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Game overview
![Call Of War 1942 Game Review Call Of War 1942 Game Review](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125600883/534453284.jpg)
Call of War: 1942 is a strategy game set during World War 2. You build, you expand, you go to war, and yes – you exploit. Call of War is most definitely a 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) game, and even if that genre isn’t quite familiar to you, you’ve probably heard of another immensely popular 4X game: Civilization. Call of War takes the concepts of a 4X game and applies them to a free-to-play model.
➔ Main points:
Aug 07, 2017 It is up to you which way you choose! Fans of the board games like “Risk” or “Axis & Allies” will love playing Call of War. Every player can play multiple rounds at the same time to try out new strategies. Fight with your friends in private rounds or prove yourself in open rounds. Start today and rewrite history in Call of War! This game looks very simplistic but this one actually is a strategy game instead of just a p2w 'RTS' game like you.
- Browser-based 4X strategy game
- Matches last weeks
- Set during WWII
- Light system requirements
Full review
Going to War
You start off in Call of War by choosing which region you want to call your own, and the game automatically sets you up with a selection of territories and cities with which you can construct buildings and train troops. You’re going to need those infantrymen and armored tanks, too, to conquer the world. Or at least to wage war against someone who’s trying to do the same.
Look at all those provinces.
You could certainly play Call of War as you would most other 4X games, by being entirely passive, developing the most sophisticated sovereign nation on the planet. Of course, your military force would likely falter, and then you’d likely get squashed like a highly civilized bug. So yes, in Call of War – as is the case with most games of its nature – you want to carry a big stick even if you plan to never use it. Just have that thing ready to swing.
Dangerous Liaisons
Whenever you’d like, you can open the diplomacy window to get a view of any other players in the same game as you, their current power, as well as your relationship with them. From there, you can either go down a peaceful or not-so-peaceful route. There’s also the World Herald – a newspaper that gives you a good glimpse into the goings-on in your little bubble of the war-torn world. Naturally, the world is yours to do with as you please. Though Call of War is set during WWII, you’re by no means obligated to follow a similar route. Veer off the timeline as much or as little as you’d like.
A Snail’s Pace
Much like actual war, Call of War is a slow-going game for anyone who doesn’t want to dump cash into it. Constructing buildings, producing units, and conducting research is typically no quick task, and some of those tasks require more than a week before you can even start them. While most free-to-play games of this nature tend to ease you in as they try their best to get their hooks in you, not Call of War. It wastes no time before having you wait over 24-hours to produce a simple infantry unit. Waiting is fine in most of these games – it comes with the territory – but in this case, the waiting comes too quickly while simultaneously giving you little to do in the interim.
And in some ways, a slower-paced free-to-play game like this might be better suited for multiplayer than something like Civilization. In the case of that game, everyone involved must set aside potentially hours for a full game to play out, something that’s surely hard to coordinate. That, or you just save constantly and return to it whenever you can – which is something that is unlikely to play out. Call of War is much easier to step away from (even for a full day).
Maybe for certain gamers this isn’t a negative.
It’s certainly the type of experience that allows you to check in with it once or twice a day, make sure everything is honky-dory, and then leave it alone for another day or two.
In other words, it’s a true casual experience. Of course, you can expedite everything the game offers, too, by means of gold. Call of War does give you a decent amount to start off with, allowing you to get a decent boost when you first start playing, but that gold won’t last forever, especially if you want to rush research on some key technologies.
The Look of Things
It's basically a board game.
Graphically, Call of War utilizes a minimalistic 2D style highly inspired by board games such as Risk. It’s clean, responsive, and does a pretty good job of relaying pertinent info to you without overburdening you with advertisements or offers or any of that junk. The grindy hooks of infinite waiting might be there, but Call of War doesn’t do much in the way of shoving it in your face, which is something it should be lauded for. Of course, the fact that a player can choose to give themselves such a ridiculous advantage over other players by paying should be acknowledged, even if it’s a pervasive aspect to these types of games.
Conclusion
As free-to-play 4X games go, Call of War doesn’t really try to do anything new or original, and its slow nature will likely drive away anyone looking to play it more actively, but for anyone looking for the type of game to play once or twice a day while you busy yourself with work, school, or any other endeavors, then maybe consider heeding the Call of War.
(Special Note: Call of War has a Steam version set to release on Oct 19th, 2017.)
Ready to enter the world of Call of War? Click here to play now! (Special Note: Call of War has a Steam version set to release on Oct 19th, 2017.)
Released 23 May 2019
Call of Duty 2 released so long ago, the series has left WW2, gone 'Black Ops', come back to WW, and now is leaving it again with a reboot of Modern Warfare. However, it still remains possibly the best single-player FPS set within that particular conflict. And for many, it’s still the greatest Call of Duty multiplayer experience. With that in mind, where does the recently released Battalion 1944 stand?
You may have heard of this tiny, insignificant conflict called 'World War Two'. As we all know from the movies, it took place in Normandy, which is the part of France that isn’t Paris. That’s where Americans landed on one heavily defeated beach and eventually defeated Nazism through citizen soldiers and general willingness to ride into battle in death traps. The game wears this obscure conflict as a skin draped over its twitch-shooting framework. Since Battalion 1944 is a pure multiplayer title, there’s no plot or single player mode. You drop into a match, usually facing off in 6v6 battles. There is a variety of classical game modes, such as Capture the Flag, Domination, Team Deathmatch and so on. If you have ever played a single multiplayer shooter, you’re probably familiar with all of them.
However, since Battalion tries to recreate the sweet memories of owning noobs in Call of Duty 2, it’s not infected by Skinner-box mechanics of class and gun unlocks from the later titles in the series. No, your loadout depends on your weapon of choice – and by loadout, I mean the amount of grenades you carry. For example, the 'Inferior SMG class' (that’s Grease Guns and MP-28s) has the biggest collection of them to throw around.
Generally, players will gravitate towards the 'assault rifle' class, as everyone wants to have that StG44. The Americans get to lug around the BAR instead. Since it’s a twitch shooter, you’ll be dead long before you notice the lower ammo capacity or have any issues with it. Sniper rifles – and their quick-scoping bearers – are also a common appearance, and you will learn to hate them.
Soviet levels offer some cool interiors.
There is some weirdness to some weapon classes, like the Americans and the Germans sharing the same shotgun, or M1 Carbine being judged to be roughly equivalent to Gewehr 43. Oh, and since the Americans in Normandy didn’t use a bolt action rifle, the M1 Garand (semi-automatic, 8 round clip) is pitted against Kar98k (bolt-action, 5 rounds). Fun fact: to maintain that CoD2 experience, you can’t reload the Garand before you run out of ammo. It’s PING or nothing, baby.
A bit more variety was introduced recently when the devs remembered that the Eastern Front was also something that probably happened in World War II. This meant adding Soviet skins and models into the game, as well as a few new maps. Unfortunately, the Germans weren’t provided with winter camo in this game, so they’ll run around snowy ruins in verdant green.
But like I mentioned before, Battalion 1944 is a twitch-shooter’s twitch shooter. If you have time to process the fact that you can see the enemy, you’re probably already dead. You will see a surprising amount of headshots via long range StG44 or even SMG shots. You will learn to clear corners by jumping and turning. You’ll probably find a way to comfortably bind the 'prone' key, as doing so in the midst of an active fire fight is a good tactic. Oh, and you should remember that cars belong to the class of cover that’s penetrable by bullets. I got a few kills that way!
A rare bug rears its head in the most alternate history way.
Another curious thing about combat is that grenades are more of an area denial weapon than something that scores kills. I think I’ve only been killed by them once, and I’m a player who always tops the death ratings in any match not involving bots.
Now, you won’t be just running around in a boundless void. For the maps, you will see the recreations of all the Normandy hot spots you know. There’s the Seaside Bunker, the Country Chateau, The Seaside Town, Some Bunker In A Forest (Possibly On A Numbered Hill) as well as such outliers as Actually, This Is Set In Urban Terrain and the Soviet Maps. There’s a decent amount of verticality, and while there will be fire lines for all the budding snipers out there, the usual skill level of a Battalion 1944 player means that a scoped Springfield is actually quite the close combat weapon. Even in such cramped maps as Derailed (the aforementioned urban map), there will be several lanes of advance, allowing you to capture said flag without ever seeing the enemy. You just have to know the map!
As far as my experience goes, the spawn points are very random. In effect, sometimes you will spawn next to the enemy base in Capture the Flag, ready to pounce on the banner as soon as whichever teammate of yours that’s carrying it gets dropped. More often, you’ll get spawn-camped, even if the enemy does it unintentionally.
You should also pay some attention to the minimap. It displays the map of the place, your teammates and their facing, their health level (via the intensity of the color of their marker) and whether they’re firing, as well as the last known location of enemy fire. So if you’re careful (and lucky), you can actually outflank a firefight in progress. Remember: run and then jump around the corner for maximum benefit.
As you play the game and rack up points (and level up), Battalion 1944 will award you loot boxes. Those hold a weapon skin each, coming in several varieties of rarity and state. Some of the alternate skins are quite nice and not too outlandish, but before long, you’ll see rainbow-faded metallic BARs and pearlescent Lugers (you should drop the pistol as soon as you encounter a better weapon on the ground). It’s nice that there’s less of a loot treadmill involved in the game. Now, if you want to be engaged harder, Faceit provides the backing for the ranked segment of the game, and folks online seem to like it enough.
Capture The Flag Or Help Someone Else Do It Instead.
Battalion 1944 isn’t the prettiest of games, however. It certainly shows that it wasn’t cranked out by a AAA studio, though I guess that works well enough for the type of game that it is. Small maps and low numbers of players should not tax your PC, and as we all know, every FPS counts. Of course, it would help if there was some variety to player models or if they didn’t all wear comically large armbands with a flag.
In the end, Battalion 1944 is a good-enough FPS for those who are tired of all the hoops one has to jump through in, say, Call of Duty: WWII. The experience here pared down to the core, where split second reactions and accuracy rule the day, while anything outside of the shooting experience is merely in the background. It’s not my cup of tea, but it might be yours.
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