Combat Mission: Shock Force

Rating ESRB: Teen Genre strategy Publisher Paradox External Links Official Paradox Website

“Ludus illa ludius.” Games for gamers. For every type of gamer, there is a specific and custom-made genre. Enjoy driving sims? There are more than a few titles for you. Buck hunting your cup of tea? That's out there too. Cooks, fishermen, even World War buffs have a home. Truly, with so many people coming into the ability to produce games, one of every, and I do mean every, sort will come skipping forth from the proverbial woodwork. Combat Mission: Shock Force is one such niche title that reaches out from the across the abyss of pop gaming and hunts out its hard-core fan base.

This title is digital proof that any detail based obsession can and will be made into a competitive video game. Combat Mission: Shock Force places the player in modern day Syria, combating what its creators call “hypothetical near-future conflict” in a post-coup Middle East country. Most real time strategies are swept under the rug by the popularity of current and previously popular games such as Command and Conquer; but Combat Mission: Shock Force, following its long line of realism and detail-based brethren developed by Battlefront, is made to stand out somewhat from the masses. This title separates itself from its contemporaries with the same force and gusto as a World War II general at a game of Risk. Working from a detailed understanding of mixed unit tactics as well as modern US and foreign military weaponry, Combat Mission: Shock Force lays out every tank gurus dream guns on the battlefield to see just how each and every would-be military leader would do on the field.

But it isn't all fancy units and perfect tactics, in actuality it follows the same universal rules we live by, namely, Form over Function. Upon first loading up Combat Mission: Shock Force, I was assaulted by seizure inducing menu music and loading times that made checkbook balancing seem appealing. After a short nap and making up several different verses to the action packed theme it was debriefing time, again. Speeding through such niceties I found myself staring off into a very repetitive sandy desert background with something missing… In my churningly slow attempt to look around I discovered that I was facing away from my army and hovering several miles above them, not even solid ground within my view. After floundering with what would seem like commonplace, obvious control schemes, I managed my way back to poorly rendered terra firma.

As much as the local city, forest, and general terrain let me down, through an awkward control fluke I ended up staring directly at one of my troop units surrounding a heavily armored Abrams tank. The attention to detail on just one of these units was impressive in contrast with the world in which it was set. After countless failed attempts to negotiate the sea of options presented in my undersized HUD, I was able to move one of the beasts. As impressive as the stationary behemoth looked, once in motion, the being was a glistening metal doom-box amidst terribly shoddy landscape. Unfortunately, my amazement, like so many red and blue team members featured within, was shot down by the incredibly slow moving and stupid pathing attempted by the tank. It acted less like a tank and more like those self controlled robots that run into walls, back up, and run into the same wall, stopping every second or two to avoid stumps and small rocks.

Combat comes in two unpleasant varieties: Terribly Slow, and Neck-Snapping Fast. The player is either too busy micro managing his units to notice a conflict that resolves in mere seconds, or bored to the point of napping by to realize there is a fight between to horribly inaccurate squads shooting blindly down allies and over roof-tops at each other. Each model maintains a polished and pristine finish until it falls victim to artillery or grenade fire. And while the units taken out of commission don't exactly blow the average gamer away as far as graphics are concerned, the general models themselves are accurate to the core.

Combat Mission: Shock Force is, for its target audience, possibly one of the best Real Time Strategies that has ever come out. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this title comes off as little more than a fan boy's version of playing with Hot Wheels. If you are in any way a modern combat or military enthusiast, then you will certainly find this game to be one of the leaders in its ever-expanding genre. For the rest of the gaming community, there is something to be appreciated in 'nearly' every game, and perhaps you will find that you're more of an actual strategist than fluff RTSs would have you believe.