Review of the game Men of War II. This is a continuation of the cult strategy “Behind Enemy Lines”

The original Behind Enemy Lines came out way back in 2004. Since then, the series has acquired a number of sequels and additions and has gained cult status in the gaming community.

Today the sequel, called Men of War II, was released. And this date was not chosen by chance – exactly 10 years ago the amazing “Behind Enemy Lines: Assault 2” was released, loved by thousands of players around the world.

There were some failed projects in the series, including Cold War, but they were often handled by studios other than Best Way, which caused the quality to suffer greatly. Fortunately, Best Way is responsible for the development of Men of War II, so this gave me hope.

We have already completed the game and played more than 30 hours. We are ready to share our impressions. Spoiler: everything is great, but there are some minor drawbacks.

The same “Behind Enemy Lines” is here again

Ukrainian studio Best Way seems to have invested a lot of time and effort into developing the next part of the game.

She had and opened beta tests in 2020 for the multiplayer Men of War II: Arena, focused on the F2T segment. Gamers did not appreciate this decision and flooded the company with negative reviews. The result is that the project was closed, the servers were turned off.

Now the studio has decided to focus on the fact that players all over the world love it. In this colossal work, the emphasis is on the historical part and normal multiplayer.

Is Men of War II worthy of Behind Enemy Lines 3? The question is controversial, but here everyone answers it for themselves.

So, we have four modes available to us in single-player mode. Among them there is also a historical part, which includes three campaigns: for the USSR, the Third Reich and the Allies. Each has its own global missions and plot branches. And they differ from each other both in their content and in history.

I’ll say right away: the game is completely translated into Russian, including voice acting.

The game is divided into four modes:

• historical surroundings
• story productions
• conquest
• raid

About the first two in general it is already clear from the names. Historical circumstances are tied to certain well-known events, such as Operation Overlord if you play as the USA, or Operation Bagration if you play as the USSR.

Story campaigns have their own micro-stories, based or inspired by real events.

As for conquest, there are always phased sources, during which a large map is open in front of you, on which you set targets for attack and defense in famous cities and villages. The point is that you personally transfer the necessary troops to create some kind of reserve for the future or not. And already with the forces of the detachment he goes into battle.

In raids, your task is one: advance by assault and capture flags. This mode was first introduced in its modern form in Men of War: Arena. Not all players appreciated it because of the monotony of what was happening. But here it has been modified a little.

If anyone doesn’t know, Men of War II itself is a strategy for the first time, the events of which continue during the Second World War. That is, we literally controlled the army from 1939 to 1945.

The key formula of this series, applied in a competitive market, is the ability to control each individual unit. That is, you can not just give instructions to detachments or tank divisions, but take control of them from a third or first person.

And this is not a feature for the sake of a feature. It makes the gameplay very annoying, especially in any part. You alone can “put down” more opponents than if the AI ​​did it according to your instructions. For example, set up an ambush or targeted fire behind a sniper.

And here the first problem arises, which has been going on since the first game.

Local AI is often stupid

Weak AI is one of the main “ambushes” in Men of War II. Despite Best Way’s claims of vastly improved artificial intelligence, it still won’t learn to fight on its own unless you give it a command.

As soon as you move into a unit, your comrades continue to provide assistance in their positions and do not even think about moving or taking cover in a critical situation. And at this moment you will not have the opportunity to control them. As a result, you have to constantly switch between modes.

Of course, you can give military instructions in advance, for example, to storm the nearest building, and they will do it. But as soon as they occupied him, they remained sitting on his chair.

From time to time, bots have minor problems. For example, you use armored vehicles, moving at a certain point, and on its way a problem arises in the form of the same exploded car or tank. He crashes into the object and continues to explore its task, adding gasiau. The result: the bot is stuck in place and cannot move until you take control of it or change the route.

The battles here are very intense

In this regard, the authors remained themselves. Each battle is different from the previous one, constantly considering certain situations that change the position of power on the battlefield. From the banal: the enemy can encircle you if you don’t react in time, and you can simply be destroyed.

There may be a problem (very rarely of medium complexity) with ammunition. They may end at the most inopportune moment, and you will have nothing to fight with. In this case, there are broken boxes of ammo and trucks of equipment. You can either follow the cards or advise them yourself.

Unlike previous parts, there are now three echelons of reinforcements. On them you keep points, which you earn during battles. In some places there are no echelons, in others they are very limited by plot.

Each reinforcement takes time: from the time it takes for them to reach you from outside the playing area until they reach the battlefield. Points are essentially available reinforcements; they are a non-symbolic number. That is, for example, you have 15 points at the start – this means that you can invite another 15 people or, say, 11 people and one heavy tank.

In each mission, the echelons and their contents are different. However, you can pre-set them before the start of the battle. Not everywhere and not always, but this option is present.

For example, you can replace already established novice shooters with more powerful rangers. And so on.

The new game is not so different from the external parts of the technology.

This is both good and bad at the same time. Yes, the developers from Best Way have clearly pulled up the schedule in the same direction as “Behind Enemy Lines: Assault 2”. But such a significant technological leap has not occurred over many years.

The picture as a whole looks nicer, the effects are beautiful and in some places simply stunning. But… many models are clearly carried over from 2014 without any modifications. There are no pre-rendered cutscenes, only in the game engine (this often looks very bad). That is, you see the same communication between commanders or majors among themselves, their mouths do not open and the fingers on their semi-square hands have just erupted.

This is what the pumping branch looks like. Points are given for completing tasks

There are quite a lot of such little things, coupled with clumsy animations. If you don’t imagine the camera, the game looks fine. But no zooming was ever wasted, and all the shortcomings of the visual are immediately evident.

And it looks bad compared to the same games Company of Heroes 3 or Call to Arms.

There is also multiplayer here, where would we be without it?

But I can’t give any comments here. At one time, I only managed to launch multiplayer in an open test.

At the time before the release, the developers warned in advance about connection problems due to the emergence of a large number of players. And either I got into such timings, or I don’t know, but I didn’t manage to check out the pre-release multiplayer.

During the beta test, downloads were available in 2×2 co-op mode. In this case, you don’t need to control the entire army. It is within your power to provide yourself with international battalions, another leader of another player. For example, one is responsible for infantry, the other for powerful artillery support.

In this mode, it is recommended to play with friends in order to properly coordinate your actions. With nonames this effect will not work.

And when it comes to assault mode, the game becomes even more interesting. After all, you need to constantly move the front line, and this is often not so easy. Skirmishes with enemies do not subside for a second due to constantly changing conditions and captured zones.

All the usual features of the series remain. You can dig trenches, change formations and fill ranks, repair equipment directly in battle, watch realistic destruction, and so on.

As for Mac, then No official support for macOS. But the game works fine through Windows virtual machines.

Men of War II System Requirements

The game even runs on a toaster. It complies with the systemic requirements of democracy, and this is very great.

During the entire testing period, I did not notice a single bug, freeze or slowdown. The developers did a very good job on optimization.

A good game to play with friends

First of all, complete all single player missions. They greatly help sharpen your skills before fighting with other people.

Men of War II is not so different from previous games in terms of gameplay, adding only a little variety. And this was enough for me personally, as fans of the series. Why break something that already works well?

Fans of the series will appreciate the new product. The grandiose RTS in the cult series is back again. Yes, it has its shortcomings and sometimes problems with balance, but the game is incredibly fun and interesting. The huge fleet of equipment simply won’t give you a chance to get bored.

Men of War II is available on Steam for 1,500 rubles (there is a Deluxe edition for 1,575 rubles) and EGS (appears here on May 22) in Russia. From the very beginning, Men of War II has support for mods and an editor for creating them. Lost Eagles, a remake of the mod of the same name for “Behind Enemy Lines: Assault 2” about the failure of Operation Overlord, has also become available to gamers.

The game requires a constant internet connection to start, but this should be fixed in the near future.