G.I. Combat Demo

Complex strategy titles have their fair share of fans out there, especially when it comes to series like Combat Mission or Panzer General. However, the difficulty always has a purpose and the interface only appears to be confusing at first, given the fact that everything starts to make sense after a few hours of gameplay.

G.I. Combat is a real-time strategy game with turn-based elements in which you get to experience the thrill of being part of the second World War, as a commander who must manage his troops as efficiently as possible in order to overpower the enemy forces. However, the game has a few design flaws that make it incredibly difficult to enjoy, especially when it comes to interface and general gameplay features.

As previously mentioned, the action revolves around the second World War, mainly the invasion of Normandy. Thus, the battles take you through a variety of scenarios and situations, all of which are more or less challenging when it comes to dealing with the attack or the defense. Naturally, you can opt between playing as the Allies or the Axis, depending on how you want to experience the battle in question.

When you get down to it and start playing, on the other hand, things become increasingly more difficult, since the game tries its best to work against you and make your experience as bad as possible. Thus, the camera is very annoying to control and move around, while the user interface is incredibly cluttered and complicated, but with no real purpose other than to baffle you.

The strategy part is not very polished either, so you are not very well rewarded for your patience either. The troops can be ordered to accomplish a variety of things, such as assault a position, move cautiously, or even create smoke screens, but the actual gameplay is very dull and unimpressive, making your tactics more or less useless. On the plus side, the graphics were pretty nice and detailed at the time of the release, but that is of little help right now.

G.I. Combat tries too hard to appear serious and mean, but it all resumes to a bunch of cluttered buttons, an impossible camera and not enough tactical options to make it worth the effort. Hence, you would definitely be more wise to go for something more refined, such as the original Combat Mission series.