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• gamedeal user

  Nov 21, 2021

  tl;dr summary: Despite the jank and the decrepit engine, Combat Mission Shockforce 2 is the best military simulation of Battalion level and lower, with only Graviteam Tactics series coming close. Combat Mission Shockforce 2 says on the storepage it released in August of 2020. In reality, it’s part of a long running series with a dedicated fanbase that started all the way back in the year 2000 with many entries in the series, expansions packs and modules. For years, the developers of the game at Battlefront chose to sell the games exclusively through their own website (and were one of the early adopters of digital distribution) and refused to come onto steam until they entered a publishing deal with Slitherine Ltd. A prolific publisher of niche wargames who offered to help BF market their games on Steam. The first title to make it over was Shock Force 2….a game released on steam in 2020 but originally released in 2018 and was a remaster of the original Shock Force released in 2007! I’ll eventually review all the CM games that come to Steam but the following link details my opinions of the game engine (Called CMx2), which is shared across all the titles and won’t be repeated in this review or others to keep it short and fit into Steam. If you’ve read it in any review or are already familiar with the engine, skip the pastebin link below. https://pastebin.com/CLvCzGp0 Shock Force 2 takes place in 2008 and was developed and released before the Civil War in Syria occurred. In the game’s backstory, Terrorists supported by the Syrian government detonate several “dirty” nuclear bombs in several Western cities, prompting a massive NATO effort to invade Syria. The base game contains the US Army, the Syrian Army (In three flavors: Republican Guard, Regular Army and Reserve army) and Unconventional forces (In two flavors, Combatants. Who are more like local militias and Fighters, who are more heavily armed insurgent groups similar to Al Qaeda and ISIS). Additional NATO armies (UK, Canada, Germany and Dutch armies) and Syrian formations (ie Airborne Troops, T-90 tanks…etc) are available in DLC packs with additional campaigns and scenarios. Since Combat Mission is a military simulation, the US Army is overwhelmingly more powerful than any of the Syrian factions that oppose it with no concessions made to gameplay balance. This is by design, the campaigns are focused on the Blue forces in all the modules because the Syrians and Insurgents have no chance in a stand up battle. This is a change of pace from many of the titles in the Combat Mission games, such as the WW2 titles or the recent Cold War, which are more focused on near-peer combat with most sides in the game being viable in a 1v1 fight. This title focuses more on unit preservation for the Blue side and sheer survival for the Red side. Taking out one Abrams tank is a huge loss for the Americans and a big victory for the REDFOR side, even if it took dozens of dead troops and 6 lost T-62 tanks to achieve. Insurgent factions present a problem for the engine though. They are included alongside very built up maps that really break the spotting engine wide open, leading to crap like having vehicles turn a corner and open fire and vehicles placed to ambush them before the ambushing vehicles even get a single shot off or even spot the offending vehicle. In terms of content, Shock Force 2 is one of the best in the CM lineup. Plenty of scenarios, campaigns and maps to keep you busy. Syria is a nice varied country so you have your desert maps, urban maps, beach maps, forest maps and valley maps. The additional modules probably give the game the most varied unit roster of any CM game outside of perhaps Fortress Italy. Being the first Combat Mission game out on Steam means it has plenty of players willing to play online and also creating unique maps, scenarios and campaigns. Not to mention that the game is completely backwards compatible with maps and scenarios made for Shock Force 1. Overall, despite my misgivings about the base engine, Shock Force 2 is a deep and addicting game with a plenty of gameplay to be had and an excellent starting off point for a CM newbie. Hell, you can even load up Syria vs Syria matches and play a poor man’s Combat Mission Cold War if you wished to save some dollars!
• gamedeal user

  Feb 15, 2022

  Outdated engine and a bit clunky BUT, it's the most authentic RTS money can buy in the civilian sphere. Played on government computers inside a secured compound as a Brigade Training Tool, I played war games while on Active Duty as a US Army Infantryman like this. This is a training tool first, entertainment second. That's the key to understanding this game and why it's priced at what it is. Governments use games like this to train Officers and NCO's in simulated warfare. I spent hours inside Bradley IFV simulation pods that used this style of war gaming but at the first person level. If you have a deep interest in real world tactics then this game will be worth the money.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 5, 2022

  A Stryker under my command decided to shoot, with its 40mm grenade launcher, at a hut with both hostile and friendly infantry inside, which caused the hut to collapse and buried 4 friendly infantrymen under the rubble. I wasn't even angry. I just quit the game and googled "court-martial".
• gamedeal user

  Jul 1, 2022

  This game is not worth the money, it has soo many issues with performance, it makes no difference how high spec your computer is. The very first two combat mission games are gold unfortunatly they dont sell them anymore, everything else afterwards has been garbage. It has the graphics of browser game played on a calculator. The Gameplay is buggy as hell and half the time its a constant struggle to get your units to perform simple tasks. If you have to play it chose tiny maps with tiny numbers of units.
• Squishh

  Jan 16, 2023

  you know you're really an adult when you start playing games like this.....
• teddytheinsomniac

  Mar 7, 2023

  I couldn't get into the combat mission series before, but this one seemed to finally click. It's the easiest one for beginner players like me, that's not to say that the game is actually easy by any means. Everything in this game is so much more in-depth than it seems on the surface. You have to pay attention to every little detail or else you'll wonder why you just lost half of a platoon in a matter of seconds. It's so much fun when you finally start to grasp the gameplay. Despite how much fun it is, like most people have said, the game has unbelievable issues. The graphics for one are just garbage. That might not matter to some but I'd at least expect a series that's 20 years old to look a little better. You'd think a game that has the graphics of Lego Island would run smoothly on even a calculator. NOPE, there's annoying input lag, and the fps can drop to the point of a digital picture frame. A game like this requires very detailed planning and the god awful performance really gets in the way. This is unacceptable for a $60 game. There is absolutely no reason for the engine to run this badly after 20 years. This can be a deal breaker for a lot of people, and I don't blame them. Even with these flaws though, I'd still recommend it. There are no other games (besides maybe graviteam tactics) that come close to the realism and level of detail that Combat Mission has on a 3D scale. If you can somehow ignore the issues, you'll find that this game has a lot to offer.
• The Golden Medic

  Mar 31, 2023

  The game seems like it would be extremely fun however My monitor is 1440p and I couldn't get the game to run any higher than 8p which made virtually impossible with my eyesight for me to see anything on the hud or navigates its menus
• gamedeal user

  Sep 1, 2020

  This is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most realistic war-based game that you will find anywhere. Don't expect an RTS. This game will take you through how real armies fight. You will realise the futility of sending troops out into the open without sufficient cover. You will learn how to implement real world tactics into your play, and most importantly you will learn how deadly the modern battlefield really is. There is a reason why professional militaries use the game to prepare their troops. The detail put into the game in terms of ammunition, vehicles and morale makes this the closest that you would want to get to real combat. I have been waiting for the steam release with baited breath, having collected all of the other Battlefront titles and I hope that this move opens up the game to the wider public. This truly is one of the all time classic military simulators and I am now going to continue the British campaign slogging through the Syrian defences with my Scottish Reg't.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 1, 2020

  Honestly, how best to describe Shock Force 2 as someone who's recently been dipping their feet into the Combat Mission genre? It's a hell of a game, unlike anything I've played or experienced. So let's try and divvie it up into smaller pieces to comprehend. [u]SETTING[/u] The year is 2008 and NATO forces have moved into Syria in a blitz attack not too uncommon from another certain Middle Eastern conflict coalition forces have battled in. In an attack from all sides, forces from the US Army, Marine Corps, the British, the Germans, the Dutch and the Canadians move into the country, their goal to defeat the opposing enemy forces. The enemy consists of the Syrian Army and Unconventional forces, though they're underequipped and inferior to their NATO counterparts, but they have the homeground advantage and they are more than prepared to fight for their homes. The game and its DLCs represent all of these forces in a stellar fashion. Shock Force 2 employs a vast variety of units, each one different from the next, giving the game a remarkable amount of variety in its units and how you employ them. Realism is taken to massive undertakings to accurately replicate every nitty gritty stat on this equipment, and the soldiers using it. Healthbars and bullet sponge infantry are left at the door, and in their place is modifiers and a variety of factors to take into account to give a sense of unique to every soldier or tank (though these stats will be covered in another part of the review.). [u]GAMEPLAY[/u] Of course, setting isn't everything in a game, even the greatest of game worlds can be undercut by terrible gameplay or horrid balancing. So.. how is Shock Force 2? It's quite good, as far as fringe simulator games go. As stated prior, every unit in Shock Force 2 is given a variety of traits and factors from morale, experience, competence and their equipment to accurately replicate their skill in battle. Combat Mission's scale is very tailored to what the player wants, which can range from dealing with small infantry skirmishes of at most a few squads on each side, to micromanaging massive battlefronts with entire battalions of tanks, aircraft and soldiers taking to the frontlines. Every soldier is taken into account in the game, from the lowliest grunt to the biggest battle tank. Combat Mission takes you through two separate modes; the standard real time, for people who don't quite enjoy waiting their turns, or the more unique and fitting WEGO. For those who don't know, WEGO is a turn based mode where both sides plan out their strategies in 60 second 'turns'. When both sides click the ready button, you get to watch a minute of your little pixeltruppen moving about the battlefield, taking cover, doing advances or laying down fire on the enemy. It's the most recommended mode for the game, given the utter complexities of the controls each unit has. Speaking of units, very typically the average unit size is a single squad. You can break these squads up into individual pieces, but in the end the largest unit you can individually command is a squad of soldiers, or a single vehicle. Each unit has multiple tabs of controls to take into account, with various orders to specify how they should move across the battlefield, fire upon targets or do things such as call for support. As stated prior, these units all have their own little modifiers and stats attributed to them, which one can take into account. Maybe the squad is lead by an inexperienced sergeant? maybe they're tired from sprinting from one objective to the other? what about night vision, maybe the squads equipped with it will have better times fighting than those without it? It's all represented here. Combat Mission has 3 individual single player modes; campaign, battle, and quick battle. Campaign is self explanatory, and in the base game you will have access to two; the training campaign to help you learn the ropes (read the manual for it though), and Task Force Thunder, a campaign depicting the struggle of commanding a US mechanized force spearheading into the country. Naturally the other DLCs add more, but these are the ones you're stuck with if you buy the base game. Battles meanwhile are depicting staged fights between you and the enemy, typically with their own backstories and unit compositions. As with the campaigns you get more with the DLCs, but the ones in the base game aren't bad. Finally there's quick battles, which is effectively sandbox mode. You can design your own unit composition from scratch, including what goodies you'd like for both sides. Though because the AI is more or less clueless without the scripted battle/campaign stuff, you won't play this mode for a challenge. There's also the multiplayer, which is basically quick battles but with actually competent enemies. [u]GRAPHICS AND SOUND[/u] The game, graphic wise, isn't anything to behold. It's got its fair share of excellent designs, with well textured vehicles and nice little soldier models, but don't expect the game to be Crysis levels of well done. Shadows don't load past a certain point and a lot of graphics only really load if you get close to them, so unmodded the game isn't the best looking (though it doesn't need to be, given how that's not the game's focus). The game does well to model sound design though, and the fights in the game can be awesome to watch. Tanks roll out firing shots into trenches and at other tanks, aircraft and UAVs bomb enemies while Infantry squads move through the carnage to secure objective zones. There's not a moment where you can't do something or watch another firefight take place. Engine noises, guns firing, soldiers communicating; the game has plenty of good sounds that make the game very chaotic and immerse you into the battles you wage. [u]OVERALL[/u] Combat Mission Shock Force 2 is a wonderful simulator game, a great strategy game, and a very welcome addition to Steam's collection of fringe strategy games. Though the 60$ price range is steep, the game's likely going to have its fair share of sales, so I'd recommend picking it up during those times if possible. It's a really good game depicting the equipment modern armies fight with, the attritional slog of unconventional warfare and the challenges any army has to face in modern times. Though the game isn't without its fair share of problems (slow development times from a small dev team namely, though it has its notable bugs mixed in too), they're more the exception than the norm. Plus with Slytherin helping Battlefront out in this endeavor, one can only be hopeful for the roads ahead. Now.. if modern warfare doesn't catch your fancy? Combat Mission's not a single game, but a wide assortment of them. It's got its fair share of World War 2 games you can play around in, from the Normandy Front to Italy, to the Eastern Front or Bastogne. Though Shock Force 2 is the first game on Battlefront's agenda to make it to steam, it's definitely not the last. tl;dr? every grognard's dream game, and definitely a good addition to any person's library if they fancy realistic simulators or strategy games.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 1, 2020

  Glad to see Combat Mission Shock Force 2 made it to Steam. This is a favorite RTS game of mine years ago. The only negative I have about the game is current price and outdated video settings. I feel it is way overpriced for the graphic settings and textures offered in the current release. They are asking $104.97 for the base game including DLC that has outdated graphic options that have already been surpassed by today's gaming systems. If you are going to demand such a high price at least put some effort in updating the game settings and textures to match today's gaming systems. For comparison, you can get updated classics like Age of Empires Definitive Edition, etc. that support up to 4k Monitors for $19.99. There appears to be No effort made on Developers part to update the game settings to match today's systems. It appears to be released as is. The only Video Resolution options currently available are: Desktop, 1024 x 768, 1152 x 864, 1280 x 960 There are 88 missions total with all DLC packs. You get a decent amount of missions if you purchase all the DLC at $34.99 a pop. There is No Steam Workshop to mod, add missions, or update game through Steam. $59.99 for base game and $34.99 for DLC?! I don't mind paying for a product if I see the developer has gone above and beyond to provide support for the product. But, when you leave out basic updates like Screen Resolution settings that shows lack of effort.