Back to Theatre of War

[sandman2575]

I always wished I could take ToW2's terrific visuals and merge them with Combat Missionx2. It's still a beautiful looking game all these years on.

My main frustration with ToW was the lack of refined controls and commands you can give your units. And as others have said, managing infantry is extremely frustrating. They die like ants if you don't carefully micro them. But in general the UI always seemed pretty clumsy to me. It's clearer than Graviteam's, no question, but it doesn't give you anything like the flexibility and coordination of units that Grav. gives you.

One of the major shortcomings of ToW2 is the pretty terrible sound effects -- very anemic and not very immersive at all. It's a shame that a game that has such amazing visuals has such crappy sound.

Though one more positive note -- I always loved that ToW2 made the M3 Lee available. I have a fascination with hideous WW2 tanks, the Grant and Churchill probably leading the pack...

[Phantom]

I found the infantry the biggest weakness, very difficult to manage them successfully through a game, they just did silly things under AI control. That said it was a great game for the graphics & the fairly intuitive interface.
What I liked most about it however was modelling of the early conflicts (France/Poland) and allowing you to use early war tanks - Char B's & Panzer 2's etc... much more fun than slogging it out with Tigers at 2000 yards IMO, and far more imaginative & interesting than yet another Normandy or Bulge game (mega-yawn).
Hats off to JH for reminding me I have this - may dust it off & give it a shot, with my more up to date PC & GPU it should run like a dream.

[Destraex]

I actually do not mind the combat mission graphics these days. I appreciate their crispness. Some of the more complex games forget that we do not want to strain our eyes to see things. Especially in real time.

[Sir Slash]

I really like CM's graphics with some of the mods that enhance them. Very nice.

[Jarhead0331]

I ended up playing these games for the better part of the weekend. I love setting up company or battalion size assault missions with the mission generator. For some reason, the series feels so much more playable and enjoyable then it did back in their day. The campaign missions are still very difficult though. For instance, the first mission of the German campaign in Kursk. Wow. Can't crack through that soviet defense, but otherwise, the OOBs, the maps, the combat experience, etc. it all holds up very well. In a lot of ways, I feel like ToW was the precursor to Graviteam Tactics. Something about the experience of each series feels similar and the unit modeling seems familiar too.

Anyway, I ended up reinstalling the entire series. The original ToW is a little rough. I had to change my display settings to get it to run properly and it still seems to chug a little, even on my modern super rig. Every other game in the series runs great though.

[JasonPratt]

The original ToW is a little rough. I had to change my display settings to get it to run properly and it still seems to chug a little, even on my modern super rig. Every other game in the series runs great though.

This is pretty much why I had to drop the first game and never bothered continuing on. (That and the original release was an ungodly nest of bugs.)

But I'm seriously considering reinstalling the Steam versions which I picked up on a deep-discount sale some years ago when I saw they had migrated over. Come to think of it, I planned on doing that this weekend and totally forgot somehow...

[Jarhead0331]

The original ToW is a little rough. I had to change my display settings to get it to run properly and it still seems to chug a little, even on my modern super rig. Every other game in the series runs great though.

This is pretty much why I had to drop the first game and never bothered continuing on. (That and the original release was an ungodly nest of bugs.)

But I'm seriously considering reinstalling the Steam versions which I picked up on a deep-discount sale some years ago when I saw they had migrated over. Come to think of it, I planned on doing that this weekend and totally forgot somehow...

Totally worth a second a look. The steam version of the original ToW comes with a major overhaul mod that adds a lot of vehicles, units and missions...the JSH mod. I think installation is optional, but I elected to go with it. Its been so long since I've played the game though its impossible to tell just from playing what is actually new or different in the modded experience.

[JudgeDredd]

I tried to go back to this a couple of years ago. The campaign was brutal and seemed to be extremely, overly harsh on infantry.

Or I was just shit (most likely) 😁

But on the strength of this, perhaps I'll go back. I do recall loving how Arbor was portrayed

[Tuna]

As phantom mentioned above, I did like the first one due to it was early war, you had to be careful with your flimsy tanks. I might have to buy to again. I can't find my original copy, think it was via CD.