aleader

As they obviously should. I don't understand this whole argument quite frankly. If I'm in Tiger and a Firefly starts firing on me, I don't care one bit what my 'orders' are, I'm firing back and\or getting into cover until I find what fired on me, unless I am completely brain-dead. If the game doesn't do that, it needs to be fixed, period. If someone can find me an actual account in a real war (other than the suicidal nuts in Japan) where an AFV crew knew they were being fired on by an obvious threat (i.e. not just an MG or sniper) and they still just sat there because the army told them to, please share. If it is a limitation of the game and can't be fixed, say so. Justifying this behaviour in a game that purports to be realistic makes one look foolish.

Absolutely. And I'm not a 'fanboy' either way. If you like RTS, play it. But we don't need the sarcasm that we're seeing from 'some' of the posters on here, especially from the beta testers. And I can return anything to Costco anytime, no matter how stupid my reason may be. That's the beauty of Costco ;-)

I played the training mission again last night and had the mortars go way off target every time. I kept the HQ (with radio\binoculars) in the first 2 storey building and the mortars in the little courtyard there. I tried targeting (point\area\linear - medium\heavy - not emergency) the AT gun with both of them several different ways and every round missed completely by about 200m. The pattern was tight, but I could not get them to hit accurately no matter what I did. Spotter had LOS and was not suppressed. Mortars blew all of their rounds with zero effect. Had to take the gun out with a tank\MG suppression. Also, what is the 'XO' unit that shows up with the 2nd set of reinforcements? What do I do with him? Is one a better spotter than the others?

I'll second this post. I'm growing especially tired of the beta-testers coming on here and trying to make people feel stupid because they have opinions. Need to get out and socialize with real people a little more as this type of behaviour would not be tolerated face-to-face (cue flames...). Think of the last time you returned something to a store with a complaint\criticism. What was the response you received from the store? Probably an apology and a full refund. Likely not a sarcastic lecture about how wrong you are for not liking certain aspects of their product. We're all fans but in the end this is a product like any other and our praise and criticisms are our right. Last time I checked BF wasn't giving their games away... And in the spirit of sticking to the original post, I don't have the time these days for online gaming so I'm stuck playing PBEM, but if I did play multiplayer I wouldn't want to play this game in RT either.

Judging by the posts, I must have the slowest rig on here. Don't play a lot of games these days with two boys in hockey ;-) Been playing the demo and haven't noticed any slowdown yet on 1680x1050\Best\AA on: Athlon 4000+ GF 8800GTS 320MB 2GB RAM Win XP SP3 SB Live Xtreme (?) card

Sounds for CMx1 were very good...for back in 2000. I find them to be greatly lacking in CMSF and it appears so again in CMBN. The Battlefield series has the best sound in games IMO (esp. BFBC2). And for those who think it's only big game studios like EA, check out the sound in Red Orchestra:Ostfront. The sound is so good in that game you can look past the graphics. I hate it when games ignore sound (i.e. ARMA series - terrible sound). Any way to take the sounds from RO and 'mod' them for CMBN? No reason this game can't have it all.

It was a great feature in CMx1 that a lot of us liked using and I don't recall a lot of 'whining' that it was in those games. We're customers and we have the right to request features that we like without the sarcastic retorts. Wargamers...is it any wonder it's the smallest of all the niches?

Just installed JSH 1.3.5 and it works fine, but everything's in Russian(?) so I'm not sure what missions I'm picking. Is there a workaround for this?

Just like to say that this makes me as happy as a little girl...or a boy in a field. I'm more pumped now about CMSF 2 than the Normandy game. I'll just be glad to get the hell out of the desert really

Don't disagree with the review at all really. I've had several issues with campaign missions not ending even though I've taken all of the objectives and wiped out virtually all of the enemy. Desert graphics are also blah, and I'm sick of them. TOW 2 looks to do the desert graphics right. Maybe that one will be more interesting. Yes, yes, I know it's a different engine, the first CM2 game, etc. Saying that doesn't change the campaign or the graphics though now does it. I am very hopeful that the next game makes this one look like CMBO...

Also well put. Same thing I do when scanning reviews. If I know I would hate the game to begin with (i.e. dungeon\fantasy games), I wouldn't seek the review out in the first place. Generally if it's reviewed highly on a reputable site, the average of the user reviews are pretty close. If not, dig into it, find some reviews that match your preferences, and find out more. Shunning the 'big' sites like Gamespot isn't going to help anyone. Go on there, post your own reviews, and help people out that want to read an intelligent perspective. If I recall, the first review I read of Combat Mission was on Gamespot. It was very good, I immediately downloaded the demo, and bought the game the instant it was available. I'm sure several others did the same thing. That likely wouldn't have happened had it only been reviewed on The Wargamer and CGO websites.

Nicely put. My 8 year old (while quite young obviously) is a perfect example. Already we play CoH LAN together against the AI. No, he's not great at it, and we don't play very often as I believe getting him outside for sports and activity is far more important than gaming (and my wife hates games), but he loves the game, asks me questions about the men, armies, equipment, etc. and watches the Military channel with me now, not just hockey and football ;-) I started with Panzer General and wanted everything wargame\sim after that. The original CM demo is something I wouldn't even have bothered with had PG not hooked me.

My biggest beef with user reviews is that people post reviews too soon after they've purchased the product. I mean what is the point to giving a washing machine a 10/10 rating for reliability when you've only owned it for 3 days? Another problem is the excess weighting game reviewers give to multiplayer. Many of us never play multiplayer because of the time commitment (mainly trying to find decent people to play with), and because I get my butt whipped by those who play for 18 hours a day. Not so much maybe in sims and wargames, but more mainstream games like Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 are good examples. I don't own either for that very reason. Too much emphasis on multiplayer in the reviews...and I'm not into phoney-baloney space shooters, but I digress. The tables have turned. I remember waaaay back in 1998 when M1 Tank Platoon 2 (a T-72 turkey shoot for sure, but great fun at the time) was reviewed and there was no mention of multiplayer because nobody cared about it (and nobody had high-speed). 'Grogs' seem to like to bash Company of Heroes, but THQ has created a game with great single and multiplayer modes in a very polished, quasi-realistic RTS. Sadly, most of the reviews again focused on the multiplayer. Luckily the demo was good and convinced me to buy it. Anyways, I'm getting off topic here I suppose. Random thought, Steel Beasts with Shock Force unit models (including infantry) would be the ultimate tank sim. M1TP2 got me thinking about that one :-) Any chance you guys would ever do a sim? And I would sell my left dangling appendage (or even Season 5 of Trailer Park Boys...not easy to part with) for a Season 4 of AD . There's at least a million quotes one could use from that series (Tobias is gold), but that one sticks in my head. Two and a Half Men stays on the air and AD gets canceled. Can someone please explain that heinous injustice to me?

But based on the two very good reviews on there, I think I will now be picking up the marine module (even though I'm so sick of playing in the desert). You can always tell when it's some adolescent gansta wannabe punk leaving a review...it usually begins with 'this game roKX!!' and\or it's 'sick' or 'off the hook'. I like reviews sometimes from the bigger sites because really, you're likely to run into more FanBoyz (is that how you spell it?) on a dedicated site like this one. You can always tell by the review whether or not they know what they're talking about.

Isn't this a stand-alone title now? I keep hearing that it's an add-on, but it seems to me it's a new game that won't require the original. Anyone know for sure?

I still see odd behaviour when moving a squad to another building from the one they're in. I never know where they will exit and what path they'll take to get to supposedly adjoined buildings. Even when I try to plot a course for them (say to the back between a wall and the building) they still go around the front, completely exposed to fire and I lose a few guys and\or they get pinned. It'd be nice to see a 'proposed path' indicator or something (ala CoH) showing where they will go if I plot a certain course. This is in RT mode BTW.

Is the Marine module going to be in the desert again? I wanna see some trees and greenery... Also, going building-to-building still needs to be fixed.

I have a GeForce 7600GT and get the same weird shadows, so it's not just ATI.

Did a search and found a few posts on this, but it didn't really clarify anything. One post talks of mounting a CFV? I don't get it. Does this mean I run my commander into a CFV and he will transmit the enemy positions he has previously spotted while dismounted, or does he not need to be dismounted in the first place? Does it work for other vehicles besides the Bradley?

Here's my question: Do modern armies not communicate this info to each other? I'm in the campaign, had a HMMV (w/optics) on a hill overlooking the fairly flat, open terrain. They spot units, but none of my other units can see them, so what's the point? Are we just expected to area fire on these targets? Do these units not use Radios\GPS to communicate enemy positions? I get a little frustrated when I spot an AT weapon from 500m, and yet my Abrams\Bradley\Stryker can't see them from 100m, even after they've been spotted for several minutes. I've even driven right on top of them to no effect. Seems the old eyeballs in WW2 were better than the fancy comms of modern armies. Doesn't seem right to me. Maybe I just don't understand how the 'leaders' work in this game. Do they have a command\communication radius or something?

Agreed. Just played the 1st campaign again. Had the MGS 14m(!) from a Syrian tank, and the MGS could not spot it, nor could the regular Stryker from the same distance, even though it was previously spotted. Couldn't see the MG bunker 20 m away either. It's either a bug, or the crew is legally blind (and not very bright).

I'm curious to know how these are used too. Are they just for spotting? Can they 'conceal' themselves at all (i.e. are they harder for the enemy to spot)? What's best placement for them?

Don't really know why they'd want to make a *ficticious* Syria game and not a much more plausible (back then anyways) Cold War game. Even N Korea vs NATO isn't that far off. They've done the research for most of these weapons already in CMSF have they not? I'm wondering if it wasn't the complexity of the terrain they would need to come up with for a Cold War game? Once they've done it (terrain) for a WW2 game with this engine, I'm sure it will be easy for modders to come up with a CW game. And thanks for the book tips. I'll check them out.

Just finished reading Red Storm Rising (had it forever, just never bothered reading it) and it just made me want a Cold War game even more. Why no Cold War? Would be very interesting, varied, and well-balanced, similar to WW2. Thoughts?

Yah, I tried it a few hours later and it worked fine. I realized how outdated those mods are when I installed them though . The DEY and OSF terrain is much higher res and looks better. Seems that there aren't many options for terrain on the CM MODS site anymore. I heard the site crashed a while back (haven't played CMBB for a few years now...going back to it as it's still the best (only) game out there worth playing). Did they lose a bunch of stuff?