Men of War II required a bit of rewiring of my brain. See, I was raised on old-school RTS games like Command & Conquer. The kind of game where the winning strategy is to make a whole load of tanks, click and drag over them and then order them straight into the enemy base. When I tried that in Men of War II, it didn’t go so well. I sent a few tanks on their way, only for an unseen anti-tank rifleman to send a shot straight through the hull of a tank and into the driver’s Adam’s apple.
That set the tone for the first few hours of play, but I eventually adjusted. Men of War II is not a game of heroics. It’s brutal. Victory comes as a the result a long, bloodstained grind that will result in many soldiers being torn to shreds. Perhaps due to my own ineptitude with RTS games, victories felt earned, especially when I made full use of some of the deeper mechanics. That’s something that Men of War II’s general clunkiness couldn’t diminish.
My Tale of War
Perhaps Men of War II‘s greatest strength is the ability to generate organic stories. For example, on one campaign I needed to storm three sets of enemy positions. I got through the first two with a little difficulty, but ran into trouble with the last one. The first obstacle to overcome was how you recruit units. Rather than building a barracks, for instance, you rely on radioing for reinforcements. You have three ‘echelons’ of these reinforcements, but they’re limited. Burn through all your riflemen and you can’t call in any more. You have to treat your units with care. I hadn’t.
To keep them alive, you need to make the most of Men of War II’s systems. Infantry needs to move to cover as being caught out in the open will cause them to be shredded. That’s fairly standard. Depth is given by an inventory system, allowing your troops to resupply by picking up ammo from fallen soldiers. Tanks need to be used carefully, as anti-tank guns will mince them. You can choose the parts of a tank to hit too; you can even take direct control of their guns to hit those parts on other tanks. I like how in depth you can go. Using the systems pushed me through to the final goal: destroying the artillery.
Unfortunately, I was out of everything except a handful of tank drivers. They normally have nothing more than a pistol and a driver’s licence. Fortunately, there were empty tanks all over the place, so by using those and picking up rifles as I went, I managed to squeak out a win. I’m pretty proud, as you can tell. Men of War II has a lot of singleplayer content that can generate these stories. There are the usual structured story campaigns (along with replications of historical campaigns), and a sort of ‘territory control’ style conquest map. There’s quite a lot of bang for your buck.
Hand-Crafted Battalions
For your skirmish itch, Men of War II provides Raids: strings of smaller missions that are open to other players. This is where the ‘battalion’ system comes into play. There are three main factions: the USSR, the USA and Germany. Within them are battalions, such as tank or infantry, which are all customisable. I enjoy using artillery battalions, and swapped in mounted machine guns for some more territory control. The tech tree is behemothic – and might be a bit intimidating – but the customisation is welcome and is used well.
That said, there were times when Men of War II tried my patience. There’s a distinct clunkiness to it. Part of that might be down to the UI, which splatters buttons all over the screen and puts tiny symbols next to units that are hard to see at a glance. The inventory is annoying too, with no visible way to split stacks of ammo, meaning soldiers have to play hot potato with the stack. There are also silly blunders, like not making troops highlight when obscured. So you could send riflemen into a thick forest and never see them again.
There are also strange bugs as well. My anti-tank guns would often end up firing into the perfectly level ground instead of the tank in front of them, and troops seemed to have issues firing from high ground. What’s more, there are some issues with production value. The graphics aren’t terrible but a lot of the terrain looks quite rough – especially in cutscenes. Voice acting is also atrocious, which is a black mark against the campaign. All in all, Men of War II feels quite mechanically interesting but is a bit lacking in the polish.
Men of War II – A Rough Storyteller
You’ll note I haven’t mentioned the multiplayer much. I didn’t really delve into it – being a staunch singleplayer man – but there is a bit of variety there. There’s PVE and PVP, both using the battalion system and without it. That said, I didn’t see a tremendous amount of lobbies so far and my raids so far have been squarely against AI. Still, I think Men of War II stands up on its singleplayer. Crucially, the AI can hold their own, leading to a constantly pressured front line. Victory is a gruelling grind and I appreciate that.
I’d wager that those more familiar with these realistic RTS games might have more to say in terms of balance and mechanics, but I found it to be the right level of depth for me. It’s difficult enough (on normal, mind) to ensure that you use the mechanics in a smart way. Going in without a plan always ends in failure and it’s that aspect that generates the interesting stories. If you look past the multiple clunky areas, Men of War II will regale you with war stories for as long as you like.
