Close Combat: The Battle of the Bulge finally and thankfully arrives on a computer near me, Oops and you too. The official release date was the 3rd of December here in the UK. Yep, this review has now been in progress for around three weeks!
First off, cards on the table time, this review is being written by both The Computer Guys and Close I:II:III:IV Combat parts of the site. In effect a review written by a long time fan of the Close Combat series. Up until now Close Combat 2: A Bridge too Far has been seen by me as the best of a very good bunch. Primarily because of the ease at which the program can be customized and the battle data validated, this allows battles other than that of the original Market Garden: A Bridge Too Far, to be played using the game engine. There is a vast amount of freely available and downloadable software, which is produced by dedicated fans of the series. The ethos here being if Atomic will not support their own game with add on packs, then the fans will get on with the job themselves!
Close Combat The Battle of the Bulge is based on the real Battle of the Bulge 16th December 1944 to 8th January 1945.
Adolph Hitler's plan for a massive counterstroke had been taking shape from the time that the Allied forces had pushed his armies out of France. Hitler had evaluated many possible routes of counter attack and had decided on the Ardennes area, a very heavily forested mountain range stretching from Luxembourg to Belgium. The area know as the Ardennes was a hostile area full of thick tree cover, steep ravines, deep and fast running rivers and few proper roads or even tracks. On the German held side of the Ardennes the
Eiffel forest would provide cover for assembling forces at their jump of points. These forces would eventually comprise three German Armies with more than 240,000 men. Himmler made ready with some 1,500 aircraft which included 100 of the new jet fighters. Surprisingly German forces even at this late stage of the war managed to assembly some 1300 new or repaired tanks of which 90 of the new 68 ton Royal Tigers would see action. Hitler had ordered more than 4.2 million gallons of petrol and the 50 train loads of ammunition be made available to this attacking force. Many of these German solders were veterans of the Russian front. Standing opposite them was a mere 80,000 troops.
Now lets open the box and install Close Combat 4 and see just how well it plays, can it surpass Close Combat 2. I know its going to be good, the main question is just how good the guys at Atomic have got and have some or all of the idiosyncrasy's and imperfections that have been with the series so far made it to this the newest version. Or indeed have they added any new idiosyncrasy's into the game. Yes even though it pains me to say, the world of Close Combat is not a perfect one.
Loading and installing the program went without hitch, unfortunately shortly after this and before testing properly could get under way the program crashed on start up and complained that a registry entry was in error and for me to reinstall the program, you go and figure why!
I have now played the game using the grand campaign from both the American and German sides, err I recall that we Brits were involved too, it would seem Atomic sees the Battle of the Bulge as an American and German affair only, bad show I say. When I say I have played the game to its end from both sides I should add that this testing process would have been completed far quicker if the game had not lost the saved game file a few times. Most annoying to get three parts of the way through a grand campaign and have to start again. I should also add that during testing the program froze several times which then needed the computer to be re-started. The test computer is an Intel PIII/500 running 128mb ram under Windows 98 second edition.
Out of the box its not a bad addition to the Close Combat series, a new battle campaign and 43 really very excellent maps. The sound too or rather the implementation of sounds within the game is a step forward, pity a sizable proportion of those sounds are lacking somewhat in themselves. The vehicle graphics have come in for a high level of criticism, the American Armour being singled out as being unsuitable. Personally they do take a bit of getting used too, but then again so did CC2 and CC3 vehicles. It would seem a different style was used for each side, the American vehicle graphics surely need to be re-worked.
That old Armour idiosyncrasy of previous issues of Close Combat is still there, path finding is utterly dismal even when using the way point commands! Play the game for any length of time and watch as tanks go round and round on the spot, or just move back and forth stuck in one place, if you are really lucky you may see one tank mount another tank in a strange show of friendship. Map scale has always been a sore point with me, and The Battle of the Bulge is no different, why draw tanks, infantry and houses all to different scales, it looks wrong and is irritating.
Another highly criticized move by Atomic is the way the data files are now encoded. No longer can a gamer open up these files and independently check their accuracy, here we are talking armour values, gun penetration, weapon fire rate and range, plus a vast amount of data all governing the historical accuracy of the game. This data should as a mater of some importance be open to validation, otherwise you just might as well get rid of any pretence at historical accuracy. Lets face it, names like Big tank or medium tank do not give one any confidence in the games ability to serve the war gamer market where only the highest level of detail is acceptable. The other effect of these encoded data files is it very nicely prevents anyone from disagreeing with them!
Perhaps a single error should be pointed out, take a look at a German Panther tank , have it drive up next to a German
Jag Panther, notice the difference! Well as you can see the Jag
Panther is significantly larger than the Panther, this is peculiar as both vehicles share essentially the same vehicle chassis and should be the same size. This makes me wonder, if such an obvious error can make it in to the retail version, what others are in the game.
I wonder just how many of you are familiar with the term camping! It normally is used to describe a type of player that you come upon when playing the game on the internet. This is the kind of guy that simple keeps his forces in place and will not attack you, well the new and improved Artificial Intelligence " a contradiction in terms" gets full marks as it would seem its only mode of play is to camp. The only really satisfactory way to play the game is by using the head to head mode, a real human opponent offers far more challenging game play. Most battles were tested this way.
Which brings me on to the subject of PATCHES each and every release of Close Combat has had a patch released shortly after it went on sale and by all accounts The Battle of the Bulge will get one to. In fact it would seem the patch is being written now and its contents being discussed on forums on the internet. The game has too many little faults, hence the need for a patch. Individually each of these faults on game play is not too great on its own, but added together they make what could have been a great war simulation into a shadow of what it should have been. Perhaps the most lacking part of the game, and one which Atomic will come to regret I think, is their decision to drop the battle editor as seen in both A Bridge too Far and The Russian Front, no longer will we be able to set up battles with what if forces on each side. This has been universally condemned by all those I have spoken to. But it must be said I have enjoyed the last 3 weeks playing the game, warts and all. And in all likelihood many of the those that buy the game, will see it as an excellent war sim. . It should be said the new strategic level to the game works very well. Those of you that have played Market Garden and The Russian Front will however find the game all to familiar and perhaps not that difficult to win either as the Allied or German Forces.
My hopes for the Close Combat series can be best explained by looking at the much respected Microsoft Flight Simulator series now in its 2000 version. The flight data of the aircraft in that simulation have been independently validated by the real aircraft manufactures and trained pilots alike. So accurate is Flight Sim 2000 that it is used world wide by Air training organizations. Add on packs are readily available adding yet more planes that are available to fly. Would it not be a good idea for Close Combat to follow Microsoft's Flight Simulators lead. That is, have the vehicle, weapon and map data validated by a third party and release add on packs for their series. Close Combat 5 will when it is released show us all which road Atomic have chosen to follow, for me the only true path is the historically accurate one, the only limitations being imposed are by the computer running the program. Here again Atomic should look to the future, many war gamers have already moved in to the Intel 500/600 cpu range soon to be 700/800 and 128mb is now the normal amount of ram fitted to a games computer 256mb is not that uncommon. So how about aiming CC5 at a higher system specification than a P200! And please lets see an end to the 15 units per side fixed upper limit.
Recommendations:
Buy it now and play it as it comes out of the box, it is good fun. Then install the patch when that comes out. Happy hunting........
