Aufzug Taube

I've been playing the CM games since the very first one and I think this might be the best one yet, even though I've loved every one of the CM games including Shock Force, which so many people seem to dislike for some reason. There are a few minor issues that I have with the game of course, but overall it is absolutely spectacular. Almost every issue that I have with the game is not really with the game itself, but with a few badly designed scenarios in my opinion, like with some scenarios not giving me enough time to finish... I HATE time limits in video games and I find them so frustrating. Nothing is more annoying than having some God-like entity swoop down right at the climactic moment of the battle and tell me that I've lost just because I didn't quite make it to the objective in 40 minutes. It's just so annoying. I mean come on, in real life it could take an entire company of men several hours just to clear out a single apartment building, yet in this game you are expected to assault and clear out whole towns in less than an hour. It makes no sense in a game that claims to be realistic, and it forces the player to treat every scenario like a race, and to use suicidal kamikaze tactics just to make it to the objective in time (this of course depends on the scenario... some scenarios give me more than enough time to move slowly and carefully and still finish). Other than that I've been really enjoying the game so far. Everything about it seems improved from the previous installments. Battles seem to be a lot more unpredictable than in any other CM game. Units will fall back more often, make more intelligent use of cover, and I've seen some really crazy Audie Murphy type stuff happen on occasion, like when a 3-man German forward observer HQ team (one of them with a pistol) wiped out almost half of my entire platoon and forced the rest to surrender or scatter. They waited till just the right moment, after my 2-man scout team walked right past them, then opened fire on the rest of my advancing squad at point blank range, taking down 6 men including the sergeant and forcing the rest to take cover and hide. I tried assaulting the position with the rest of my platoon under covering fire, but right when my assault team made it there and shot one of the Germans, a friendly rifle grenade landed right in the middle of my assault team and killed ANOTHER 6 men. At this point the remaining 2 Germans, including the guy with the pistol, got up and started shooting more of my men at close range as they lay there cowering in the dirt. Then the rest of the platoon either surrendered or scattered while those 2 Germans slipped away into the woods unhurt. Stuff like this really makes the game shine in my opinion, where it shows the chaos and unpredictability of battle. I've seen the AI make some bad decisions every now and then, but I don't really have a problem with that, since real humans make stupid decisions all the time as well. And this is WW2 after all, where you have loads of poorly-trained 17-18 year old draftees all over the place... not exactly professional soldiers. One thing I did find odd though is that the enemy AI used bailed-out tank crews as front-line assault troops on one scenario. They sent the tank crews way out ahead of their main force, firing their pistols all the way at everything that moved. I thought that was a little strange... Overall though, first impressions are very very good. 10 years ago I never would have imagined that I would be playing a game like this, and I can't wait to see all the mods and expansions that come out later.