For me CCII:ABTF is unquestionably the best in the series and the best RTS of its and many other days. It was groundbreaking, immersive and endlessly replayable. Your average young RTSer of today will proudly wave the Total War and Command and Conquor flags whilst pointing mockingly at the 2D graphics. While I am a big TW fan myself, the beauty of CC was that it simply didn't need 3D, in its day a third dimention meant more complicated. Atomic concentrated on near photorealistic 2D, then spend the rest of their time creating the perfect gaming interface easy to learn in minutes. It takes three clicks to issue an order, then you leave your unit to get on with it, which they do damn well thanks to brilliant AI. For me the AI is the crowning glory of this game, not only does it model the morale of your own and enemy soldiers very accurately (I believe the first game to do so), its so good that morale becomes a weapon, while a machine gun team is as happy as larry sitting in a three story building, send a tank shell through the roof and they'll hit the deck and stay there, if they don't run off. If a tank gets immobilised, but can still fire its gun, thats small comfort to the crew, who will likely bug out rather than remain sitting ducks, a very sensible, and above all realistic reaction. Realism is what CC is about; lines of site mean you can walk within feet of men who then blast you with grenades before you know where they are, troops run out of ammo, and there are no health bars. You can send a thousand rilfe bullets at a tank and achieve nothing, which is how it should be, that tank will just sit and blow your men to hell while you scramble around trying to find someone who's got a Panzerfaust left. This realism never overwhelms though, mearly adds the 'third dimention' that flag waving kid was on about earlier. Not only that, the AI adapts! Pin down a counterattack with machine guns once and the next time the computer will make a decent attempt to pin them down and/or flank them. This lends to a great replayability factor. Sound is excellent, each weapon makes its own noise and radio chat from your men is in appropriate language (translations provided), the lull at the beginning with mooing and birdsong is shattered buy the 'bom' of a mortar and the splinter of rifle fire, rising to a crescendo and drift off again as you mob up the broken enemy. Maps are a good size, room to maneuveor without losing track of your units. Criticisms? Not many, it can sometimes get frustrating trying to find that last sniper so you can 'rout all enemy' but this can build its own tension, especially if you know there's a Tiger tank out there somewhere... If you like RTS with a little more realism, get this, its only a couple of quid now, if you hate RTS you might buy this as a way to change your mind.
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