Bij Strategy Gaming Online is er een groot feature artikel geplaatst over de game World War 2 online. Deze game had een fantastisch idee; speel een ma ive multiplayer online game over de tweede wereldoorlog. Helaas pakte het niet zo goed uit. De game had veel start problemen, doordat het spel zo populair was dat de servers het niet aankonden. Toen dit was verholpen bleek hij vol bugs te zitten, hij kreeg dan ook erg veel kritiek in de bladen van Juli en Augustus, met als kanttekening dat het idee wel erg goed was. Nu zes maanden later besloot sgo het nog eens te bekijken. Na 110 MB (!) aan patches, is de conclusie dat de game over het algemeen goed werkt.WWIIOL is a ma ively multiplayer, first-person view, online game of World War 2. Players logging in take the role of either Allied or Axis combatants, then select where and as what they’d like to play. Ultimately, they will be able to play anything, anywhere; in Blitzkrieg (this specific game) the roles are understandably limited to German/French/British of 1940. You can play as armor, AT guns, aircraft, or infantry with the advantages and disadvantages of each. Currently the selection of vehicles is quite limited: a few (3-4) types of tanks (per side), a few aircraft, a couple of antitank (AT) guns, a prime mover, a truck and a naval patrol boat (the model of this is the same for Allies and Axis, just with different flags). Infantry may spawn as rifle-armed, SMG-armed, or engineers with satchel charges for blowing up enemy bases and, if desperate, AFV. Despite this rather small selection, the archetypes are all here and CRS is adding more as fast as po ible.

What you spawn as determines your role in the great melee: armor is the king of the battlefield, and is used as the main shock force on offense, or the anvil of any defense. AT weapons are used for fire support while aircraft roam overhead clearing the skies of enemy aircraft and strafing/bombing targets of opportunity. Infantry, the weakest and most vulnerable of all, are neverthele given a critical role: it is only infantry that can actually trigger control change of the ‘flag points’ that are the denominators of territorial control (and ultimately victory). Tanks can easily blow away everything except each other, aircraft are terrifying as they stoop to devastate troops and vehicles, and the AT guns can reach out an obliterate a target at 2000m; without infantry to actually turn the flag point from enemy to friendly, it’s all just a wasted effort. In the biggest change from current online fare, the map is HUGE. There is no quickly-memorized rotation of limited maps here. You learn the terrain by playing it. Like real life, hard-fought experience in a region pays off with a familiarity with the terrain. I’d estimate that 80-90% of Belgium is mapped and playable, as well as a chunk of Northern France, all at half-scale in a conce ion to playability. Want to spawn up a tank and drive from St. Vith to Amsterdam? Go ahead, although given the priority CRS has placed on ultra-accurate simulation of systems, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if you ran out of gas on the way. (Personally, I’ve never survived long enough to notice if my fuel gauge was dropping…)

In deze feature word nog eens bekeken wat de hele game nou is, en wat het precies inhoudt. Tweede deel van deze feature is een groot interview met Chris Sherland en Rodney Hodge, van Cornered Rat Software. Het idee achter deze game is, zoals gezegd, heel goed, en nu er een flink aantal patches zijn uitgekomen werkt deze game vrij goed en zal hij veel plezier opleveren. Reden genoeg dus om deze grote feature eens te bekijken.