In the past, BROG has, if not ignored, at least only nodded in the direction of computer games. Given the recent splurge in the output of historical titles, their presence can no longer be ignored. What we will try to do is to discuss the computer games not only within their medium but also in comparison to boardgames. I do know this: computer wargame sales run at least 10x boardgames.
A long with the entire computer software industry itself, computer gam ing has grown up. Monolithic corporate behemoths are behind what is now a 3.5 billion-dollar industry, depending on whose numbers you read. Yes, folks, that's "billion." In comparison, our darling child SPI never quite did 3 million in annual revenue at their height of grandeur in 1979. Since then, nothing, outside of the Hill (with ASL and their non-historical "adult" line), has even remotely approached the million mark. Certainly not a fair comparison, but you get the idea.
The maturation and "mainstreaming" of computer gaming has increased the technical quality (the "coolness" factor) but has dumbed down the content. Computer game entertainment has gone the way of television entertainment - intellectually bankrupt and usually lacking any socially redeeming value. H.L. Mencken, that Baltimore man of letters in the early years of this millennium who noted that no one ever went broke underestimating the tastes of Americans, was most assuredly a man of vision. So where does that leave wargaming? Well, pretty much in the same place it occupies in the board game market: in the wake of almost everything else.
The number of computer "wargames" (in the computer game vernacular, this implies anything smacking of historicity), has been comparatively small over the years, especially when compared to the "shoot-em-up" fare and others of similarly grand guignol content. The most prominent publisher had been the venerable SSI, plus a couple of others. But no board game company made much of an effort to penetrate this market. With one exception: Avalon Hill.
Avalon Hill attempted to get into computer games twice: first, over 15 years ago. which proved to be a spectacular failure, and most recently in the early 90's. Since this re-entry, the Hill published about a dozen solid historical computer wargames (nothing earth shattering, just solid.)
Unfortunately, over the last five years, The Hill has undergone a steady, albeit spectacular, involuntary downsizing, losing the services of such stalwarts as Craig Taylor, Bob McNamara, Charlie Kibler, all of Atomic Games (which opted to join The Gates Squad), and Jim Rose, who left AH to found Talonsoft. TalonSoft, with virtually no competition, quickly became the foremost publisher of historical computer games.
In the over 3 years Talonsoft has existed, they've done seven games on the grand tactical scale covering Napoleonics and ACW, and one game at the same scale covering the Battle of the Bulge-all of which have shared the same front end and underlying game system (the "Battleground" system). Their underlying game engine started rather inauspiciously, but has improved markedly over those eight games. In terms of historical content, research (MacNamara's influence shows here), and art (Kibler's influence) they have been nothing less than outstanding.
Their most recent entry is, according to them, a new and unique system for East Front battles at the tactical (platoon) level, appropriately entitled East Front. Jim Rose says the company is finished with the Battleground series and is moving on. While the system in East Front is apparently something new, and there are certainly changes, they seem at first glance rather similar to what has gone before.
Initial Reaction
My initial reaction to looking at the game on the shelf was very positive. The box cover has pictures of the "all-star game designers" that contributed historical scenarios: JFD, MacNamara, Dana Lombardy, Mark Herman. even our esteemed editor. It turns out the All-Stars only contributed one scenario each, but that's OK; I still think it's great they contributed. and it certainly adds to the marketability of the product as well as making it clear that the fine folks at TalonSoft are thinking about the boardgamers.
Opening the box reveals what turns out to be a significant problem: documentation, or the lack thereof. I wasn't immediately concerned. as I (incorrectly, it turned out) assumed that the docs would be "on-line." The game's documentation is miserably poor, and the historical documentation (unit strengths, TO&E, etc.) is difficult to use and find. This alone makes the game diffcult to recommend to the novice.
Like most new computer game releases, East Front resides on CD-ROM for two reasons: copy and piracy protection; and the high (660MB) storage capacity of the media. That's fine with me; once you discard the useless cardboard box, the entire game consists of one small CD jewelbox which takes up precious little space in my ridiculously large game collection.
Installation is like most other Windows 95 games of late in that it's very straightforward. East Front takes up over 100MB with a full install-which seems wildly excessive for a wargame. Fortunately, there are options for running the game from the CD, or just installing portions of the game to the hard drive. With hard drive prices running currently at less than a nickel per megabyte, there is no cause for worry. In addition, running from a CD often means a serious performance hit.
Once at the game's main menu, it becomes clear that the TalonSoft boys threw in everything but the kitchen sink. We have over 50 historical scenarios, an historical campaign game generator, a map editor. a scenario editor, numerous unit types, solo/ftf play, modem/serial, internet, and email play. At face value, it's really a nice and complete tool-kit for studying grand tactical, or small scale operational battles on the Russian Front at what I feel is the ideal scale for this type of warfare. Clearly, this was a very ambitious project.
Getting into the game we fond we are finally back home--counters and hexes. At the game system's heart is JFD's Tactical Game 3, aka PanzerBlitz with a few important added twists like opportunity fire, and a more complex combat system. Units are platoons, hexes are 250 meters, and turns are 6 minutes. Units have ranged fire, and when adjacent conduct assault. Unit strength points are in half-squads, and vehicles. Attack values, defense values, and assault values all look rather familiar. Morale is considered (for retreats), as is fatigue (when using double-time movement) and disruption.
Atypically, for a computer game (especially one as poorly doc'd as this one is), the entire combat system IS adequately documented. Ranged and assault combats are resolved on the same odds table. Attack and defense tactors are compared and a simple odds-table is consulted. All units have sott (vs. non-armored targets), hard (vs. armored targets) and assault, attack factors. The CRT results are three, two, or one step loss, disruption. and/or possible retreat. When a unit fails a morale check, it retreats. Disruption affords the unit only the ability to defend. All in all, pretty standard board gaming mechanics.
Scenario Selection
For this review, I randomly picked a moderately complex scenario where the Germans have to defend against a Russian offensive. The commie spearhead is in the middle and they have a good supply of T34 platoons and a platoon of the dreaded KV1's! The Germans have only about 4-5 Mk3 platoons, but have the added benefit of being in the city and in improved positions. What we have here is a basic Russian Front city-assault. This gets me primed up for Velikeye Luki and the Lombardy-provided Stalingrad scenano. I love it!
Or do I? Upon selecting the scenario, the game loaded...and loaded...and loaded...and loaded. I was almost ready to reboot the machine, when finally it came up. It was painfully and dreadfully slow in loading. Moreover, this, on a Pentium 133 which was certainly above the requirements. Suffice it so say the game loads irritatingly slowly.
The game has many configurable options, and several viewpoints, which immediately reveal signs of more trouble. While there is a nice 2D view of the map and pieces, in a traditional boardgame-looking manner, and is reminiscent of Atomic's offerings of yore, it also has a handsome 3D "miniatures' view of the battlefield. Those of you familiar with the TalonSoft Battleground series will immediately see this is the same orthogonal view, only more detailed and complex-especially since every unit type had to be accurately modeled. Unfortunately, like those previous games, the miniatures-like view is primarily for wow and coolness value. And while it is cool, I cannot see units clearly, there is no continuous zooming, and I either zoom in too far, or am zoomed so far, that out I can't distinguish anything. It's a confusing, inconsistent and muddled view.
To TalonSoft's credit, it's obvious that a Herculean effort was put into this view, and the pseudo-3D actions one sees: main guns, small arms, fires, wrecks, dynamic terrain detail, etc. But for gameplay purposes, it's ineffectual and for me and most board gamers altogether worthless. Despite the programming and artistic effort, I cannot help but get the feeling this feature was not fully realized and is incomplete. If you really do like this sort of thing, I suggest you look at SSI's Steel Panthers I/II/III. It accomplished, in this respect, what East Front doesn't.
OK, so is the game a turkey and should I bother? So far. yes, it is. But, there's more. But to move into the game, itself, we have to ignore the silly 3D view and go traditional, with 2D.
Yep, you guessed it: turns are Igo-Ugo. Player turns are integrated, but the turn sequence itself, apart from opportunity fire, isn't. During a turn. I can scroll around the map and select a unit and either move or fire. If I move, the defender (if he has the ability) may automatically opportunity fire. (This automatic, computer driven op fire is very questionable, by the way, but more easily facilitates email play.) Basically, if a unit has action points, it can do something. Ranged fire can be directed to specific units in a hex, and weapons so capable can fire direct or indirect (as such, there is on- and off-board artillery). One can move a unit double time, load or unload from a vehicle, or entrench; if adjacent to the enemy, the unit can assault. One can perform any or all of these actions until his units are out of action points, or no longer wish to do anything. At which point play is passed to the opponent.
Does it all work? With some qualifications, yes. The big problem with the entire game is its general slowness. When playing against the computer, it takes forever to resolve combats. When I loaded up JFD's "The Real Deal" scenario, and let the Russians attack me, they consumed 50 minutes of real time completing their turn. While it's larger than a full 2-map game, and has over 2000 units, waiting for what is essentially few thousand arithmetic operations is silly. Whether there are 100 or 100,000 units, it should only take seconds for the computer to complete its turn. This game really needs to have the options of disabling any 3D graphical processing, and allowing the instant resolution of enemy AI combats. When playing a human opponent, this slowness isn't an issue.
My relatively small scenario lasted 20 turns and consumed about 4 hours of real time which included time to learn the system-which was really only a few minutes--and in waiting for the computer to move/fire. For a seasoned old timer the game's front end is fairly intuitive--we know what to look for.
Nevertheless, the interface is awkward and clunky relative to today's state of the art. Unit information needs to be better displayed in the 2D view, to ascertain unit dispositions more clearly. Examining units in stacks is needlessly clumsy and has been in every computer wargame I have played in the last 20 years. Why should I have to click on a unit to determine its various factors? This data should be clearly visible on the board as I look at it, just as it is in a board game.
As I played the scenario solitaire, I turned off the AI, played both sides, and had the Russian make a massive frontal assault against the city and its improved positions. I discovered exactly what I had expected. Russian units fall apart quickly under fire. German medium machine guns are very deadly. Russian armor en masse is excellent. And Russian massed assault, while casualties will be high, will win the day for the Motherland. The flavor and chrome in the system makes these differences and subtleties apparent. We've all been here before in countless games, and the feel is the same. That's a "good thing."
In the final analysis of the interface and front end, it's clear the Battleground system, and this new evolutionary incarnation in East Front, that has been Talonsoft's bread and butter with its concomitant 3D miniatures views, works much better with Napoleonics and ACW warfare. In this scale and theme something else would be more suitable.
From a purely technological point of view and a computer gamer point of view, East Front is clearly sub par. It has the earmarks of being unfinished, untested and not thoroughly debugged. While TalonSoft will probably make good on fully debugging the product and malcing more documentation available, one cannot release such a game in today's mature market and expect to receive wide acclaim, or sell a lot of games. [Ed. Nor exactly true. Sales of EF are quite high, about 2 times most of the "Battleground" games. Subject Matter conquers all.]
Fortunately, underneath its unwieldy but flashy facade we have a fairly firm foundation. It's tried and true boardgame mechanics with all its inherent virtues and vices. At the underlying game level, this game actually is a success. With the talent at TalonSoft, that's pretty much a given.
CAPSULE COMMENTS
Graphics: 2D adequate; 3D marvelous at full zoom, but is virtually worthless for game play/analysis.
Interface/Playabilty: Clunky but usable. Huge scenarios are unplayable against the AI.
Documentation: Paltry.
Replayability: A major selling point.
Historicity: Excellent.
Technical Creativity: Misguided failure.
Game System Creativity: Lots of units and modifiers, but no new or innovative systems.
Comparison: SSI's Steel Panthers I and III has truly functional 3D graphics. Ancestry from AH's PanzerBlitz, SPI's Panzer Battles, and VG's Panzer Command shows.
Overall: Big computer? it's solid underneath; old computer, it's
annoying. Technically, it's unfinished, buggy, and disappointing.
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© Copyright 1998 by Richard Berg
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