Units move and perform actions in turns, with enemy actions either shown (if they are in your line of sight) or obscured (if not). Medikits, radios, minesweepers, and other tools are also available. After a squad is formed, it is equipped with a wide array of weapons, including several types of guns, flamethrowers, grenades, knives, and explosives. The unit selection screen is a weak link, since you need to bring up a dossier on each soldier to see its ratings, instead of being able to tell at a glance or scroll through them all. Some are better shots, while others are tougher, and so on. Action begins with selection of a squad from a large roster of soldiers, each with varying skills. You may, for instance, have to find a map or rescue a trapped unit. Units gain rank and medals over campaigns, thereby earning more action points.Įach mission has specific goals, and action covers street fighting, building-to-building combat, assault, defense, and special ops. The benefit of the campaign is that you can carry your already-equipped squad from mission to mission and rack up kills. All battles cover the European theater in small maps and can be played either in a campaign or single missions. The perspective on the battlefield is a finely detailed god's-eye view of your grunts as they shoot, stab, and explode their way through a series of WWII missions ranging from Sicily to Normandy.
Think "X-COM in World War II" and you have a general idea of what Soldiers at War offers. A fairly clumsy interface, bugs, and a lethally slow pace conspired to ruin this promise, but the same core technology is now back and largely fixed in SSI's Soldiers at War.
The engine, a detailed isometric view of a battlefield, showed great promise, with its Jagged Alliance meets X-COM style. Random Games came very close to making a great game with last year's Wages of War.
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