World War II Online is the ONLY virtual battlefield
User Rating: 9 | World War II Online: Blitzkrieg PC
Version reviewed: 1.16.2 This game has come a long way since its horrible June 2001 release. Its an entirely different game, lacks almost nothing in terms of stuff to do It isnt a game for everyone, the FPS aspect isnt a shootemup, its a simulation. The flight aspect also isnt arcadish, nor is the tank, naval, ect. Its the best World War II sim out there, and if you say "im not paying $12 a month when i can play BF1942 for free, which is the same." you are mistaken because BF1942 is not a sim, its an arcadish game. GAMEPLAY: IMO nothing can beat walking into town for 20 minutes, getting to a good hiding spot and sniping poor ei (term used for enemy infantry) leaving the town. Ive broken up many attacks doing that. Of couse its easier to drive in, drop at a safe distance and take a 3 mniute walk in. You have to have paitence for this game. LOTS of them. Ive driven 2 hour missions just to go and try to sabatoge an enemy airfield, which was about 40 miles away, in a group on a truck. Anothe time I drove a french lend-lease stuart m3 tank up to british territory just for the heck of it. It took me about 3 hours of driving. sadly I was killed shortly after arriving at the target. Of course that doesnt cover the flight aspect of the game: Its what you would expect from a flight sim, there is some FPS issues in the air if your GFX are turned up high, but in the air they dont need to be. The maximum visual limit in the air is also too close making it look a bit foggy out, at 8km, but I heard there is plans to increase it up to 40km. Theres also tanking, pretty staigtfoward. In a tank, you are relativly protected from infantry, unless they have explosives on them, or have a grenade launching device on their rifle, and grenades can sometimes knock the tracks off or destroy the wheel entirely. You can also drive trucks and gun with AT/AAA/Artillery guns, the game has a towing feature that lets you tow ATGs or AAA from a truck, however teh towing system still has a few bugs to them, but they can be corrected by driving at slower speeds. The learning curve is very high so dont expect to come in and breeze right throgh learning, espeacially if your coming from BF1942 and expecting the same. GRAPHICS: The graphics are considered by most "old school." Even the newer, better looking game objects, becasue teh game runs on 8 bit textures whereas newer games run on 24, and brand new games are starting with 32 bit textures. There are some games in development slated to run on 64 bit textures. However sometime in the near future there is plans for bumping up to 32 bit textures, renders have been shown and it makes the game look beutiful. Previously the amount of players visible at a time was 64, which led to ALOT of players blinking in and out in heavy battles with alot of players. The maximuim limit is now 100, at first I thoguht the extra 35 people wouldnt make a difference, however it does! For the first time I actually saw all of the attackers at a town today with them blinknig out! and the gunfire was LOUD! Also today I was walking away from town and I saw planes flying overhead! This was not possible before becasue it would render the planes when it drew the infantry. SOUND: The sounds have recived an overhaul since my last review. More specifically, all of the gun siound effects. They arent much better quality, however they sound MUCH more like the real guns they represent. Also the new sounds actually make me jump when I hear them, a distant burst of an SMG makes a small "pat pat pat" sound like in real life, and the new explosion effects are terrifyling! I now jump when a grenade explodes near me or an artillery shell explodes nearby. The game sounds 20 times better and the new sounds arent even finished yet! The old generic rifle sounds, which I SWEAR were recorded with a metal spoon as one of the objects, they now have distinct sounds. The french rifle makes a small POP! noise when fired, the kar98 makes a long drawn out BOOM! The french machine gun makes a semi-quiet thudding sound while the mg34 makes a high pitched fast rattling sound. Next on the list to get an overhaul are the tanks sounds, and then the blane sounds. UI: The user interface is really bad, a new one will replace the current one when its done. There has been little tweaks in recent months such as a new map, and some more helpful features, such as the game remebering which type of facitlityes shown on the map on restart, but more helpful features will be coming soon. All in all this game is underapprecated (hence the underapreeciated category :D ) and should be recognised more often as "the" WWII game.
