Like its sister Comanche 3, Armored Fist II is not for the faint hearted. Its true that it isn't an attempt at ultimate realism, but this means that the learning curve is relatively shallow and the fun factor is high. Novalogic is genius at accomplishing this fine balance between action and immersion. Armored Fist II will likely be a great success and contribute to many late nights on the PC!!

When you get past the opening movie you'll see the main menu: Campaigns, Multiplayer, Demo, Settings, and Select Commander are your options. As in Comanche 3 there is no campaign structure, instead we have a series of progressive missions. Under Cmapaign there are six selections. Its best to begin at "Twenty Nine Palms", which is the training scenario for AF2. Twenty Nine Palms contains four missions to teach navigation, gunnery skills, and combined arms exercises. 

If you are the methodical and patient type, the second place you will want to visit is "Solo Duty", a second training campaign. The difficulty level has advanced and the amount of knowledge, both tactical and of the sim interface, you need to be a success has increased.

There are four "Operations" in AF2: "Operation Provide Relief", "Operation Siberian Fist", "Operation Secure Peace" and "Operation Thunder Road". Each of these scenarios contains eight missions which increase in difficulty as you drop down the list. The campaigns are set in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

After successfully completing the training missions I entered the first campaign. After taking out a couple of BMPs and a T80 I checked out the comms menu. Hitting the R key for the radio brings up these options:

• Request Air Support
• Request Artillery Support
• Communications to Tank Platoon

AF2 allows you to control four tanks at a time, with the exception of solo duty. When you hit the "O" key to issue orders you will find formation commands, "fire at will" and "fire on my target." The only other choices over your platoon are fairly basic engagement commands: retreat, halt, and normal movement.

As commander you can also interact with artillery and air support. Calling in the Longbows can make for an interesting diversion! You'll also see A-10s as support. As promised, you can also jump into a new tank if yours is disabled. I've learned to appreciate this feature in my early missions since it means I can continue the mission longer....

Voxelspace 2 is as impressive in this release as in Comanche 3. However, because you are ON the ground instead of over it you will see some blockiness. This is a by product of the Voxel engine and is quite livable. The terrain in AFI sometimes degenerated into blockiness because Voxel One was simply not detailed enough up close. In this reworking, however, detail is about twelve times higher.

The special effects that were so nicely done in Comanche 3 are still impressive here. Use of smoke is effective, explosions are nice, object detail is good. As in Janes Longbow, battered tanks sit smoldering after having been hit by your missiles. Likewise firing your main gun generates a hefty puff of smoke. And you can use smoke intentionally by launching smoke grenades. The smoke effect is state of the art and looks great, better than in Comanche 3. Considering that all this is done WITHOUT 3d hardware, its quite amazing.  

Clouds and fog are also realistic, and can become a tactical concern. For example, say you just took out a large building, intentionally or otherwise! The thing now emits a huge cloud of smoke and dust, as it crumbles and burns. If there are enemy targets lurking near the building, you have now created some great cover for them. Of course, you can also use such an effect to your own tactical advantage..

Terrain is not only pretty: ridges, valleys and even weather conditions will add to tactical considerations. Players will have to beware of enemy mines and engineering obstructions such as tank traps. As you can see from the shot below, smoke effects and peripheral air action will be nicely integrated. Other shots clearly show dust and debris being kicked up by the treads of the tank. If physics modelling is as well done for gravity and inertia and secondary damage effects, we will have a treat indeed!

Incidentally, you can't select individual graphics options as you could in Comanche 3. Instead you will use a slider bar to choose low, medium or high detail. There is also an option for players who have only 16 meg of memory to render some details in low resolution.

The sound in AF2 has received a lot of attention. From voice interaction to the sounds of sabot shells reloading to the engine starting and running... its all very authentic. Crank on your 50mm machine gun and you will feel you are cranking on the real thing. Fire your main cannon with your sound system cranked and you will be looking for your headset! Not only that, but this is in Dolby Surround! The doppler effects are good, and in unbuttoned mode you can tell from which direction the fire is coming by the sound. Novalogic did a lot of recording from real systems and it shows.  The sounds in the game which come from recordings of the National Guard M1IP tanks include:

• Turbine
• Internal rumble
• reloading sequence (breechblock, ammo door, switches, etc.)
• tread clanks
• Sabot round being fired, including the sound of the round traveling through the air
• Turret turning
• Tank Commander hatch opening and closing
• 3rd person perspective M1 tank driving

Various other vehicles have been recorded for the game including a Hummer, a 5-ton, and various tracked vehicles. Novalogic will also likely replace the coax and .50 caliber sounds from other sources. Other sounds recorded inside and around the tanks serve as raw material in designed sound effects such as collisions.

The overall feel is very good. Where an encounter in AF1 sometimes became merely a contest to see who could pull the trigger faster, strategy is going to count for a lot more in AF2. If you enter this sim for a shoot em up you won't last long, you are going to have to learn to use terrain, the tactical map, and your platoon.

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AF2 will allow the player to choose from four tactical positions: driver, gunner, commander buttoned or commander unbuttoned. The chase view is also very cool and can be selected as a full screen option (only current locked target indicator and waypoint indicator) or with tactical screens on the bottom as the screenshot below. I suspect that a lot of players will grow so fond of the commander unbuttoned view and the chase view that they will use these two views most of the time. Obviously, unbuttoned is a rather hot place to be when the battle is thick!

The approach to the chase view is a bit different from Comanche 3 where the HUD overlay remained in place even when one viewed the chopper from the outside. As seen in the screen cut below, the tactical views remain in place when one views the action from the outside. On the left is the gunners view, in the center is position and tactical data, and on the right is a top down view.

TARGETING MODE: Armored Fist 2 supports both an "automatic" targeting mode as well as a "realistic" mode. The "automatic" mode is the present default where the game AI helps the player find targets and keep track of them. In the "manual" mode, the player must have to manually lase the target and re-lase if his tank or the target moves substantially. Novalogic will support the manual mode for those people who are fanatically into tank sims and are interested in controlling the computer tank as much like a real tank as possible.

The Automatic mode is aimed at making the game fun and interesting to the large group of people who like to play fun games but are not fanatically into tanks or tank sims. With the auto mode Novalogic is compensating for those factors which would, in a real tank, greatly enhance the situational awareness and general feasibility of doing the job. If you don't play the sim often this is a great mode to just jump in and get into the action.

I've found that my programmable sticks work very nicely with AF2. Push forward on the stick and forward goes my tank. Targetting and weapons controls, barrel elevation and azimuth, turret controls.. all work nicely into a TM or CH configuration file.

System requirements aren't that steep. Those with slower PCs will still be able to play the sim, with some loss of either resolution or detail. A P133 is a good place to start, but if you want to run with maximum detail a P200 is more realistic. If you have a good sound card output to a surround sound system you're in for a treat! AF2 offers Dolby Surround Sound and plenty of radio chatter during missions. Calling in an airstrike or assistance from artillery produces corresponding radio activity. During missions, you'll hear members of your platoon and soldiers from inside your own tank communicating with you. Call for the loading of MPAT and you will know when the shell is ready to go.

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There are a total of 16 multiplayer missions divided into the following categories: 6 co-op, 5 red team vs. blue team, and 5 deathmatch. In the CO-OP missions, each player controls a platoon (4) of M1A2s. Players will work together against a computerized enemy to capture airfields, etc. Once the player has lost the 4 tanks in his platoon, he is out of the mission.

There are only six specific scenarios for co-op mode, and they are uniformly challenging in nature. Unlike the regular campaigns there is no progression in difficulty level, meaning you had better have some experience under your belt before taking these on!

In red team vs. blue team there are five maps to choose from, each with different terrain or a different setting, from desert to a Siberian winter and even a sub tropical green scenario. In this mode each player controls a platoon of M1A2s. However, as players join they are placed on one of two opposing sides. In these missions, half the player will defend an objective, while the other half will attack the objective. Once each player has lost their own 4 tanks, they are out of the mission. This mode is really designed as a Capture the Flag scenario with four to eight players.

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