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Iron Front: Liberation 1944 - review |
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Welcome to the Eastern Front!
You are Karl Neumann, a recruit of the German Wehrmacht, who has immediately be able to fight against the Russian colossus, that comes closer and closer every day to the German troops.
After a short briefing you have to show your best at a training camp.
Of course Karl has succesfully completed the camp and immediately he is sent to the front.
He sees how unfair the war is, his commander is a coward who is already on the run from the Russians and lets Karl and the rest of his troop look straight into the eye of death.
After their lieutenant is killed, they are on their own, they don't even get support from the Germans.
He managed to get him and his troop save back to German lines and because of this he is promotet to lieutenant and gets his own troop...
This is how the German campaign "Vaterland" beginns: Fast, intense, authentic.
You don't see many WWII games where you can play a campaign from the eyes of a German soldier.
Iron Front: Liberation 1944 has changed this fact. You can experience the war from an other sight.
Usually you can play in games Americans or Russians in which the Germans are just showed as "beasts, killers, Nazis or cowards". Iron Front shows how the "little soldiers" of both sides felt the reality of war: embittering, frightening, wondering about the sense of war and they have seen how corrupt and cowardly their chiefs were.
But of course Iron Front is no movie but a game, so we have to talk now about the main points of it:
Campaigns:
Iron Front has two campaigns, you can play one at the Russian side and one with German weapons.
Both are showing a nice and enthralling story, many cut scenes and nice story-intros.
But unfortunatelly the campaings including the most bugs. Sometimes the AI is more silly than a new born baby, and sometimes the game doesn't notice that you are already sitting in the SdKfz and you have to restart the mission. Luckily the most bugs are already fixed with the latest three patches.
But if you have patched the game you have the same problem like in ArmA: You have to restart the mission because of incompatibility.
Single Player Missions:
The game has a clear variety of single missions: There are only two supplied.
In the first you have to attack russian forces with a German aircraft. This missions was before the patch unplayable because the game always crashed after beginning this mission. After the patch it runns great but now you have to fly a Fw-190 instead of a Stuka.
In the other mission you can controll german tanks to overpower Russian positions.
Sometimes a bug prevents you to complete the mission.
The two missions are not very breathtaking, but in between it's nice to play.
After this letdown with the singleplayer missions fortunately the game has the from ArmA known
Mission Editor.
With the Mission Editor you can create your own missions or just make a fast play by placing some units in one of the four terrains. The game has namly two very nice detailed and big Polish and two Ukrainian areas with it.
The game also includes up to 35 vehicles and a lot of wapons and units you can use in the editor.
Graphics/Performance/Sound:
It's not much to talk about the Iron Front graphic here if you already have played ArmA2.
Iron Front namely uses also the Real Virtualy Engine 3 from BIS and it has the same benefits and cons like ArmA2:
The AI often plays its own game, bad animations (especially the faces), the FPS is very low, it needs very high PC specs to run smoothly (and not even then).
The cons are that the game is a authentic simulation with a great variety of scopes you can use, and of course the world is nice to watch.
The sound is -something- special.. The weapons and vehicle sounds are really great, compliment. Even tough the environment and distance-battle sounds are excellent. BUT that thing that comes out of the mouth of the men is something.. I don't know.. a fast talking robot with broken vocal cords.
HUD/Menu/Radio chat
The HUD is the same like ArmA2, also the radio chat, no more to talk about. The Menu has a nice look and a in-game clip in the background like ArmA2. One thing is baffling: the fact that there is a button for armory you can't use and you will never able to use because deepsilver hasn't got the rights from BIS to integrate the armory known from ArmA2, but they let the buttons on the menu. Now you can see again the relatives to ArmA.
Of course, Iron Front is not the same like ArmA 2: You can switch between iron sight and scope, the tanks have a realistic damage model and 4 positions: driver, commander, gun loader, gunner and many more or less important differents, but it feels nevertheless like a mod.
All in all Iron Front can't beat ArmA as the leading combat sim! For beginners it's very hard to come behind the controls, it needs too high system specs and it had the same problem like ArmA2 at its release: unfinished because of too many bugs, graphic, AI, animation and performance problems.
Of course it is a great and extensive sim, but it will always stay in the shadows [of ArmA].
In short: A great combat sim with a complicated control and too many bugs - maybe it will come out of the shadows after more patches.
-The Multiplayer will be added in time- |
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Editor Tutorial Video Released
ArmA Mission Center - online
