3D space in a 2D medium, I did have to start a few of the scenarios over after I was ambushed by tanks hidden behind rises I had no idea existed. And though you won’t be able to edit the maps themselves, the game does include a mission editor with which you can create your own scenarios.
Besides the wide variety of terrain you’ll fight over, you’ll also fight with a wide variety of troops. The game includes more than 100 weapon types, 60 infantry types, and over 80 different vehicles and guns. You can command everything from Guards and SS troops to militia and second-rate Axis allies, everything from the flimsy but fast BT-7s to the awesome Stalin tanks of the late war.
But the game isn’t just more than the earlier CC efforts, it’s better as well, and sports an improved interface and some very nice new features. For the first time, waypoints are included, which should go a long way towards getting vehicles to do what you want without interminable delays while they pathfind, a notable problem in the earlier games. You’ll also be able to issue group orders, a feature I found especially handy in the large tank battles. You just drag-select a group of tanks, click on a destination, and off they go, even attempting to hold formation as they advance. You can also issue the new ambush order, which allows you to set your unit’s facing and tell it to hold its fire until a enemy unit comes within 30 yards. This can be a devastating tool, especially in the Stalingrad scenarios, and very especially when using flamethrowers.
The commander unit is another new addition, and can be used to rally troops, to increase a unit’s morale, and to increase the odds that men under his command will follow orders. Given the wildly varying quality of units on the East Front, this guy comes in really handy, and reminds me of the leader units in Squad Leader.
In fact, the whole game reminds me of Squad Leader, much more so than the other CC games. With more troops and maps, a vaster scope, and very handy new features, Close Combat III adds a deeper layer of complexity and subtlety–not to mention excitement—to an already fine series. Look for our full review in these pages soon.