Order of War Hands-On - Cinematic Cameras on the Road to Paris

There are tons of games here at E3 2009. Order of War, the Russian PC real-time strategy game published by Final Fantasy creator Square Enix, is just one of them. The game will retell World War II using large-scale battles on huge 3D maps, embracing newer users by featuring extensive mission briefing cinematics that help walk players through their next goal.

Who's Making This Game: Order of War is being developed by Wargaming.net, a Russian studio whose previous works include Massive Assault, the sci-fi turn-based wargame from 2003. The game was originally released in Russia as an East Front-only game, Operation Bagration, but is being enhanced with Western Front missions and all-new cinematic sequences and American voice acting.

What The Game Looks Like: Order of War seems reminiscent of a more brightly colored Company of Heroes with the camera zoomed much further up and back. We had the chance to play only one map, Road to Paris, but it was enormous. The game also lets you press the "C" key to switch your view to the "cinematic camera"--a view that letterboxes off the top and bottom of the screen and dramatically zooms in on the action, which is a feature that Wargaming.net apparently hopes new users will enjoy. However, you may not even need the cinematic camera when playing the single-player campaign, since every single in-mission objective you complete is bookended by an unskippable in-game cinematic sequence with full voice from your commanding officer, who lets you know what you need to do next while the camera zooms, pans, scrolls, rotates, pans, and zooms along the landscape.

What There Is To Do: Only two missions in the single-player game appear to be available at this year's E3. Road to Paris appears to take place fairly early in the American campaign and required us to mobilize small- to medium-sized squads of infantry and tanks to attack enemy tank battalions and artillery emplacements.

How The Game Is Played: Order of War is played a lot like any other real-time strategy game; you can band-select your units by clicking and dragging and assign them to control groups if you prefer. You can give the usual modified move orders (attack move, standard move, passive move) as well as select your troops' facing, which is important for armored units, such as tanks, whom you'll want to have lined up with cannons pointed at the enemy, and your own vehicles, whose vulnerable flanks you'll want turned away.

What They Say: Order of War is intended to appeal to both hardcore and casual strategy game players.

What We Say: We wonder if hardcore players might get a little turned off at all the unskippable cinematic sequences, but from the sound of it, Wargaming.net hopes hardcore strategy fans will prefer the game's multiplayer, which we haven't seen yet. From what we've played, Order of War, or at least the game's single-player campaign, seems like it'll focus on welcoming beginners and rewarding them for completing successive mission goals. The game is scheduled to ship later this year.