World War II Online: Blitzkrieg

"Has come along way (1.50 review)"

Wow.

When I first bought this game, it was a mess. The company that owns CRS (playnet) urged them to release the game when it obviously wasn't ready.

But Cornered Rat Software has come a long way, releasing patch after patch of new items, features, fixes, and additions. First came the initial patch, then 1.12, then 1.20, then 1.21, then 1.25, then 1.3, then 1.31, then 1.4, and finaly, the latest patch, 1.50

If you compared the earliest version to nows, you wouldnt recognize a thing.

Gone are the days of agony of having CTD's (crash to desktops) and not being able to get in. Gone are the days with 5 game worlds, now it is just one.

So many bugs were fixed that in version 1.5 they didnt even have to fix any.

So anyways, here is the deal. World War II Online is the FIRST Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter, MMOFPS, but its so much more than that.

Imagine a game where you play the war, not a person. On one game world, you can strafe trucks and dogfight in a plane, engage in tank battles, set up a defense with AT guns, or play down and dirty but also have some fun as infantry. You can also transport troops in a truck or tow an 88 in a halftrack. As of now they also have river boats which are a blast but not widely used. In the future the navy will play a big part in the war.

The detail in this game is amazing. This is the ONLY game I can reccomend playing if you want realism in WW2. Everything is authentic, right down to the paintjobs and turrett armor. They use a lot of physics, so everything is utterly realistic.

The game as of now has 3 countries, France and Britain as allies and Germany as axis. In the future there will also be japan, italy, russia, and others.

Some of the vehicles are the Hurricane fighter plane, Blenheim MkI and MkIV bombers, the stuka dive bomber, the Bf109 and Bf110, the Hawk, and the Spitfire. All these are modeled down to the finest details. And those are just the planes...

They also have realistic tanks, like the Panzer III and the Char B1, to name a few.

The game itself is amazing. A lot of teamwork is involved. Some people may be frustrated at first, and thats because its realistic, and its completely new. All of france is completely modeled, the towns, roads, and rivers. The landscape is HUGE. Forget about running to the next town as an infantry. You will first need to spawn at the Forward Base to the town you are attacking, and then get a ride on a tank or truck. You arent Rambo, you will die pretty quickly if you get shot at. Also, you cant sprint forever, you have a stamina bar you need to watch.

Just to give you an idea of how huge the landscape is, it would probably take you 10-20 minutes to run to an enemy city from an FB if you dont get a ride. But dont worry, that rarely will ever happen.

The graphics in this game are much better than before. If you have a pretty nice computer, and turn on the important graphical things like Mipmapping, Multi texturing and Specular, the game looks great.

There is now a lot of cover and hills, which makes the game a lot better.

The controls are insanely cool. For inf, the standard mouse and KB is used, and its great. Besides the ability to lean out from corners, and the slightly jerky motion, but those are being worked on.

For tanks, planes, trucks, AT guns, etc, you need a joystick. But it is well worth it.

The sound is above average, but some areas need some work. For the most part, its authentic and good.

What makes the game so addicting is getting your rank up. You take missions like defend Charleville, or attack the Dinant Depot. If you succesfully complete them, you get ''rank points'', and if you get enough you get promoted. Its really cool.

Pay to play is 10 dollars a month, which I think is a good deal. CRS needs the money, and hey with all the fun you get from this game, its like the price of going to a movie or two a month.

I only gave it a 9, because there are about 2 bugs that kind of stink. One is flags sometimes are ? mark and you cant take them. Another is the sound sometimes just goes out.

Buy this game if you have a pretty good computer. Buy it now!

What you should have..

P3 or P4 or athlon 800+ mgz, at least 256 mb of ram, and a good video card (64 mb is reccomended by most)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/09/02, Updated 01/09/02