In my previous blog entry, I expressed my enthusiasm over the WW2 game Iron Front: Liberation 1944, which lets the players assume the role of either a Red Army or Wehrmacht soldier on the Eastern Front. While the Eastern Front setting is already interesting in itself (and HEAVILY underrepresented in Western media*), I was particularly interested in the game due to it using the Arma 2 engine, Real Virtuality 3. This may be a bit of a double-edged sword because of the notorious instability of the engine, but the possibilities generated by it more than compensate, at least in Arma 2. The game was released on the 25th of May, the date on which I ordered the boxed version on a Dutch website for as little as ?21 and about 1,50 euros for the packaging. Even though the game only arrived yesterday, this technically was a Day 1 Buy; my first one since Crysis 2. I've already played a good few hours worth of Iron Front, so far, and even though I've only scratched the surface still, I must say that this game lives up to most of my expectations, and has the potential to be one of the best WW2 games released in many years.

I say 'potential' because the worries about instability have been just for the most part. The game apparently runs on an older version of the Arma 2 engine, meaning that the game uses more resources than Arma 2: Combined Operations. This isn't a problem for the most part, seeing as the maps are more countryside-based, but when a lot of units appear on-screen and/or a lot of stuff goes on at the same time, the framerate can occasionally drop to the unplayable level of 10-15, or turn into a downright slideshow when these events take place in or around a big city. The game also crashes seemingly randomly once in a while (it has done so 2-3 times so far in about 5-6 hours of gameplay), a problem experienced by a lot of players. The two patches released so far haven't taken care of the problem, but I trust that a combination of further patching and subsequent driver updates will eventually take care of the problem.



However, despite these unfortunate, glaring errors, I love Iron Front already. The sheer scale made possible by the Real Virtuality engine works as well as you'd imagine in an Eastern Front setting. The garden-to-garden infantry combat, huge tank battles and hectic aeroplane dog fights all feel very authentic without having to resort to the cinematic bombasticness of Call of Duty, or the pseudo-realistic gimmicks of Brothers in Arms. When you and a couple of teammates are taking cover behind a barn as you hear enemy soldiers yell commands in their native tongue on the other side of it, you are likely to be overtaken by the tense atmosphere we all know from films/series such as Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan. The catch is that whenver this game does resort to cinematic sequences, as has often been the case so far in the game's campaign, you can tell the engine clearly wasn't designed for this kind of ordeals. As such, it's as easy to be immersed into this game by the hard-as-nails combat as it is to be sucked right out of it by the archaic presentation.

The huge potential for military simulation in a WW2 setting was already shown partially by 31st Normandy (which was a buggy, unfunctional mess for the most part), and the reportedly great Invasion 1944, both mods for Arma 2. But while Iron Front has game mechanics and an interface that are near identical to Arma 2, it would be too harsh to call this a glorified Arma mod. Instead, a glorified Arma spin-off might be a more acceptable label, seeing as the game has more depth than any Arma mod I've ever played and even improves upon the game its technology was designed for in multiple ways: machine guns can now be deployed, character models are more detailed, and much more buildings are enterable.



One problematic aspect of World War 2 games has been that, due to the reluctance of developers to let gamers play as the Germans, many famous battles could only be approached from the allied perspective. Iron Front, rather bravely, features both a German and a Soviet campaign. Red Orchestra 2 already did this as well, but Iron Front just takes it a little bit further, seeing as the writers have done their best to include the mindset of the contemporary soldiers in the script. I was rather surprised when one German NPC told a joke about the incompetence of the Italian army, and other NPCs made many allusions to their blind faith in the German high command (while the war, in reality, had already been all but lost by the Germans in 1944). These aspects of the German mindset during WW2 may be well-known among people interested in the subject, but I can't recall their explicit presence in previous video games covering World War 2. It should also be noted that both the Soviet and German campaigns can be played with the original languages of the parties involved, subtitled in English. Another recent trend in video gaming (Metro 2033 and Red Orchestra 2 also had this feature) I welcome with open arms.

I have tried to check out every aspect of the game, and while I have not quite succeeded in doing so just yet, I can already safely say that the Blitzkrieg mode in particular will eat up a lot of my time. In this multiplayer game mode (that can also be played with bots), the objective is for one team to conquer several checkpoints on the map, with the other team defending. It's like old Battlefield with a twist, and on a much bigger scale. There are a lot of missions (at least 20) included in the game, and every one I've played so far has been memorable and fantastic. Each mission highlights a different type of gameplay and is suited for a different group of classes. In short, it's an amazing, relatively fast-paced way of getting familiar with Iron Front's weaponry and gameplay mechanics.



I still have a long way to go before I can attempt reviewing Iron Front, but I can already gladly announce that this game, despite all of its problems, is a breath of fresh air when it comes to games themed after WW2, a setting once dubbed 'oversaturated'. But with games such as this and Red Orchestra 2, I wouldn't really mind a revival of the WW2 craze of the previous generation.


* Media in the sense of films, games, books, etc. rather than news outlets.

PS: I'll upload some short gameplay clips later, and put them in this thread.