{"id":711,"date":"2007-07-20T09:56:43","date_gmt":"2007-07-20T13:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/2007\/07\/20\/the-eyes-of-the-innocent\/"},"modified":"2007-12-17T14:23:28","modified_gmt":"2007-12-17T18:23:28","slug":"the-eyes-of-the-innocent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/2007\/07\/20\/the-eyes-of-the-innocent\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eyes of the Innocent"},"content":{"rendered":"

The reviews for Combat Mission: Shock Force<\/em> haven’t started arriving in bulk yet, with only two on the ‘net at the moment. <\/p>\n

Strategy game vet James Allen gives it top marks at Out of Eight<\/a> (probably one of the best review sites for small titles and indie games, by the way). <\/p>\n

Combat Mission<\/em> newbie Tom Clark scores it a 7\/10 at Ace Gamez<\/a>, more I think because he thinks it’s supposed to be a 7 than because he actually likes it – it’s clear from the review that he doesn’t.<\/p>\n

The Allen review is well written and the clear enthusiasm he has earns the title the full 8\/8. He clearly enjoys the game, and when he loves a game, he loves a game. Though he loved Forge of Freedom<\/em>, too, and I couldn’t even bring myself to finish reviewing it. Different strokes, I guess.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of problems with the Clark review. The writing and organization need another pass, it gets cliches wrong and, as I said above, it seems like a 7 out of duty than out of conviction. And his site has a “Z” at the end.<\/p>\n

I say this as one of the biggest fanboys of the Combat Mission<\/em> series ever. I think the new guy is right.<\/p>\n

There is no tutorial, something probably acceptable in a wargame seven years ago, but even this old hand here was a little confused. Not that a good manual is a bad thing, but in-game help is standard now. Shock Force<\/em> is getting a huge marketing push, too, so it will reach a wider audience than the earlier games did, I think. Even Theatre of War<\/em> had a tutorial. <\/p>\n

The AI is poor. It will not try for its objectives in most circumstances and is content to just sit there while you pummel it with mortar fire. Even your own units drive like a drunken Lohan as they try to get out of each other’s way. Hey, soldier, I drew a straight line for you to follow. The opening campaign mission gives you a dozen vehicles, a narrow roadway and, shortly after exploding tanks because the armor just clogs the path.<\/p>\n

It is slow, even on a high powered machine. I can run Oblivion<\/em> perfectly on highest settings, but need to turn this wargame down if I don’t want the camera jerking all over the place. As the battles get larger, the screen gets more unmanageable. Yeah, it looks great, but the beauty isn’t functional.<\/p>\n

My own review will follow me finishing up a bunch of work on my desk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The reviews for Combat Mission: Shock Force haven’t started arriving in bulk yet, with only two on the ‘net at the moment. Strategy game vet James Allen gives it top marks at Out of Eight (probably one of the best review sites for small titles and indie games, by the way). Combat Mission newbie Tom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[64,14],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5GFeQ-bt","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}