Men of War: Red Tide Demo

Real-time strategy games are created in order to allow the players to take have full control over the battlefield and the troops under their command, without having a personal input in the actual fight. Thus, every unit must be used accordingly and they are pre-programmed to win or lose in a skirmish against other types of units, depending on their expertise, skills and abilities.

Men of War: Red tide is a continuation in the great series of real-time strategy games, which aims to expand on the success of the first titles and bring few improvements as well, in order to make the gameplay as fun and interesting as possible. This time around, however, a lot more emphasis is put on your ability to coordinate the troops accordingly, since the missions are fairly complicated and they need to be approached with care.

As far as the background conflict is concerned, the events are still taking place in the second World War, but this time the front is somewhat centered on the battles that were held throughout Eastern Europe, along the Black Sea, Theodosia and Odessa. Moreover, the campaign revolves around the legendary “Black Coats”, who where the marines equivalent for the Soviets, only a bit more harsh and unforgiving.

In case you are familiar with the series, then you might be aware of the fact that the gameplay is an interesting combination of both top-down real-time strategy, as well as third-person action, since you get the chance to manually coordinate every unit on the battlefield using your keyboard. While this may sound a bit too tedious, it is worth noting that it is definitely not required, since you can do just as fine without ever making use of the third-person perspective.

On the other hand, this is why Men of War received such critical acclaim. The fact that you can freely jump into the boots of any unit under your command is certainly an attractive idea, especially because each soldier also has an inventory and you can pick up weapons, ammunition, clothes and various other items as you go along. However, the 3D models could have received a bit more care, since while the environments look extraordinary and the post-processing effects are sublime, the characters are rather blocky and their animations pretty basic.

Men of War: Red Tide is quite the successful sequel, especially if you consider the fact that it managed to maintain the same mechanics almost unaltered, even with the introduction of such different units. On the other hand, the difficulty might prove to be a bit too high for new players, but the fact that you can choose a variety of approaches and tactics each time makes the missions extremely replayable and thoroughly enjoyable.