Subject: West Front: A critical review From: Michael Peck West Front: A critical look by Michael David Peck West Front isn’t just the successor to East Front. It’s also Talonsoft’s chance at redemption, a second chance to show that it learned from the mistakes that made East Front more of a controversy than a game. Outraged gamers let Talonsoft know often and loudly what they wanted fixed. By and large, the company listened. Compared to East Front, gamers have been handed a far more polished product in West Front. I was one of the many who felt burned by East Front (hint: I will never again buy a game I can’t return). Yet I was pleasantly surprised at how West Front has left behind its troubled Eastern roots. But making a game more polished doesn’t automatically make it a great game. West Front is a solid implementation of Talonsoft’s tactical game engine. But the parts that make that engine run have problems just as West Front’s rival, the aging but still lively Steel Panthers series by SSI, has problems that make it less than the series it should have been. Fix these gaps, and Talonsoft could have a true classic. Let’s start with the combat system. It’s not that the system is bad. It’s more puzzlement at why a 1998 computer armor game uses what looks like a beefed-up combat system from the old board game Panzerblitz. In West Front, combat results include step losses, disruption and retreats. Compare that to Steel Panthers (and its ancient predecessor Kampgruppe), where combat creates suppression (on an incremental scale of 1 to 100+) that affects fire accuracy, as well as causing units to rout or be pinned. Does this make a difference? You bet. Consider a German machine-gun platoon firing at a Sherman tank in West Front. The outcome will almost certainly be no effect. In Steel Panthers, the tank would probably button up as the commander scrambled into the turret, and the suppression would affect both the number of shots the tank could take, as well as the accuracy of its fire. This may ding the rubber of tread-heads who pretend their pet Tigers are invulnerable, but the truth is that on a tactical battlefield, fire always has some kind of effect. . It’s more than a question of common sense. It’s really the essence of combined arms. Whom fire doesn’t kill it makes more cautious, and whom it doesn’t make more cautious it will probably kill This doesn’t mean that West Front should imitate the combat system of Steel Panthers, where Russian tank companies can rout under German small-arms fire. On the other hand, something’s not right when a company of West Front Shermans can blast away at a German infantry platoon in clear terrain a quarter-mile away, and nothing happens. In a six-minute game turn, you know the grunts are going to be diving and scraping for every bit of cover they can find. If they push on, they’ll do it slowly and carefully. A simple and realistic fix might be that a unit under fire loses a certain number of action points, which in turn would inhibit its ability to shoot opportunity fire. So machine guns shooting at tanks, or small-caliber cannon shooting at infantry, would have some kind of effect. Computers are the ultimate bean-counters, so it shouldn’t be hard in an era of Pentium 400s for a computer game to have a broader range of combat results. So much for the fire and steel portion of the game. West Front also suffers from an interface that’s awkward at best. The game has East Front’s bottom menu bar of conveniently large-sized buttons, supplemented by the usual Windows top pull-down menu. There’s also the wonderful highlight features that allow you to pick out troops that are unsupplied, have anti-aircraft or minesweeping abilities, are disrupted, etc. It’s an adequate system – as long as you’re not suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome. As someone who’s using a touchpad because mice are wearing out his thumb, I pay attention to how much clicking I have to do, particularly in a platoon-level game that features corps-sized scenarios. The biggest problem is that you have to click a button or hold down a key to choose between movement and fire. I find myself constantly moving when I meant to shoot and vice-versa. In Steel Panthers, by contrast, simply putting the cursor on an empty hex lets you move there, and putting it an enemy hex lets you shoot. Admittedly, the West Front interface has to accommodate assault movement into an enemy hex. But given that assaults are far less frequent than fire combat, wouldn’t it make sense to require that a button be pushed for assault movement rather than regular movement or combat? Similarly, loading and unloading units, or selecting units in a stack, requires too much clicking to select and deselect pieces. If Talonsoft improved these features, it would vastly speed up the game and save wear and tear on our fingers. And while they’re at it, perhaps they could replace the skeletal unit roster with a comprehensive display that shows current morale, supply state and other data for each unit. This interface really ties into the speed of the game. Speed is important to me, because I’m someone whose gaming is in scattered bits of time, with an hour here in the morning and an hour before dinner. It’s not that West Front runs like molasses. It’s more a question of whether the time spent waiting is commensurate with the reward. For example, watching units crawl hex by hex in 3-D mode is like watching caterpillars – in authentic camouflage colors -- slither across a room. 3-D is a great concept and probably West Front’s most revolutionary feature, but I’d still trade some of the of the pretty graphics for an option that allows faster 3-D movement. Instead I spend most of my time in 2-D mode (which looks kind of like the graphics in Avalon Hill’s V-for-Victory series). There are options for a faster computer opponent and for a 3-D zoom-out (which isn’t much better than the 2-D), but would it hard to program an intermediate graphics level that equivalent to the Steel Panthers top-down view? Something that would allow us to glimpse the pretty units and terrain while not taking a half-hour to move 30 maneuver units. The same applies to the AI, which actually isn’t bad, even though it’s at the head of a class that’s never known for brightness or subtlety. I have no sympathy for those who play corps-level East Front/West Front scenarios and complain the game is slow. Handling several hundred maneuver units would tax any computer, even in games such as The Operational Art of War. Still, the AI as an Allied attacker in the Big Red One dynamic campaign took nearly 15 minutes to complete its move – and that was just on a battalion-level scenario (my system is a Dell P200 with 32 megs – not top-line but not shabby, either). In a 20-turn I’m going to have to twiddle my thumbs for several hours. Could one fix be various AI settings that trade complexity of thought for speed? It’s not that I want the AI to be dumber, but I would like to play a divisional-level scenario that won’t outlast the millennium. No game is perfect, and West Front is much better than a lot of the lemons on the market. But a more sophisticated combat system, an easier interface and a quicker AI would make this game a classic. Talonsoft’s second chance came through, more or less. Let’s see what they do with it. Mike Subject: Re: Reviews for Westfront available? (Longish) From: "sgtSteiner" Hi John et al >I have to say that this reads like the blurb on the outside of the box, >or advertising copy. Can anybody compare WF with EF, please? How much >has the engine changed (if at all)? Well first off I am not a TS employee/beta tester only a customer but am baised in that I really enjoy both EF and now WF......... Game engine is essentially unchanged in that units are organized as per EF (Strength Points or SP equating to single AFV or 1/2 Inf Squads approx) and sequence of play remains as is (ie Arty/Air phase starts turn then 'Actions' phase) Assault combat unchanged and methods of Artillery firing and direct fire. HQs/Commanders and their relationships to supply etc are fundamentally unchanged too. So you ask what is different ?? Well IMHO biggest (or at least most obvious) change is to Line Of Sight/Spotting with each Unit and each Terrain type now having a Concealment value with which the system 'rolls' a spotting attempt for eligible units. Up shot of this in practical terms is that hidden units stay hidden more in dense terrain. This allows Anti-Tank Guns in particular to remain hidden and often the spotting of 1 unit in a hex does not reveal all others in said hex (as seemed to happen in EF even if othershad not fired/moved). Coupled with this is ability (albeit limited) to set the opportunity fire ranges for units individually now. Again this aids ambushers hidden units a lot. Company Hqs now make an appearence in an abstracted form. The 1st platoon of a Coy now can have a 'Radio' icon indicating it contains Coy Hq. This was much debated on TS boards prior to WF release (with about equal for and against as some felt tying CHQ to 1st Plt was restrictive/inaccurate). Am personally undecided at present. If this 1st Plt is lost so is CHQ with subordinates rallying etc at detriment. The game interface has changed somewhat (and much for better) with an extended Toolbar and Hotkeys list. New 'buttons' include Reachable Hexes, Highlight HQs (useful to find those aforementioned CHQs), Weapons range (very useful this with grid being superimposed showing Max range vs Hard or Soft targets), reinforcements arriving has button as does reoving units from map. The use of Airstrikes is radically different with system having several types of Airstrike (Bombs Rockets Strafes) and rolling for arrival and targetting (in fact thus far most seem to go off-target and have seen them hit friendly forces) Chrome of 3D air-attacks is good with SP style run-in and fly-away. Glider and Paradrops now included with possible disruptions etc onlanding turn. Ampib landings ala D-Day included. Obviously being set on WF their is vast amount of new unit types and Nationalities. Also 3D icons are varied by date with for example Pz Grey in 1940, Tan in Desert, 3-clour Cammo in late period and Winter White in surprise surprise Winter....... all chrome I know but coupled with varied background Music it all adds to gameplay/atmosphere IMHO. Big change to Campaign side of things (EF biggest flaw IMHO) in that 2 types now 'old' random type known as DCG (Dynamic) and LCG (Linked). DCGs now have a set-up phase at start to allow player to re-deploy as he sees fit. LCGs are excellent IMHO (at least the one I have started) with a more recognisablly historical path possible. Seem to be restricted to Bttn core but depending on your success rate (or lack of it) you will play somewhere between 4-15 scns (which are on par with the 'proper' scns) Uses a 'tree-branching' sytem. These may well turn out to be WF greatest assest ?? Am sure that I have missed several features/flaws etc but hope this helps. If something more specific wanted you can but ask :-) Basically the Gamers review is spot-on their key phrase probaly being 'if you disliked EF due to its scale, level of data accurracy etc then you likley wont enjoy WF' (or whatever the wording was) Again for moi its just the best show in town..........but to each their own :-) Bi Gary Barr Belfast NI UK