Men of War is a WWII RTS along the lines of Company of Heroes. It's made by a Russian company. You've probably never heard of it because no one advertised it, but it's in English, and it's available at a budget price. (Yes, I actually BOUGHT the game). However, this game completely blows Company of Heroes out of the water. I'm going to list down why, starting with the negatives:
Cons:
1. Voice acting is worse than shit. It's so horribly bad. Germans sound Vietnamese and Russians sound British.
2. It's super poking hard. Easy mode should be renamed "get your ass kicked relatively lightly".
Pros:
1. Americans are treated like a secondary player in the war. Thank god. Main stars are the Russians, British, and Germans. You get to play all three. All three are unique. Yes, there's an American faction as well. Japanese faction is coming soon too in a patch. That's 3 individual campaigns, and the time it takes to beat them can last you up to a week. Also, none of the campaigns take place in Europe. (But there are plenty of European maps)
2. This game has over 200 different, unique, non-cloned tanks for each individual faction. It's amazing. They all have their own stats, weapons, control styles, etc. This hasn't even touched the amazing number of infantry, planes, ships, submarines, cars, tractors, etc.
3. Even better, with just a press of a button, at any time you want, you can manually control ANYTHING you own. Want to go commando with that one infantry unit and sneak around the base while your main forces charge through, go right ahead. Using your mouse and keyboard, this RTS can turn into an RPG at any time. Heck, you can even "drive" the planes if you can commandeer them. Don't like the way the AI drives your best tank, do it yourself. Want to drive your jeep off a waterfall, go ahead. Want to lob that 150mm shell yourself, do as you please.
4. EVEN BETTER, every single bloody unit has an inventory screen just like Diablo. This is compounded by the fact that each individual unit doesn't have unlimited ammo, but rather a stock amount in his inventory. You can switch guns, helmets, bullets, grenades, etc. It's insane because there are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many different types of things to pick up that you'll go crazy.
5. Tank duels are so intense it's crazy. Every tank has parts which you can target (either yourself or letting the AI do it), ranging from the turret to the tracks and most importantly, the engine. Knock out the tracks and the tank can't move. Knock out the turret and it can't rotate the turret. Knock out the turret barrel and it can't shoot. Take out the engine and it shuts down. Set the engine on fire and it explodes. I've been playing this game for over 80 hours now and I still haven't full grasped all the mechanics behind it. Realizing that your ultra expensive, super high tech tank can't aim low enough to hit a jeep which drives right next to you, gets out, and throws a grenade down your face, is something you will remember always.
6. Everything can be destroyed. Literally. With real physics and not some pre-programmed fall down cow-poop. The same building will never break down the same way twice. That said, every single projectile and object in the game has physics behind it. An armor piercing shell won't blow a building to pieces, but it will punch a nice hole through it, into the tank hiding behind it. But a high explosive round could shatter the entire building onto the tank, which blows it up. A machinegun might not be able to break through stone walls, but it can punch through wooden barrels with ease. Dead bodies can easily block small bullets, but it won't do jack shit against flak. Enemies hiding in a forest? Drive a fuel truck right into it and blow it up, setting the whole thing ablaze. Heck, I used to think that mountains in the game couldn't be destroyed. But then one of my allies took a 150mm howitzer and shot through it, bringing down the entire cliff (onto himself). Yeah, you think Red Faction is awesome because you can destroy anything? You haven't seen this.
7. Multiplayer is awesome. There's plenty of players (because it's quite popular outside the West) though they might not necessarily speak English. However, every single mode you could possibly think of for an RTS multiplayer is here with full 100% customizability. Also a huge number of maps, all really well detailed, make this incredibly fun to play online. Games can last for quite awhile though, depending on the mode. P.s: You can play every single campaign mission co-op with up to 4 players while regular battles can go up to 16 players.
8. The feel of the game is just incredible. The animations are crisp, fluid, and dynamic. Soldiers who are currently repairing a tank look like they're repairing a tank. Soldiers crouching and hugging the ground in fear as artillery blows shit up around them definitely look the part, soldiers climbing up the body of a comandeered Tiger tank definitely look like they're doing so (and they still look great when their body is shot to pieces as they try to do so). There's no cow-poop here. You can even see each individual weapon and piece of armor on each individual unit. If your crazy one man army is carrying a bazooka, a panzershrek, an AT rifle, a regular rifle, a sniper rifle, and a submachinegun at the same time, you will see him carrying all that shit and looking like a moron. If you steal the massive, gigantic heavy machinegun off a heavy tank, you will see the poor sap lug the huge thing around (it being the size of him). If your engineer guy is carrying around a huge tank of gasoline, you will see him wobble about the battlefield with it and similarly, see him blow up when someone shoots it in his hands.
9. Lastly, the scale of the game is incredible. Depending on how you like to play, you can go anywhere from controlling one guy, to a squad of five, to an army of 200 infantry with 40 tanks and 30 artillery, or even more. It's all up to you. The very first mission in the game has you control a squad of infantry and one super heavy tank to defend a pass against a German convoy (which they forget to tell you includes around 10 tanks and 100 infantry). Right after that, you're thrown into a hugeass battle for the defence of a train station where you control a huge number of troops defending a massive area. It's pretty intense, but it rarely feels overwhelming. In fact, you will probably never lose thinking it was impossible to win or the AI was cheating, but you will lose. Often. Especially in the singleplayer missions.
So, get this game. Unless you don't like strategy games, then I say steer clear away because this one will blow your brains. For the rest of us, we can go tractor racing in cornfields as bullets whiz by our faces and the cornfield is on fire.
Awesome gameplay videos:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6GnZDkLXXU
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bKpyNbCiO0
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ME84RPZhCY
