Essentially, there’s an overemphasis on one aspect of the game - in Cold War’s case, its gameplay - to the extreme detriment of everything else, which ends up hampering the entire experience. Unfortunately, Combat Mission Cold War, more than any other simulation wargame like Grand Tactician: Civil War, best represents the problematic and polarizing game design of this subset of strategy games. However, such a reliance on precise control is a double-edged sword. Combat Mission’s detailed and granular command and orders system aids in making intricate plans and maneuvers a reality, while also giving the player an unprecedented amount of control and flexibility to experiment with positioning and tactics. Unit variety and specialization, along with the emphasis on reconnaissance, makes effective combined arms tactics all the more crucial to victory that not only takes into account different weapon systems, but also the layout of the terrain and position of dominating geographic features. This approach to combat makes maneuvering around the battlefield and firefights all the more tense and frustrating in equal measure. Most impressively, Combat Mission makes intelligence and reconnaissance an integral part of the battlefield with unit optical equipment, weather, terrain, and unit stealth affecting spotting, a system that many other strategy games simplify or streamline to their own detriment. Altogether, Combat Mission Cold War has a high skill-ceiling and plenty of tactical decision-making depth and flexibility. The distinctions are also factional, which adds additional layers to learning the intricacies of using every troop type. There’s a huge variety of units, vehicles, weapons, and equipment, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and behavior, with the Cold War setting helping the game stand out from the pack. Most wargames of Cold War’s ilk typically have deep combat systems and features, and this Combat Mission installment is no different. Combat Mission Cold War reviewĬombat Mission’s greatest strength lies in its highly detailed, realistic, and authentic tactical gameplay. Many of these more complicated options are holdovers from Combat Mission’s earlier installments, but they’re still nice-to-have options for added flexibility. There’s also a fully functioning scenario editor for players to imagine and realize their own Cold War “what if” scenarios.įor multiplayer, there’s a solid variety of connectivity options, ranging from direct IP address connection to an automated play-by-email system. There’s a great range of prepared scenarios to play from either side, several campaigns with a string of linked missions, and a quick battle mode with an extensive suite of customization options to get straight into the action. Players will definitely find that Combat Mission has no shortage of content and modes to play. ![]() These battles can be fought in single-player and multiplayer modes in either real time or turn-based formats, with the former exclusive to single-player. ![]() Players will fight battles ranging from tiny platoon-level skirmishes with only a handful of squads all the way up to massive battalion-level brawls with a wide range of troop types. Does ’s Combat Mission Cold War successfully ride the wave of the genre’s latest developments?Ĭombat Mission Cold War is a simulation wargame where prospective commanders will play out hypothetical battles of a Cold War gone hot on the battlefields of West Germany in the late 70s and early 80s as either NATO’s US contingents or the Warsaw Pact’s Soviet forces. The Combat Mission series has a long and venerable history dating all the way back to the early 2000s and showed promise as an innovative bridge between tabletop wargaming and the digital medium. In the current strategy games market, the biggest challenge for simulation wargames is being able to marry their deep and complicated gameplay core with modern sensibilities and design philosophies.
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