Men of War II (PC) Review

Men of War II is a real-time strategy title, where battles from World War 2 unfold in real time as the player guides various troops, teams, and equipment across a war-torn Europe. Three different story campaigns follow specific battles from the point of view of the USSR, United States, or a retreating Germany. Besides these campaigns, the single-player mode features a long list of pre-built missions and scenarios, for instance airdropping behind enemy lines to set up a beacon, take over an enemy comms centre, and then provide support for the upcoming invasion. Multiplayer mode features the ability to unlock new sets of troops and add them to your forces, and for good measure, Men of War II comes with a level editor from the gate.

Publisher Fulqrum asserts historical accuracy when it comes to details of the game's campaigns, as well as the models; tanks, guns, planes, and the surrounding architecture all look—and sound—highly detailed, although the lighting and texture quality seem to far outpace the graphical style of everything else, which gives the game a bit of an uncanny valley feeling as far as visual realism goes. Players will get a good look at the graphics, too, because the game's camera likes to stay just a little bit too zoomed-in, and it can be a struggle to get a decent view of the battlefield, which is a shame. The animations and troop behaviour, when they work, work well. Sometimes troops will take a nonsense route, or position themselves somewhere where they're essentially standing completely exposed while having no chance to hit whatever they're shooting at, but for the most part troops take on a life of their own at the click of a button.

Unfortunately, figuring out which button that is can be a nightmare. The game does have a series of tutorials, which are a must; new players will be woefully lost as the game itself does not provide much in the way of guidance. Mission objectives are often vague or outright misleading; one early mission features the goal "Destroy the crossing" and has big, red, flashing arrows pointing to several bridges, which seems to suggest the objective is to get friendly troops to the bridges to destroy them. In reality, this is a symbolic objective; the bridges don't actually do anything, and the way to win the match was simply to outlast the enemy.

The new "frontline" feature divides your territory from the enemy's, and actions are limited to controlled territory, which adds to the strategy element, but otherwise Men of War II doesn't seem to add much to the formula, instead opting for new content in the way of types of units, equipment, or troop specialties. A lot of the battles feel too compact, with most of the early ones providing a handful of troops and no apparent way to spawn any more. This makes it frustrating when troops do wander off and get themselves killed, and sometimes even selecting troops or trying to get them to do anything is a fight on its own. The UI doesn't really make any sense at a glance, leaving the numerous tutorials to explain everything. However, the game's fatal flaw is its required internet connection; the store page says this is for multiplayer, but none of the single-player modes work without an internet connection (the game will not even get to the main menu if it doesn't detect an active internet connection). This is currently supposed to change sometime after launch, but in today's gaming industry it does stand out as a red flag.