WWII titles typically tend to come in two types of flavors … strategy or FPS based. While many of the FPS games like Medal of Honor typically tend to get a little more attention overall, the RTS titles are just as enjoyable to the people who love them. One title that has been released by Matrix Games is Eric Young’s Squad Assault: West Front for PC, which offers a good amount of RTS / TBS gameplay and some fun campaign settings.

Squad Assault takes place in WWII France, and allows you to play as the Axis or Allied armies with each country involved at that time represented (France, Germany, U.S., Britain, and Canada). Your mission is to command your forces and move through each of the different locations and help your group win the West Front conflict. Now, most of the Matrix games titles that I’ve played recently revolving around WWII have been in more of a board game format, but this one is different.

Squad Assault plays out like many RTS based titles (there is the option to pause as you play to make it a little more turn based if you prefer), where you control squads of soldiers with the click of the mouse and order them to do things like attack, defend, hide, ambush, and move. Overall there are 9 campaigns and 2 tutorials to play through in WWII, each one having various different mission objectives like capturing bridges, breaking through heavily fortified enemy lines, or even capturing different victory points (flags) along the way. You have a variety of troops at your disposal, including tanks, mortars, artillery, and your standard foot soldier units to move, position, and attack according to what you feel is the best strategy.

One of the really neat things about Squad Assault was the amount of detail that they did in the various troop types and abilities that each one had. When you first begin a scenario, you are presented with a pool of forces to choose from, and you select based on the mission briefing and what you feel may be the best option for the mission. For example, if you are looking to breach a strongly secured enemy area, it makes sense to focus on making sure that you have enough mortar or artillery support to help your soldiers move in and do what needs to be done. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses, and there are of course lots of different ways to use each troop type depending on what you feel will work best for your situation.

Another really nifty feature to Squad Assault is the “psychological modeling” done with each of the various troop types that are at your command. For example, you may have a squad that is doing really well moving across the landscape killing enemies and capturing waypoints. When this happens, the squad members tend to be a bit more stable and heroic since they and their commander are doing well. On the flipside, if a unit gets pinned down or takes a lot of losses, remaining soldiers may freak out and get panicked … and sometimes just try and run away from the situation rather than keeping their heads on straight in order to avoid getting killed. It was pretty accurate in my opinion, and added a lot more to the gameplay.

Additionally, they also added in the ability to modify and create your own maps and scenarios to use, which helps to maximize the overall gameplay experience and give you more control over how you want to play. There is also the ability host or join a multiplayer game over LAN or internet so that you and a friend can duke it out online.

One thing that I really found to be a little frustrating at times was the AI. While it is pretty accurate, it can also lead to some issues for both you and your opponents. One option that you have with your squads is to hide, and I would try to use this option to get behind bushes or cover … but I still wound up taking fire from enemies. In addition, troop AI tends to make them move however it feels best to do so, and sometimes this included my unit fanning out and moving in routes that I really thought were a little too scattered and didn’t make a lot of sense. In addition, troops didn’t seem to be too intent on firing at enemy attackers unless I told them to, which just produced a higher body count for me.

Another thing that I wish would have been done is the ability to separate your troops individually if needed. Since an option that you have is to defend, and some missions have you going after waypoints, it would have been nice to leave a person or two behind to guard the area. In addition, it would have helped out a lot in being able to send lone individuals into the field to check for bad guys rather than running the risk of losing an entire platoon to an unseen aggressor. 

Overall, fans of games like G.I Combat (I found this title to be almost identical in many ways … check out the review, screens etc. here: http://www.gamezone.com/gzreviews/r18040.htm ) will have fun with Squad Assault. It provides some fun WWII strategic gameplay and offers enough realism for the armchair general or casual RTS style player to enjoy. While the AI can be frustrating at times and there were some things I would have liked to see done, the overall feel of the game and detail that was put into it offer some good hours of gaming.

Gameplay: 7.0
Squad Assault gives you the ability to choose from a variety of different forces to complete your missions in the best way that you feel it can be done. Each can perform a variety of move and attack functions, like smoke bombs, firing on enemies, moving cautiously or a full out assault. The AI posed some challenges both in my enemies and in my own troops, and the lack of ability to be able to leave a man or two behind to provide some defense or scouting options was not present … which would have been nice.

Graphics: 6.9
Graphically, Squad Assault looks OK overall. The environments contain various elements of cover like trees, abandoned buildings, and rows of bushes or hedges to try and hide behind. The detail wasn’t quite as good as some other similar titles that I’ve played, and water effects looked especially less than average. In addition, troop detail looked nice, but animation and movement was OK at times, and really choppy at times, even when they were moving in the same platoon.

Sound: 7.7
I particularly liked the music tracks for this game, and thought that they did a good job in setting the overall tone of the title. The background noises that played as you moved along trying to complete your missions consisted of gunfire and explosions, and troops would also yell out orders as they moved towards their objectives.

Difficulty: Medium
The AI issues tend to make it a little more difficult than it needed to be, but all that aside the challenge comes in the fact that you’re not going to be able to sit down and run through it in one setting. The ability to pick and choose your personal platoons helps in making it up to you on how you feel the best way to achieve your goals and win the game.

Concept: 7.0
I thought that there was a lot of attention paid to detail in the overall gameplay element of the game, and would have liked to see some of the issues addressed prior to release. I felt that it was very, very closely related to G.I Combat, so people who have played that will have a good idea of what they are getting ready to get into.

Multiplayer: N/A
As I stated before, the multiplayer option is there and available through both Internet and LAN. Since games are hosted through www.wargamer.com, you register as a player and find opponents through e-mail. I only saw one other player registered and didn’t have the opportunity to play a multiplayer game at the time of this review.

Overall: 7.4
For you WWII strategy fans, this is a fun title (even with some issues) and will provide some good enjoyment, fun, and replayability. For fans of games like … you guessed it … G.I. Combat, you should enjoy this title as well. For you action / godsim buffs … this may not be exactly what you are looking for in a strategy title, so if you decide to buy it make sure that you hang onto the receipt just in case.