Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far

"A realistic WWII strategy game"

Introduction:
Close Combat II: A Bridge Too Far is a classic game thats a lot of fun to play. Taking place during World War II, this game gives you the ability to command the Allies or Germans to victory. Even if you lose you can still win. Sounds confusing, I know. If you love real time strategy games then this might be fun for you. Its not like Age of Empires or Warcraft, its more realistic and doesn't have unit producing buildings. You pick what types of troops you want, you deploy them and you take the objectives. Trust me, its a lot harder and more fun that it sounds.

Gameplay:
You have a certain amount of supply points in which you choose what units you want to deploy. Then you are at the map where the battle is going to take place. You deploy them where you want and begin to battle. You attempt to take these points on the maps. You have to fight and capture them and defend them. However, you will face great casualties on your way to them. There is a plethora of maps you will play on and the fighting is fierce on every single one. You don't control the units in this game... you command them. They don't necessarily follow your orders and they do what they want. Sometimes this is a problem, but I find it to be a great feature to the game. For example, I can tell a platoon of infantry to move to a house and they might be hesitant in doing it, especially if the enemy is inside. Just for the sake of the explanation lets say the enemy is inside and they do try to capture it. They will fight the enemy in hand to hand combat without me even telling them to. Flamethrower units could flush out the house no problem and a smoke screen or another platoon laying down support fire could distract them, demoralize them or even cause them to panic and flee from battle. This is very strategic game and you must be patient and stingy with your units. Having a platoon rushing the enemy would be suicide so make sure to be somewhat thoughtful when moving troops. Tanks are something that should be feared as well. They can really annihilate your troops as well as your tanks. However, use all your resources in order to capture the flags and you will be victorious. However, you can also request a ceasefire or just plain out surrender. If you do, you can resume the battle later with some reinforcements. Sometimes it will take several attempts to capture map in order to be victorious. Your troops will also run out of ammo, become injured, panic and many other problems can occur. If a soldier is in a house all by himself with a bunch of dead comrades while the enemy is closing in on three sides of the house.. he isn't going to fight . He's going to go nuts and just lay there and ignore all your commands.

Story:
The story follows the story of World War II. All the battles are actual battles and are represented quite well from what I hear. There isn't anything personal and doesn't follow any characters in the game. Its just your simple strategy game... without the part of being simple.

Sound:
There is plethora of sounds in this game. Different types of units fire different types of guns. Explosions have unique sounds to them and people scream different commands in the game. It really sets the atmosphere as a World War II battle.

Graphics:
I liked the graphics in the game. Its a look down view on the battlefield and this allows very strategic movements. However, its just a 2D game with small units that can barely be seen in detail. Bullets are just lines across the map.. a poor representation of bullets, but I liked the graphics in this game even though they suck pretty bad.

Flaws:
The psychology of the units are sometimes a pain. People just don't want to fight. I don't know about you but if there was a tank near me shooting the crap out of my friends and I was the only one in a hundred miles with a rocket launcher.. you know I'm going to take that bad boy out. But not in this game.. he'll be too scared to destory something. The difficutly of the game is pretty hard too but its not too hard.

Replayability:
The game has a lot to play and depending on the person if you like this type of strategy game or not has a major influence on how much you'll play it. Some might play a few maps and quit while others might play it like a religion, perfecting strategies.

Conclusion:
This game is awesome and its probably really cheap. I loved this game and I still play it now years after its release. I definitely recommend it to anyone.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/01/05