1C Company, in conjunction with Battlefront.com, have been working assiduously on their latest project which bears the name [i]Theatre of War[/i]. This effort, combined with contributions from the developers of the [i]IL-2 Sturmovik[/i] game and the [i]Combat Mission[/i] series [i]Theatre of War [/i] is about to start rolling into stores all over the world in the very near future. What the players will get when they open up the box is not the same game that was initially put into development, of course. There are list of 20 more items inside the game which had been added or altered. A list of them is below for your interest.
1. Visibility and engagement ranges have been substantially
increased to realistic levels.
2. Hand to hand combat for infantry has been added (abstracted
visually).
3. Restrictions to the use of captured vehicles and equipment has
been added. Now only soldiers with suitable skills can use captured
equipment.
4. Heavy artillery and light mortars were added as off-map
support.
5. The infantry to armor ratio in all missions has been
substantially increased.
6. Relative spotting indicators for each individual unit have been
added.
7. The campaign has been changed to now allow advancement to the
next mission despite defeat in a previous mission.
8. Fire on the move for vehicles with good enough crews has been
implemented.
9. Delayed detonation and real-world physics for hand and
anti-tank grenades have been added.
10. Enhanced physics modeling for all large caliber shells have been
added.
11. Better burst duration modeling for automatic weapons added.
12. Infantry movement rates on various ground surfaces have been
improved.
13. Realistic physics for vehicle movement (usage of gears, throttling
etc) have been added.
14. Targeting for all units has been improved, it now depends more on
target visibility, target movement status and firing mode.
15. Various tweaks to vehicles and equipment: model sizes, damage
calculations etc.
16. Improved morale calculations.
17. New missions have been added.
18. Heavy air-bombers were removed from close air support role.
19. The delay for air and artillery support has been increased to
realistic levels.
20. Unit path finding has been improved.
21. Recon airplanes added into the game.
22. Weather conditions and their effects on spotting, movement and
combat have been improved.
23. Realistic Uniforms, Ranks, Names and numbering conventions for all
nation's soldiers and vehicles have been implemented.
Yeah, I know..a lot of information to get through, but I thought you'd want to know all the facts on hand. If that still wasn't enough, though, or if you just want to know more you can check out a more detailed list here http://www.battlefront.com/products/tow/features.html
The reading isn't over for you, yet, though. After all, this article isn't done yet, but in particular I wanted you to see the comments of Martin van Balkom, a representative from Battlefront.com, who stated that “"You don't see every day that a publisher and developer decide to delay a game for a few months to make sure that the game lives up to the extremely high expectations! [i]Theatre of War[/i] has been named as one of the ten most anticipated games for 2007 by several international gaming magazines, and thousands of fans are eagerly awaiting its release since it was first announced several years ago.
We want to say thank you to the 1C developer team for the trust they placed in Battlefront's expertise with ground combat simulations and the dedication with which they carried out the countless tweaks, changes and suggestions from our teams. [i]Theatre of War[/i] is not going to be the most realistic wargame out there because that's not the design goal; but it will stand head and shoulders above the rest of the WW2 RTS genre as being the game created by the combined talent of the same people who brought you the award-winning Combat Mission and IL-2 Sturmovik game series!"
To give you something else apart from reading to do the press release MyGamer received included a link to about 70 screenshots that'll act as a visual component to the new features to the list included in this article. The beta test is in it's final stage at the moment and MyGamer'll be receiving another press release from the developer and the producer concerning the final release date sometime this month. We at MyGamer'll sure to keep you updated on it as we get more information.
Nick McCavitt at nmccavitt@forumwizard.net