WWI: The Great War

List Price: $19.99

Features:

• Real-time strategy game set in WWI
• Real-time interaction with the key actors of WWI
• Receive expert advice from military and economic advisers to main key strategic advantages
• Over 60 painstakingly researched historical campaigns
• For 1 to 8 players using LAN or Internet

Accessories:

PC Gamer (1-year)

Customer Reviews:

What were the other reviewers thinking [Posted on 2004-06-21]
I had a blast playing this game. The other reviewers were slamming the game on false ground. First, the game never crashed or had programming problems. Second, you could un-garrison any building you wanted. The advisors help you at the start of the game to micro manage all the resources. Since resources never run out you can concentrate on the military points of the game. The game has a very real feeling. Each bullet you fire has some cost of iron. The tanks constantly need oil. The infantry constantly take up provisions. The graphics are not as good as Warcraft 3 but at Age of Empires 2 level. The campaigns are historically accurate, I know this, I am a history buff. The units are accurate also. The game is fun to play. The game is great to summarize. If you love history this will definably impress you. So would any average Strategy gamer. Great is the way to summarize the game.

one of the bet games ive played [Posted on 2004-09-04]
This game is one of the best i've played! It is acurate, there are no glitches, it's one shot kill for infantry, and the graphics are perfect for a strategy game.
All those people writing bad things about the game, some of the things may be rite, but there is no reason to beleive all of them.
All in all, I think this game on an average basis is above average, so buy it. I recomend it. :)

Not bad, but... [Posted on 2004-10-01]
Elements of this game appeal to certain folks. The resource gathering and harvesting may appeal to some and be annoying to others. It wasn't a problem for me, but it's not really my thing. I had enough of resource cultivation playing Civilization 3. Not all RTS games require this involvement. Most the ones I have do not, yet reviewers make it seem unique to one particular game or the other. Most of the games I have do have set limits on how much ammunition, supplies, tanks, guns, aircraft, etc, that a player has on hand at any given time. This is not unique.

Moving past the resource hurdle, the game itself is ok. It's very simple and it does involve a lot more micromanagement than I'd prefer. Some people like this sort of thing. It's your call.

The animations vary a great deal, from Civ3 style to Sudden Strike/Blitzkrieg quality. The airplanes are very arcade-like, pulling sharp turns these aircraft could not make.

I won't say this game sucks, because it doesn't. But after other RTS games I have and play, this one finds a cozy spot on my CD tower for a day when I got nothing else left to do.

Again, I don't know where the game crashes come from because I do not have this problem. I have a PII 400Mghz with 512MB RAM, 128MB Radeon 9200 and a secondary HD. And I run Win98SE out of sheer stubborness. A lot of users here apparently use XP, so that may be it. If your computer is not stable, you may have problems with ANY game you play.

Has ANYONE bothered to read a history book? [Posted on 2005-01-04]
Once again we have a game that has the title of a subject but has nothing to do with that subject.

To you reviewers that just had to give this game glowing reviews: what are you guys??? Computer games salesmen??? C'mon give me a break! Have any of you guys even read "All Quiet on the Western Front"??? That's a work of fiction by the way! I won't EVEN go into good history books on the subject because the designer's wouldn't know what I am talking about. That goes for YOU too "the glowing reviewer's".

A "kid's reviewer", I ask: have you EVER given any products anything less than four stars??? I don't think you're a kid at all nor do I need to check. You are a salesman no matter what your real age is.

Out of ALL the subjects that a Real Time Strategy game could succeed on showing history "this could have been it"!!!

You game designers really suck! Your VERY lucky you do NOT work for me. I would make you do some required reading and turn in a book report to me.

I am an Infantry Bradley Fighting Vehicle Commander. So far, every real time strategy game I have played had been a BIG disappointment. What's even more discouraging is I see fixes to almost every fundamental problem I see.

Every different game has good features and excellent ideas BUT the good ideas are in this game and that game, no one game has got it all together. You guys are so lost because you haven't bothered to get good data on your subject. I think you probably believe anyone who tells you its realistic!

Let's address some of my issues with this game:

#1: It is buggy and I have a high performance computer. A P4 HT with 3.2 GHz and a high end video card should have NO problem handling this game. But yet it always locks up on me here and there unexpectantly. I can imagine what the other players are going thru.

#2: I say again, read a freaking history book!!! First of all WWI was a different war on every single front. I will address the Western Front. Tanks were RARE very, very rare. When they assaulted the trenches already 50% were knocked out by mechanical problems. Doe's that happen in this game???

Assaulting the trenches was something else. It took months of planning for any assault. For local Commanders on the ground, when the men went over the top, it was damn near auto-pilot until they reached their objective. That is, the Commanders had very little control over what happened in no mans land. Only the Platoon Leaders and NCOs who were motivating men under fire had any control what so ever. Now I ask anyone who has played this: did what I just describe resemble this game??? If you just said yes, then get out of in front of your computer and go to your local library.

#3: This game puts you in control over building your resources in a tactical setting. When I saw that, my first thought was why they didn't just dump the whole gather resources thing. It's totally unrealistic in ANY real time strategy game I have seen, especially in a game of WWI on the Western Front.

Ok that's enough of bashing this game. One thing I hate more than an unrealistic game on a historical subject are REVIEWERS saying it's like the real thing. That just shows me how history is being rewritten in the information age. Get a clue people!!! History has a real bad habit of repeating itself when people forget what really happened. That is why it is important to actually know it.

Don't let some computer programmer teach you about history. That is what is happening here with this game and many others. They do this to make money, destroying your mind and culture is quite profitable nowdays.

Bottom line: if you came here to see what WWI was like, this is NOT it. Read "All Quiet on the Western Front" instead. It's funny how a work of fiction is more realistic than this game is.

No issues with gameplay for me. [Posted on 2006-03-10]
The history is accurate. Not perfect. But this is just a game.
It is a reasonable representation of history as we know it.
No programming problems for me at all. No crashes. No missing menues, as one other reviewer here said. This ran perfectly on my computer and i enjoyed it even more than i had anticipated.
One thing i found amazing was that there could be hundreds of fighting soldiers within your sight, and i never had a problem with lagging.
The box says this can display up to 80,000 soldiers in combat in just one mapped environment. That's incredible. And, it certainly seems accurate.
I think any war buff would enjoy this. Don't let the naysayers turn you away.
It's worth it.

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