When you do have a unit selected, you can issue orders by selecting from a
pop-up menu. Orders are limited to three speeds of movement, a stop/defend
order, and fire and smoke orders. You would think that this would be
enough to control your troops, but most of the time these orders will be useless
as your units have a mind of their own. Sure, moral and the combat
situation have a big effect on a soldier's willingness to carry out orders, but
often you'll find your troops inexplicably ignoring them. Sometimes
they stop along the way, and at others they don't move at all. In one game I
could not get a squad to move up from the rear for the entire scenario.
Every time I issued a move order, I heard "we're pinned down sir," but I could
never find any nearby enemies and the squad never seemed to be shooting at
anyone.
 |
| You'll need to get used to playing the game from this view. |
Another problem with the game is that seeing the enemy and trying to locate
the action is an exercise in frustration. Your men will fire at enemy
squads that they can evidently see, but you'll be fighting with the camera
trying to find them rather than issuing orders. Try outflanking an
enemy squad under these circumstances. Sometimes enemies will be marked on
the map and minimap and other times they won't, why this is the case is a
mystery. You can't even pause the game and try to figure out what is going
on. Pausing freezes the camera and there is no way to give orders when the
game is paused. You'll often be jumping around trying to figure out what
is happening and frantically re-issuing orders to your units. And then ...
the scenario will end.
The scenarios do not lay out the time limits or objectives, so it's always a
mystery as to what you are trying to accomplish. Apparently capturing the
map's objective flags is important, but to what degree and how long you have to
do so is unknown. The manual states that a countdown timer is displayed at
the top of the screen, but there is no such timer. I thought that loading
a scenario into the scenario editor might reveal the time limit, but I couldn't
find a way to specify it. As a result, you are stuck with fighting battles
for arbitrary goals under random time limits. Some battles will end
leaving you bewildered as to why you won or lost. In one game, I
controlled four objectives to the Axis' two and I inflicted 48 casualties, with
one tank and two guns destroyed. My losses totaled two, yes two, men.
The mission ended in a Major Defeat for me. You can only sit there and
scratch your head...
The bottom line is that this game needs a lot of work. The nonexistent
tutorial, clunky interface, rough and bland graphics, and quirky AI are all
hallmarks of a game released too early. With a lot more work perhaps G.I.
Combat might have amounted to something. As it stands it is more an
exercise in frustration and bewilderment than a game.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
29%. G.I. Combat is KIA thanks to poor control and an army of other
issues.
System Requirements: Pentium III 500; 128 MB RAM; 32 MB
Video RAM; 8x CD-ROM; 200 MB Hard Drive
Space; Mouse.
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