Review: Men of War: Assault Squad

Posted by: 3/7/2011

Oh, hello there. I didn’t see you come in. You scared the crap out of me.

What’s that? You came to just play an RTS game? Well, that is just too bad, because Men of War: Assault Squad (MoW:AS) is so much more than that. 1C came up with this great idea to create a sweet multiplayer RTS and mash it with a unique feature that I call “direct control.” But, I’m getting ahead of myself. There is so much to this game. It will keep RTS and non-RTS players playing for a long, LONG time.

First things first, MoW:AS builds a strong foundation on multiplayer gameplay. Meaning, go get a friend and tackle this sucker head on! Take your friends through three of the game modes. Combat, Assault Zone, and Frontlines. Combat mode is your straight forward, spawn hordes of enemies and fight till the death. Assault Zones is capture the territories. And finally, Frontlines is the only mode with its own maps and an actual time limit. Frontlines is an offense/defense play type. Probably my all time favorite play type. Although, I’m a sucker for tower defense games, and if you are on defense, that is essential what you are doing. But, don’t get me wrong, anything multiplayer in this game is an absolute blast. And, if you wanted to keep count, there are a total of 37 multiplayer maps to play on. Yup, you read correctly. Thirty-Seven. With all this content, you would expect a lack in detail, or a lack in originality. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Each map is a beautifully detailed landscape. And the detail isn’t restricted to multiplayer, it spills over into singleplayer skirmishes as well.

While MoW:AS is primarily a multiplayer experience, the solo campaign was incredibly exciting for me. Well, calling it campaign is a bit of stretch. I didn’t recognize too much of a story, other than grab that point and defeat the enemies holding it. BUT, what made me keep playing is the ability to use the unique “direct control.” I am not what you would call, “skilled,” at RTS games. I’m more like… pathetic, yet very curious. None the less, with the direct control mode, I can save up my MP, build a tank, and control that sucker, while sending my other unit on a suicide mission while I lay waste to their team IN A FREAKING TANK! It never got old.

The only problem that I came across was the keybindings. They aren’t bad keybindings, they just aren’t what I was use to. So, trying to relearn from one game to another was just confusing. This isn’t 1C’s fault. It is mine. So, heads up, break out the manual and learn what does what.

To recap, multiplayer = awesome, singleplayer = sweet with a tank, graphics = great, and the gameplay is smooth and easy to get sucked into. One recommendation. Go buy this game!

Score: 9/10

Men of War: Assault Squad was developed by Best Way and published by 1c Publishing for the PC on February 25, 2011. A review code of the PC version was provided to us by 1C Publishing for reviewing purposes.

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