Iron Front: Liberal 1944: Review

The productive was time for fans of military simulators from Bohemia Interactive. Small Rollers-“Attracts” Arma 3 come out more and more often, E3, on which they promise to tell about the game in more detail, is already close, and there alpha version is not far off. The sudden success of the Dayz modification, beating all the records of popularity and has long gone beyond the entertainment “for their own, is now it clear that this concept has a great future. However, we have already talked about the Chernorussian zombies;Now let’s get back to harsh military everyday life. It will be about Iron Front – Another global alteration of the only one of a kind of the simulator of war.

Idea – transferring the scene of the game during the Second World War – not at all new for the series OFP And Arma. One of the most popular mods for Operation Flashpoint, Liberal 41-45, Dedicated to this. For ARMA 2, similar modifications also came out, but they did not gain particular popularity. And a year ago they announced not even an addition, but a separate game. The project interested many: “thirty -four”, “Junkers”, “Katyusha” – already in the first screenshots shown, everything looked very, very attractive. In the end, “Arma” in the surroundings of the Great Patriotic War – the dream of almost every fan of creations Bohemia Interactive;It is even strange that such an announcement appeared only two years after the release of the second part Arma. However, it cannot be said that the project was only interested in the serious “Arma”-comic, which in any case would not have passed by: for example, most of those players Red Orchestra, who remained dissatisfied with the second part, began to look closely Iron Front – What if it is there that all that is so missing in Heroes of Stalingrad?

Many were waiting for the game, including me, – everything looked too tasty in screenshots and videos. We waited-one of the most promising projects on the second World War finally came out.

Tanks now do not always explode when destroying. The hit can kill the crew, damage the engine or the chassis – the model of damage to the equipment has been worked out pretty well.

In August of the 44th

Summer of the penultimate year of the Second World War. The Red Army beats the enemy in all directions, the allies opened the second front in France, the Wehrmacht loses the city outside the city – the end of the war is no longer around the corner. German troops continue to desperately resist, hoping who is about to develop by the Reich scientists and who can turn the course of the war, who is about to the fortress of the spirit of the Nazi troops-they really do not want to give their land to them. The battles are as fierce as before – judging by the memoirs of veterans, hunters to surrender to the inexorably advancing Russians, on the contrary, more and more Germans fought with the determination of fanatic. Soviet troops are preparing the forcing of the Vistula-the Lviv-Sandomir operation begins, one of the ten Stalinist strokes “.

It was this single episode of the Great Patriotic War that became the time of action of events taking place in Iron Front. Two plot campaigns – one for the Red Army, the other for the Wehrmacht. The main characters in German uniform are still a rarity – if the Hitler troops have to take under their command enough in strategies or simulators, then in shooters this is rather an exception to the rules. Yes, I am aware that Arma And Iron Front – not a militant, but rather a mixture of a simulator and strategy. But we directly control one character, the identification of ourselves with the main character still takes place. Someone, perhaps, will not like this-indeed, there is little joy even to play for a soldier in uniform, perhaps the most important enemy in our whole history. On the other hand, I would not have advised this fact so seriously – I personally have a much more disgust I caused the plot of the recent Sniper Elite V2, where the protagonist shoots with might and main at Soviet soldiers, despite the fact that we play for the Snipers of the “allies”. And here I even liked the game for the Germans a little more-the characters look more lively, primarily because of the terrible voice acting of the Soviet campaign.

Pay attention to the sketch of uniforms of soldiers. Straps, buckles, shoulder straps – everything looks reliable and very pretty. In this regard, Iron Front is ahead of the planet of the whole.

Only ten tasks for each direction. A little, but there is enough variety. There are infantry battles and tank battles, but perhaps the most interesting is intelligence in the rear of the enemy. It would be possible to make a more campaign, although what is there is not at all fast, especially if you play on the “expert”. Why did two almost the same training missions make (the first in the storyline for each side) – it is incomprehensible. Yes, the game is complicated, it will not be easy to understand all the nuances, especially those who are completely unfamiliar with the series OFP, but why repeat the same twice? You cannot miss the “training camp” – everyone will have to go through, even “old people” Arma, knowing all the subtleties. It would be better to make a separate mission: if you want – go through the course of a young fighter, if you want – go on the go to battle.

No, no, I have not forgotten about beginners, www.casino-amonbet.co.uk but what about them, then they should be afraid of a completely different.

In the best traditions

It just so happened that games from Bohemia Interactive, As a rule, they never skimp on all kinds of “bugs” and errors. The situation sometimes developed such that the player after the release seemed to be not a full-fledged product, but a beta version, for which he also had to pay. However, such an assumption is near the truth – Vbs, которую «богемцы» продают за куда большие деньги военным, выглядит гораздо стабильнее, чем Arma, at the expense of which the main shortcomings in the engine are cleaned. But “bugs” are corrected sooner or later, and those of the players who managed to endure the long process of treatment with patches receive at their disposal an incomparable soldier’s simulator. In my opinion, the wealth of opportunities that Real Virtuality provides the engine still outweighs all the shortcomings. However, there is no limit to perfection – even now in ARMA 2 there are a lot of mistakes and flaws.

This curse did not pass by and Iron Front. Ok, all the quirks of the engine can be omitted: nevertheless, they inherited from Arma, to demand their correction is stupid-developers are completely different. But what prevented the release of the game from debugging and thoroughly, especially that part, as for the campaign and single missions?

Woe-Tankist-I lost all my equipment and now I have to fight the trophy Panzerschrek against four enemy tanks.

Already from the first task begins “fun”. A gun that cannot be attached to the truck, the mission stopper after performing one of the tasks and other joys. As a worthy completion of all this bagodrome – we are sent on an attack without a single cartridge. “One rifle for three” – in the best cranberry traditions of Hollywood. Well, for me personally this did not become a big problem – there is enough weapon on the map, you just have to look. But how to find out about this to the beginner for whom Iron Front – The first such game? And what impressions he will remain after a few unsuccessful attempts to make the game work normally? It is clear that shortcomings will always be, but you can clean at least the most obvious, and even at such an important stage as training.

Similar mistakes with non -employees, as it should be scripts in both campaigns. Get ready to either overcome not only enemies, but also “bugs”, or wait for patches. Or – the third way – play on the network.

Shoulder to shoulder

In fact, the best that is in Iron Front, – This is the multiplayer. I generally try to consider this game (and all other games on the engine Arma) as a platform for creating users of their own content. Whether it are missions, maps or modifications that add new equipment and interesting “chips” that increase realism (like the same A.C.E., some ideas of which have found application in Iron Front). And this content is best used when playing a network. Yes, to arrange epic battles with bots fun, but the battles with living people look much cooler.

And here, however, there were no troubles. Not yet observed, all the “hosts” are created by the players themselves. I think you should not explain what consequences it leads to. Full to enjoy the network game yet. I would like to believe that these are all temporary problems and sooner or later the dedicated servers will appear for a large number of players, and individual resources and communities devoted Iron Front. In any case, all the prerequisites for this are available – and what else!

Although the planes are drawn no worse than tanks, flying is not as fun as fighting on earth – the scale is not the same.

The most perhaps the main thing is the great cards. Large, sometimes repeating the real area, with a large number of “entered” buildings, which for Arma rarity. With proper skill, a great many diverse game situations can be recreated in these expanses. River crossing, landing into the rear of the enemy, oncoming tank battle, assault on the city – this is only what comes in mind. So far, of course, the multiplayer does not have enough organization, people play “as you have to”, but even such a battle is fascinated in earnest. The first network battle turned out to be so exciting that he forced him to sit at the game until the morning.

I catch a gun and food to the “Studaber” to the conventional line of the front in order to disguise the gun in the bush and take care of a couple of fascist tanks that they carry our defense to fluffs. On the way I run into an enemy armored personnel carrier, I can hardly run away from it, throwing a car on the road. With a comrade who arrived in time, we throw a armored car with grenades, we are going further. I install a gun, using binoculars I bring a partner to the target – the enemy is on! Mortones are being hungry, bullets whistle very close, the virtual sun seems to bake really … The epic of what is happening goes off scale, even I am unloved by me “respuna” and constant reinforcements do not make a parody of a real battle, as, in my opinion, occurs in standard network modes of ARMA 2. The sensations are similar to those that were when playing Red Orchestra 2 – as if you were watching an excellent military film with you in the title role. Only in Iron Front completely different scale of what is happening.

It is only a pity that there are not very many people who want to fight, although as far as I know, many were waiting for the game – probably everyone else is fighting with the “bugs” in the campaign.

Successful ambush. The enemy tank is on, the crew is destroyed. The screenshot, of course, does not transmit the stress that you experience in such situations. For the sake of such moments in the multiplayer, you can forgive anything you want.

The game leaves ambiguous impressions. Many mistakes that interfere with a normal game increase the already rather big threshold of entry. It is difficult, yes, but where else can you find such wealth – excellent models of technology and weapons, huge, worked out to the smallest detail of the map, an exciting network mode?

If you consider Iron Front as a final product, it will not make any criticism – I want to much more. More maps, more armored vehicles and aircraft, partisans and civilian as game factions, more missions … only normal ones that do not have to restart several times due to authors’ mistakes. On the other hand, if the developers do not forget about their creation and can quickly correct errors, then over time everything will be – thanks to patches or, even more likely, modifications from the players themselves.

The solution is difficult, but I risk assuming that the patient is more likely alive – as a training ground for creating his own content for serious games on the second world Iron Front So far, it is outside the competition, despite the existing (fortunately, quite corrective) curvature.

Pros: the battle designer in the surroundings of wwii;various and interesting network modes;study and drawing technology.
Cons: a huge number of “bugs” – both inherited from ARMA 2 and their own;unstable work of the game;tasteless voice acting of Russian characters.