Men Of War 2 Review

Men Of War 2 developed by Best Way and published by Fulqrum Publishing is now available on PC, here is our review of the game.

Men Of War 2 is a real-time strategy World War 2 game that takes the player into many of the historic battles during the war and does so with great detail. At first, you’ll want to check out the tutorials, each tutorial guides you through the game step by step and makes you perform the tasks from the objective board so that you’ll learn the mechanics through actions rather than reading walls of text. Each tutorial was good at explaining how the game works which made it a pretty enjoyable experience and fueled the urge to get into the main game itself. Once you’re done with the tutorials you are offered a campaign that features a story mode, which has you take on some of the most historic battles during World War 2, conquest pits you in a battle to take over the map and overall control all territories and raid involves fast advances and fights for some straight to action gameplay. Each mode offers plenty of content and variety and has been a fun time so far.

Originally being a Company Of Heroes fan, Men Of War did pique my interest seeing people say how much control you had over the battles which makes you take initiative and come up with your own strategies to advance that completely sold me on the game and I wasn’t disappointed. Loading up the first mission I had to save some of our soldiers from being attacked its a fairly simple objective but it’s the freedom it grants you that made me feel this is what separates it from the modern Company Of Heroes. I decided to kill the soldiers with the anti-tank vehicles and steal them for myself so that the enemy tanks wouldn’t completely obliterate the soldiers caught in a trap once that was complete I then set off into a nicely placed surprise attack that took out most of my squad. After starting over I decided to try a different approach of sneaking my men behind the enemy trap and taking them out quickly, but then came the hard part, trying to steal our tank back, I decided to build pillboxes at the top of the hill and carefully take out everyone in the village, it was a good time, the second time, the first time I accidentally blew up our tank whoops. My point is that although you are given an objective, you don’t have to go through each micro objective or go the way the game wants it’s all up to you the freedom of it all was exciting not to mention how deep all of the management systems are, that enhances the experience that truly makes it your own. You’ll be able to check your inventories and change everything out it truly lets you do so much and even take direct control of units that was an incredible surprise. I enjoyed taking control of a tank and getting to drive around the wonderful maps and then having to target everything manually it adds a whole new dimension to the game which is fantastic and also gets you thinking about weak points on each tank, for example, stopping the tanks from moving towards you by taking its tracks out is a great strategy to give you some space. There are so many ways to tackle missions it honestly felt endless and had a lot of replayability.   

Men of War 2 is full of incredible experiences and like mentioned earlier, it gives you so much freedom and choice down to the tiniest details, each unit feels alive due to this which just makes you want to protect them more and really work hard at making sure the battle had the best outcome for yourself. I didn’t run into too many bugs during my playthrough however the always online thing has been a little controversial it also seems to have a heavy multiplayer focus over singleplayer and in RTS I tend to mostly play singleplayer because 1 I suck and 2 it just allows you to take the game at your own pace and learn at your level rather than getting wiped out within a few minutes, flashback to when I played Starcraft 2 and I would get obliterated instantly. The multiplayer in Men of War 2 is quite good though so far, I haven’t won any matches but it is interesting to go against other players to learn other strategies and improve your own but it does feel quite pressured and feels like your often made to play vs other players when you’re looking for a single player experience. There are a few modes to test out involving PVP and PVE modes, I didn’t delve in as much as the single-player modes but for fans of online battles, it’s got good structure there. There are reward systems in place and challenges to take on which spurs you to play more and try to unlock them I quite like a reward system if done fairly and not out of greed it seems Men of War 2 is pretty good so far.

Men of War 2 while not the next generation RTS graphically still has a lot to love from the big-scale battles to the individual units, vehicles and more on the ground. The game also lets you zoom into ground level which really adds a whole new dimension to the game’s look and lets you experience it in many different ways. The sound design unfortunately on the voice acting is a little odd the same lines are repeated often and feel very generic, it’s not awful but not fantastic either, however, the sounds of the battles are fantastic from the artillery fire to the destruction of villages it is great and really adds to the immersion. The game has put a lot of detail into its design while it hasn’t paid off in some areas it has flourished in others. 

Verdict

I’m not the biggest RTS player out there, I like to dabble in many different genres but Men of War 2 stood out as a pretty detailed and customisable experience for the RTS veterans and newbies alike. Men of War 2 contains so much detail that I will probably still be discovering more in these absolute epic dynamic battles in years to come, there is so much content there to explore and so much freedom in every decision made, it’s as if you’re thrown onto the battlefield with one big objective and the game gives you a sandbox of tools to use to fight the war your way. While I didn’t run into many bugs, the always online thing is a little bit of a letdown and I think there needs to be an equal focus on singleplayer and multiplayer so there’s something for everyone. Overall I enjoyed my time with Men of War 2, it could use a few updates here and there to equal it all out, I definitely recommend it if you’re looking for a new RTS or a World War 2 title.

8/10