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Squad Leader
By James "Bismarck" CobbThe fire and wounds model delivers the same mix of hope and disappointment. To-hit chances are calculated using distance, ability, target height, shooter stance and other appropriate variables. The results of these calculations can be bizarre. An U.S. trooper on fire-swept Omaha beach shoots uphill through the gun slit of a distant bunker at a guy in the rear and gets a 30% hit chance. A British paratrooper with mediocre marksman abilities gets the same percentage firing at a German through several hexes of woods with a Sten gun. Are either of these likely? I don't think so. The effects of hits are also counter-intuitive. A hit lowers the health bar but not the action points and a hit alone doesn't cause a steady decrease in points. Multiple hits are required to bring points to zero. If not dead, the soldier is incapacitated and needs the medic's attention to survive. The medic doesn't restore points; he just keeps the guy alive for the next mission. This system makes medics poor choices for specialists in a stand-alone scenario. Players don't need to figure line of sight for their shots but figuring out good defensive positions is difficult because blocking terrain is hard to track on the screen. The best defensive move is to use a third of your force to cover all four quadrants with opportunity fire.
Theoretically, a GI is supposed to have a 30% chance of making this shot.
Artillery and grenade effects are questionable. The blast radii and damage caused don't seem to be consistent. A shell from off-board artillery can land in the midst of a group of men, wound one and leave the others unscathed. Two other unfortunate things stand out. Artillery is always accurate and on time with no drift. Furthermore, after the momentary squarish pattern of flames, shells leave no mark on terrain and their visual impact on things like gliders, wire and structures are small or negligible.
An artillery shell bursts on Omaha Beach. After the smoke clears, the landscape will be unchanged.
The problems with fire combat may be inherent in any soldier-by-soldier system. In combat rifle duels are rare. Casualties are caused by volume of fire by more than one weapon. The M1 Garand was such a fine squad weapon because of its fire rate, not its accuracy. Close Combat models this better and does a better job on the elusive concept of pinning. The final faux pas with combat is medics don't surrender when they are sole survivors.
Vehicular combat is simple. Shermans, Mark IV's, Panthers and Tigers are modeled well in a general fashion. They have action points like infantry and use the same interface. They can take damage on distinct parts such as wheel, driver, gunner and the catastrophic ammo hit.
German infantry group around a German Tiger.
Old Campaigners
The mission are not constructed badly and represent realistic assignments; get off the beach, clear a village, secure a drop zone, support tanks. Although most goals center around attacks, enemy reinforcements force players to consider flank defense. The AI on medium and high levels acts fairly intelligently, using cover well, picking shots with precision and calling down artillery with devastating effect. The difference between the two is only in soldier ratings; the fourth level differs from high only in that a mission can be saved once.
Campaigns are a different matter. Some random missions are thrown in but the campaign sequence is static, not branched. A defeat simply says "Replay the mission." A victory increases survivors' ratings, allows the fallen to be replaced and brings incapacitated troops who were teetering near death in the last scenario back to complete health. Judicious use of saves ensures the break out at St. Lo, the capture of Arnhem and a victorious crossing of the Meuse. This system is not only inherently boring but wrong. American squads were not necessarily brought up to strength after missions; how the surrounded British paratroops could be reinforced is beyond this reviewer's ken and the Germans could never crushed XXX Corps even had they made it through the Americans. If a game is supposed to be realistic, then give us realistic possibilities.
On the other hand, if a game is not supposed to be realistic, then make it entertaining. Squad Leader fails even here. The "immersive" aspects of the game are supposed to come from identification with characters. The soldiers' biographies do not bear directly on their capabilities and the dialog for all sides come straight from comic books. (Yes, you too can hear "Here's a bullet for breakfast" in both English and German.) The AI response on a PII 400 with 128 MB RAM is so slow and halting that the player is jerked out of the atmosphere of the game and must wonder if his system is locked. The inevitability of a complete, predictable campaign victory leaves missions as just things to be endured, not won.
Multiplay?
A human opponent could have provided fun but this product has absolutely no multi-player options. None, friends. Nada, zilch! And this game tries to enter a market when even straight board game ports have at least a PBEM component. The random scenario editor might have been interesting but it's still being tweaked and will be included in a patch.
Summary
Even negative reviews often point out players who might appreciate the game. Squad Leaderdefies all attempts at this. Beginners would be bored within two hours; hardcore gamers would become frustrated and angry during the first mission they loaded. Hasbro should be ashamed at what they've done to a great name. So many other engines point the way to handle this topic. To release an outdated, boring game in a market containing Combat Mission and Jagged Alliance is a ploy deserving the scorn of gamers everywhere.
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