War Front: Turning Point [PC]

At first glance, you might figure War Front for another one of those sleepy World War II real time strategy games. They usually have a German word in the title, because many of them were made by Germans. But don't be fooled. First of all, these are Hungarians. Second of all, what you're getting here is a surprisingly spirited entry into the genre of Command & Conquer: Generals clones.

It's got all the necessary ingredients: splashy graphics, hearty sound, lots of showy effects, trees that get knocked over by tanks, explodable buildings, and a lively over-the-top sensibility. It follows the three rules of any good action RTS: destruction, destruction, destruction. Don't get too attached to anything, because it's going to be easily countered by something else, and the odds are it's going to blow up real good.

And just to show that this isn't a sleepy WWII game, War Front is set in an alternate history. The point of this concept isn't just that the de-Hitler-ized Germans and Allies banded together to beat the evil Soviets. The more relevant historical twist is that everyone in World War II invented some wacky weapons. The Allies invented earthquake bombs and shield generators, the Soviets invented underground personnel carriers and freeze rays, and the Germans invented mechs and battle zeppelins. That last part bears repeating: battle zeppelins. Not since Red Alert 2 have you seen such glorious battle zeppelins. These sorts of silly toys give War Front a sense of character, even if it does feel freely borrowed.

Given that it plays so fast and loose, it's a bit disappointing that the three sides aren't more distinct. There is, of course, unique artwork for everyone's soldiers and vehicles, including renditions of iconic hardware like the Me-262 jet, Tiger tanks, Shermans, and Katyusha rocket launchers. And there are a few broad differences among the sides. The Allies don't need power, the Soviets specialize in infantry, and the Germans have the heavy tanks. Plus, in case you've forgotten, the Germans get battle zeppelins.

But aside from the occasional unique units, War Front's three sides have a lot in common. Everyone gets light, medium, and heavy tanks; everyone has some sort of ambush infantry ability; everyone has a few similar superpowers. Everyone tends to play alike. Mine your ore, build your power stations, crank out a bunch of units, throw them at the enemy, and enjoy the fireworks. And what fireworks they are. This is a lovely graphics engine, doing day, night, rain, snow, and nukes.

Each side also has heroes with special powers you can level for a touch of Warcraft III styled RPGing. A few units have special powers. There are tech upgrades to boost damage or increase armor. A tech center lets everyone choose among three "war plans". But these sorts of nuances are easily lost in the shuffle. In many ways, the pace in War Front is too hectic to appreciate what's going on. You're just watching the delicate infantry, paper tanks, and balsa wood planes killing and being killed.

A system of effective counters keeps the action fast and constantly changing. You might have a swarm of infantry suddenly killed by rockets, so you build a few tanks to take out his rockets, so he builds AT emplacements to stop your tanks, so you bomb them with aircraft, so he builds fighters to shoot your strike planes down, so you send in anti-aircraft trucks to take out his fighters, and so on. It's a lot of back-and-forth that doesn't necessarily come down to which player is making the most money. Again, the three rules of an action RTS: destruction, destruction, destruction.