Men of War II PC Review
Summary: A wealth of single player and multiplayer content sadly wrapped in an always online requirement. Men of War II entertains but doesn’t do anything new.
3.5
Strategic!
The latest instalment into the long-running World War II real-time strategy series, ‘Men of War’ has been released in the form of Men of War II (despite this being at least the 10th release by this point). Original Ukrainian developer, Best Way, has taken over development from Digitalmindsoft who produced the previous few instalments.
Men of War as a series is best known for blending real-time strategy and tactics to create a compelling and engaging gameplay across the various fronts of World War II.
This latest entry aims to do the same across three single-player campaigns, one each for the US, Russian, and Axis powers respectively.
The gameplay is similar to previous entries into the franchise. Each of the maps is viewed from a slightly angled top-down perspective and the player commands their forces by clicking them around the battlefield, completing a host of different objectives. Unlike a lot of other RTS games, there are no bases to be built and your infantry are your resources to be managed.
I found controlling units in Men of War II to be quite a frustrating experience. The controls are simple, however, the units themselves seemed to interpret my orders as vague suggestions rather than direct orders. It was often unclear whether they planned to carry it out or ignore it entirely.
That being said, once I had adjusted for this it wasn’t an unpleasant experience. The campaigns have a good amount of variety to them thanks to the three unique settings. The campaign can also be enjoyed fully in 5-player co-op which is a nice addition and something that I wish more games in this genre would embrace.
As well as the three main campaigns, Men of War II features an additional two historical campaigns. Focusing on large-scale operations, with a further seven missions to tackle in each, along with six more bonus missions that don’t fit into any particular category. There’s a wealth of single-player content to be experienced that should keep players engaged for hours.
The single-player experience is backed up by a suite of multiplayer features and modes with traditional 1v1 skirmishes up to large-scale 4v4 and 5v5 wars. These can mostly all be played as PvP or PvE also. I didn’t play a huge amount of the multiplayer (because honestly, I’m rubbish at it), but there seems to be a good amount of content and variety here for those who are into it.
Men of War II can be quite a good-looking game when it wants to be. Due to the nature of the gameplay, the camera hovering high above the action, texture, and model quality is relatively low, but in most scenarios, it’s never close enough to be an issue. Lighting at night is especially good looking with tracers, flares, and explosions illuminating the darkness, bringing the stillness of night to life spectacularly. Audio is similarly acceptable. There’s nothing particularly bad about it, but it doesn’t stand out in any way either.
My biggest gripe with Men of War II is the fact that it requires an internet connection to be played. Upon starting the game, it logs into a server before getting to the main menu. If this fails for whatever reason, you’re locked out until it successfully connects. This is presumably to make jumping into the game’s multiplayer a more seamless experience, but it absolutely should not be a requirement for a game with a massive single-player component (or arguably at all.)
Final Thoughts?
Men of War II is a solid entry into the real-time strategy genre. It doesn’t do anything particularly new, or even particularly outstanding, but there is a solid game here. 5-player co-op and the inclusion of a fully featured map and mission edition are great to see and add a lot of value to the game.
The always online requirement is disappointing to see, especially when it comes with issues (lag in single player missions isn’t uncommon and at one point it was possible to be disconnected from your mission if you went idle – this has been fixed however), but Best Way is diligently working on the game and bringing updates to fix some of these issues.
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