The Great War Western Front is a title that will delight fans of real-time strategy wargames, nostalgics of turn-based hexagonal titles, but also those who love hard and pure war action, with an ingenious hybrid system. All with a historical realism, moreover, really accurate, not only in the facts of which the history books tell, but also in the smallest battle techniques and strategies actually in use at the beginning of the last century. Yes, because, even if the most used conflict as a setting in the gaming world is the most recent Second World Warwith a market saturated by WWII gamethe WWI, called The Great War, has a lot to say, especially for its diversity, made up of long times, expectations, strategies, and opposing fronts in terms of ideology and way of thinking. The strategic signed Petroglyph Games has fully grasped the spirit of the war event, transforming it into an exceptional videogame work that will thrill you like few others.
Petroglyph Games, from the ashes we always rise to new glory
The Great War: Western Front is a magnificent strategy, technically perfect and made by incredibly expert hands, who have literally written the history of the never forgotten RTS genre. The first name that comes to mind when thinking about this sector is in fact that of Command & Conquera saga still cult today, which took the seeds planted by the granite DUNE II to transform them into an unbreakable sequoia, capable of withstanding the test of time like few others. What was once known as Westwood Studios and which was then first transformed and incorporated into Electronic Arts Los Angeles from the parent company Electronic Arts and finally closed, now exactly twenty years ago, 2003, gave life to the developer Petroglyph Games, founded by former employees who found a new home in Las Vegas. The new team carried the philosophy forward Westwood with honour, becoming over time a real point of reference for the RTS sector and for strategy in general. plus recent remastered versions of Command & Conquer e Red Alertedited by them, we remember titles such as Star Wars: Empire at War of 2006 and later Panzer General: Allied Assault, Mytheonwhich offers a fascinating Hellenic setting, the series Universe at War, Conan: Unconquered, the delightful series 8-bit Armies and the interesting experiment End of Nation, which mixes MMO with RTS. Not exactly the first to arrive in the real-time strategy sector, therefore. Find the developer’s official website at the following LINK. You will therefore understand that each new release from the Nevada studio entails a real event for fans, given the very high quality of their productions, and The Great War Western Front we are dealing with today is definitely no less, confirming the high talent of the development group.
The Great War: Western Front, The Great War has never been told so well
Of the real causes of the outbreak of WWI there is still discussion, and even if officially the fuse that unleashed the conflict was the killing of the Archduke Franz Ferdinandlegitimate heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne by the Bosnian Serb terrorist Gavrilio Princip, actually behind there was a real divergence of interests, philosophies of life and ways of thinking, between the parties involved. The bitterness between the imperial and allied fronts, composed respectively of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey) against the Russian Empire, the Japanese Empire, the United Kingdom, the Kingdom of Italy and France, a which, as we know, was later joined by the United States, starting in 1917, and other powers of the globe, making it the first conflict in world history. The event lasted only four years, from July 1914, a month after the assassination attempt, until November 1918, with an unprecedented mobilization of soldiers, over seventy million, and considerable losses, with sixteen million dead and ed over twenty million wounded and maimed. All phases of the war are told in great detail in the signed strategic Petroglyph Gameswhich offers the possibility of impersonating one of the two fronts of your choice, between imperial, also called Vierbund or Quadruple Alliance and Allies.
The first peculiarity that catches the eye, immediately after the division into the traditional hexagons of the game map, is the hybrid system chosen by the developers as an interface. In fact, the phases in real time and the more purely strategic turn-based ones alternate in a well-structured way, giving not only the possibility of planning attacks and defenses in the best possible way, but also giving rest times to pure action. With a total lack of downtime, mind you. The time allowed for each single battle is exactly twenty minutes, but time magically stops when you move on to the pure management phase, exactly as it happened in war reality, moreover, with a very accurate planning of the actions that would be carried out in the real-time battle phase. The chambers of decision-making power contrasted with the front-line military front, to understand each other. The starting point is always the map, where each individual hexagon represents a specific territory, which in turn can border one or more enemy fronts, represented by further hexagons. Attacking or defending the chosen territory is the fulcrum of everything, which proceeds, through turns, to mutual micro-fights. Each territory has Resistance Stars, for a maximum of five units, which certify its current status, and clearly those with fewer stars are more vulnerable. It really depends on us to lower the evaluation, since after each positive attack a star will be subtracted, but it will be possible to regenerate if the chosen territory will not be attacked for a turn, since, as we know, it will be supplied by the central government with weapons and men to increase its status. Therefore, the random attack against different targets never pays off, and focusing on a single target until it surrenders is the best strategy. All this is historically very close to the real conflict fought in the ten years, since the territorial slowness of the war itself is a well-known fact. After all, compared to the Second World Warthe First, known to friends as WW1, relied more on land resources, often made up of soldiers with cardboard boots and few means, but in large groups, rather than on heavy artillery or air attack vehicles. Human resources, the so-called supplies, in fact make up one of the two main currencies of the game, together with gold, which is used to purchase additional troops also capable of building furnishings and fortified trenches on the front line.
The Spirit of the Nation, once bent that the war is decisively won
War is not won with weapons alone, as they say. Well, this proverb finds a realistic application right in The Great War: Western Front. In fact, it is often not necessary to employ insane military resources of men and means, but only to reset the so-called National Will, or the Spirit of the Nation of the enemy. Its management is one of the most articulated features of the game, and, consequently, also one of the most exciting ones. Planning battles in the best possible way leads to the generation of a specific number that represents it, and consists above all in citizen morale, which increases or decreases following not only the outcome of individual battles in the territory, but also thanks to the propaganda capacity of political opponents. Too many defeats inevitably lead the people to surrender or withdraw from the conflict itself. The Public Opinion factor therefore proves to be fundamental for success. The perfect dichotomy between turn-based management phase and real-time action really allows you to do everything at its best. If in an old Command & Conquer randomly at a certain point the action took place, as you will remember, too fast to allow us to think, making us act with fury, this time we have time to plan everything in the best possible way between one mission and another, with no limit on moves, until the troops are completely exhausted, building ad lib, moving only some elements, using new elements or technologies discovered as the game progresses, thanks to the very useful PR (Research Points), available to scientists, in the style of the classic from the nineties X-Com: Enemy Unknow, in order to understand each other. Almost two games in one, therefore, with both phases quite exciting. There are many unlockable extras available in the game, among which twelve Achievements and related collectible cards stand out, showing the real and different uniforms of the soldiers of the time.
The audiovisual sector is spartan and functional to the gameplay, but not for this reason made with laziness, on the contrary, many details are very accurate and realistic. The title is available starting March 30 through the channels Epic Games o Steam, on this page, where you will also find the recommended requirements. In addition to the basic edition, available at mid-price, you can also find the most complete on the portal Victory Edition, which offers some nice extras. Don’t forget to use an SSD, as the title has some slowdowns if a classic HDD is used as storage, and therefore the first choice is definitely recommended. The game takes up a dozen GB to install. The Italian localization is present, and we are happy about this, but we have detected some small translation errors, which we hope will be resolved with some future patches. Very few defects, therefore, for an absolutely unmissable title for the diehards of the genre.
PLATFORMS: PC
SVILUPPATORE: Petroglyph Games
PUBLISHER: Frontier Foundry
Petroglyph Games is confirmed as a real guarantee for lovers of strategic games. The Great War: Western Front is a truly unmissable strategic game for those who love the genre, and especially for fans of wargames set in the world wars. You will really feel like you are living the many historical moments mentioned in the work, mouse in hand. Its hybrid system between turns and real time has literally conquered us, offering a very solid title in terms of mechanics, exciting in terms of gameplay and decidedly spectacular overall. Sharpen your bayonets, an appointment starting on March 30 with the gray fumes of the Great War, whose fate depends on us heroic players.
