Combat Mission: Afghanistan Demo

Although the Combat Mission series has been around for quite a few years now, there have been quite a few mistakes as well, meaning that not every title was a progress and the developers still managed to get the formula wrong a couple of times. However, the sequels were always pretty goods, while the expansion packs were poorly received by the fans, on occasion.

Combat Mission: Afghanistan, as the name clearly implies, is a standalone expansion pack that presents the conflict between the Soviet and the Afghan forces, during the 1980s. Hence, you can participate in the war as either of the two sides, depending on your preferences and whether you want to deal with defense or offense. You also get to wield a few interesting units, which are designed to represent authentic troops from both sides.

As far as the main campaign is concerned, however, there isn't too much background story on it, although you do get briefings and intelligence excerpts before each scenario, which should give you an idea on the current mission. Moreover, the conflict is well documented in history, so it shouldn't be too difficult to dig up information and match it against the game's campaign. Once you start the simulation, you need to remember the expected troop placement and come up with a suitable strategy in order to defeat the enemy, which usually easier said than done.

Although the two new armies are brand new and they feature an extensive number of new units and vehicles, not the same thing can be said about the game itself, which basically reuses the mechanics from the original release, with minimal adjustments. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, some of the unit additions might have used a few more options, which could have extended the gameplay by quite a bit.

The graphics have been almost completely overhauled, on the other hand, since the textures are all new, even for the terrain and various other similar objects. Obviously, the new units are different as well, not to mentioned the fact that they have been modeled to come as close to reality as possible. At this point in time, however, you might not be all that impressed with the graphics engine, especially when it comes to animations and texture resolutions.

Even if Combat Mission: Afghanistan may not revolutionize the series and provide you with too many improvements over the original title, there's enough content to keep you occupied for a long time, especially when you consider the fact that you can always switch factions and witness the conflict from the opposite side of the trenches.