Cossacks
II Napoleonic Wars.
By
CDV.
Reviewed
By Steve Crofts.
Well it’s finally here! The Napoleonic version of the
excellent game Cossacks.
What’s
it like, well first of all the trailer, this is done using video of a
re-enactors battle and is pretty good to watch, although in my personal opinion
it isn’t needed.
The
menu screens are well presented, easy to read and navigate.
There
are two choices of gameplay,
Whilst
on the subject of morale, one thing I did find annoying was the little morale
numbers that keep appearing above each individual soldier during combat and when
taking fire, another annoying feature are the fleeing words that appear over
different soldiers as they rout, “run for life!” etc…. Amusing the first
couple of time but annoying after a while.
One
thing I do particularly like is the ranging tool, this is extremely useful when
planning your volley, it is colour coded, yellow, long range, Green, Effective,
and Red, Close, obviously the most devastating volley is at close range, and
gets worse the further away the target.
Volleys
have to be timed perfectly, loading takes a while so timing is crucial, terrain
effects are well represented within the game, swamps/ marshes slow troops down,
but they can also extinguish the fuses on cannon balls, stopping the ball from
exploding, Hills increase the range of both musketry and cannon, so high ground
can prove useful to say the least.
Graphics
are very good and have improved since the original game, trees sway in the win
ect… infact a would say they are as good if not better than those on
Blitzkreig burning Horizons, and those who have played the original games will
find the gameplay familiar yet also in some ways different, either way I do
suggest playing through the tutorials a couple of times before playing a
skirmish, Battle , Campaign or online. It does take a bit of getting used to but
you pick up the nitty gritty along the way, but also the tutorials can be fun!
There
are quite a number of Napoleonic Battles to have a crack at,
and although I’ve not tried one yet, (only had the game two weeks!),
I am looking forward to pitting my wits against the computer or net
players in refights, (when I think I’m good enough that is!).
There
is also a nice little campaign system to have a go at, movement is done by
plotting on a map, units can be bought and cities fortified, this would be an
excellent item to try via network with your mates, diplomacy is available to
each player so alliances can be made or broken, Battles are fought in the normal
way on screen and the victor taking or keeping the disputed territory.
A
nice neat little game within a game!
As
I have just mentioned, Internet gaming is available as is Network gaming, so you
don’t just have to settle for playing against the computer.
I
reckon you need at least 1GB Ram to play the game very fluently, obviously if
you have lower than the specified minimums the game will be almost impossible to
play due to the vast amounts of troops in the game.
Overall
I feel the game is pretty good although I personally would have left out the
video clips and the Morale numbers and printed
comments above the soldiers heads, as these are quite tiresome, apart from that,
well it gets a thumbs up from me!
System
Requirements
CPU:
PIV 1.5 GHz (2.4 GHz recommended).
RAM:
512MB RAM (768MB recommended).
VIDEO
CARD: T&L 1024x768, 64MB (128MB recommended).
SOUND
CARD: Direct X 8.1 Compatible.
CD-ROM:
12 x or faster.
OS:
WIN 98/ME/2000/XP
HARD
DRIVE: 2GB free space
DIRECT
X: Direct X 8.1 minimum.
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