Close Combat: The Battle of the Bulge

The Good
They finally introduced airstrikes! This was such a critical part of WW2, it's about time they added it to the CC series. The strategic map offers some interesting possibilities. After that though, it goes downhill...

The Bad
They took CC3, removed everything that made it great, and gave us this. Playing from the US side will give you nothing but frustration (I haven't even played from the German side yet because the US side is so hard).

They gave us the dumbed-down names for all the units: instead of seeing "M4 Sherman", you now get "Medium Tank". Yes, you can rename all the units, but that'll take forever and the new names won't "stick" if you lose the mission and have to replay, so then you have to rename all 15 units again. ARGH!

Playing from the US side is practically impossible. You're facing almost nothing but German tanks and halftracks, and yet you have practically no Anti-Tank weapons to face them!!! The best weapons the US has are AT guns, but you can only get a maximum of about 2 in a battle group and the German tanks have X-Ray vision so they can destroy anything in a building, even if it would be impossible for them to know there was anything in the building in reality. GRRRR!!

That's another thing... why did they take the Requisition System out?!?! My most favorite part of CC3 was building up an awesome and diverse force through Requisition Points that would be a good mix of infantry, tanks, and support units, all of which had a lot of AT ability. You can't do this anymore. You have absolutely no say in what forces you are given. ARGH!

The US might as well not even have any tanks. They are absolutely worthless. IF you have a US Tank Battle Group vs. a German one, you will lose every time. In most cases, the best you can do is just break even. It is historically accurate that the US tanks were nothing compared to the German ones, but they need to somehow represent that the US outnumbered the Germans (although at the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge the US was outnumbered, but they did bring in reinforcements). You gradually get more tank units over the course of the game, but there just aren't enough. Almost every German BG is a tank BG. This is compounded by the fact that of the US Infantry BGs, you will probably have only 1 or 2 AT guns, and maybe 1 or 2 bazooka units (which are totally worthless. They only have 4 rounds, and will almost always miss every time).

What makes the US tanks so worthless is that their armor is like paper (some are "open-topped" so that they can be destroyed simply with machinegun fire... what's the point of that???), their turrets turn more slowly, they're slower, they react faaar more slowly to attack, and they take more thank twice as long as a German tank to reload. The last thing is the most frustrating, because if you have two tanks firing at each other, the German tank will always win. The only hope you have from the American side is to somehow surprise the German tank, but the surprise will literally only last for one shot (which, if it hits, will not destroy the German tank but bounce off), because the German tank will quickly rotate its turret and knock out your tank in one shot. GGGGGRRRRR!

Playing from the American side is just not fun.

Airstrikes and artillery barrages are pretty much useless too. An artillery barrage "consists of 4 80mm mortars firing at once" for 40-60 rounds around an area you designate. The problem is, they never hit anything! Airstrikes are similar: a single aircraft is randomly selected (for the US, it could be a P-38, P-51, P-51, or B-26; for the Germans, Bf-109, Ar-234, Me-262, or FW-190), it flies out to the target, and makes one attack run (bombs, rockets, machine guns, or cannons) and flies off. If they're gonna try to make it historically accurate, they could at least send 2 or 3 planes, or 1 plane that makes several passes over the target. Some people on the message forum complain that airstrikes make it too easy, but in my experience of probably 40 missions, I've only been able to call in about 4 airstrikes and only 2 have hit anything.

If a tank/vehicle is destroyed, the crew will bail out but they move to the nearest cover and will not respond to any orders. In all the previous CCs, you could order them around and have them reinforce your lines. This is totally unacceptable. Why did they remove this? What were they thinking?? (Note: a patch has been released that fixes this so that you can issue orders to them.)

There's really not much to like about this game from the American side. There are probably more things I could say, but I think these will be enough to show you what a poor entry in the CC series this is.

The Bottom Line
Buy CC3 instead!

The Good
Close Combat IV was the fourth of five Close Combat games. The first two now seem very crude. The third remains the fan's favourite, and is biggest in scope of all the games, encompassing the entire Germany vs Russia conflict. The fourth game introduced a new graphics engine, with well-drawn units fighting over well-drawn maps which nowadays resemble something from Google Earth. The fifth game fixed all the faults of the fourth game, and is on a par with the third game, although its scenario - Utah beach and the Cotentin Penisula, in north-west France - was relatively small-scale. The people who made the game split up, and the publishing company went bust. The games have a dwindling fan following today.

I played Close Combat V extensively before finding a copy of Close Combat IV, which is unfortunate for CCIV. The latter game is a comprehensive improvement on CCIV, and similar enough to make it obsolete. The few good things about CCIV are impressive only when viewed in its historical context; although the game introduced a new, impressive graphics engine, and a wide range of dramatic sound effects. The other things which at first seem good are actually not good at all, as I shall now explain in tedious detail.

The Bad
One of the problems is scale. The previous games emphasised close-range infantry combat, whereas CCIV is very much a tank-on-tank affair; or, at the very least, tanks are the decisive factor in each battle. The problem is that is that Close Combat's engine does not scale up to tank combat at realistic ranges; tanks and anti-tank guns can engage themselves from outside the boundaries of the screen, and despite scrolling around like a frantic ant I often found my tanks being unexpectedly blown up by distant guns. The computer has no problem determining which angles provide cover and concealment at long ranges, but you are always handicapped because you are a human being, a limited thing of blood and bone. The hands-on feeling of the other games is often absent, because your tank crews are usually better at spotting distant enemies than yourself. The gameplay often degenerates into a dull, static round of cat and mouse, as you hide your tanks away, hoping that the enemy makes a mistake.

There are infantry units, but they do not play a major part in the game, except as scouts. The American and German anti-tank bazooka teams tend to be shot up before they can bring their weapons to bear. The terrain is covered in snow and devoid of trees and bushes, and so there is no cover apart from a few buildings; again, this lends itself to a game of long-range gunfire, which is easier for the computer than yourself.

The second problem is that theatre itself. The Battle of the Bulge was a dramatic event, but it does not make for a dramatic computer game. The real-life battle started off with a crushingly powerful German assault, which bogged down and was followed by a crushingly powerful Allied counter-attack. A good wartime should take place in a strategic situation where each individual battle could go either way. However, playing the grand campaign as the Americans, you will initially lose and lose and lose, because you will only have access to light infantry, whilst the Germans have great quantities of Panther tanks and tank destroyers. This is historically accurate, but it makes for a frustrating game. It is possible to hold up the computer's advance, but this seems to have more to do with the computer's duff AI than any heroics on your part, which makes for a series of hollow, disappointing victories.

Playing as the Germans, you have plenty of tanks, but the computer's mastery of long-range gunnery works against you. Either way, it is a frustrating experience. Perhaps this is historically accurate; I'm sure the real battle was very hard and full of unexpected death and defeat. But other games, such as "Combat Mission", get this point across more thoroughly and fairly, whereas CCIV just seems arbitrary and frustrating.

Duff AI. Tanks, in particular, are irritating. You order them forwards, and they reverse. You order them forwards again, and instead they turn slowly to the left, whilst their turrets counter-rotate. Then, the tank will advance into battle; but backwards, having rotated all the way around, presenting its weakest face to the enemy. The tank AI seems to have terrible trouble with the idea of independently-traversing turrets, and it often gets confused. Frequently I found myself winning battles not because of my great tactical acumen, but because the enemy tanks would refuse to advance. They would slowly spin around, move forwards, reverse, spin around etc, in a loop.

Historically, the most common American tanks were not as powerful as the best German tanks, which in turn were at a considerable quantitative disadvantage, and were at the mercy of allied air support and a tenuous supply of fuel. In CCIV, this is modelled to such an extent that the American Shermans are at a loss as to defeat the German Panthers, whilst conversely the American Jumbo Shermans are immune to almost anything the Germans can put up against it. The result is a series of battles where one super-tank, placed in a strategic location, can bring everything to a complete halt. You cannot advance, because you will be destroyed. The computer opponent is unable to mount a proper attack, and you end up waiting for the clock to count down. The other Close Combat games were much more dynamic, and there was always something you could try, some avenue you could exploit. But here, the open nature of the terrain and the dominance of tanks and long-range gunfire brings everything to a halt.

There are other faults, which are mostly of a picky variety. Unlike CCIII and CCV, you have no choice over which units you choose to bring to a battle. The artillery and air strikes are really just special effects. The game makes

The Bottom Line
I believe this game is still available from Amazon.com, although it will be very hard to find in the shops, as SSI went bust. The company was one of those long-term survivors from the age of black and white cinema - like Digital Integration, Psion, Sierra On-Line etc - which was killed by television. I believe it is now part of Ubi Soft, having been bought and sold several times.

Still, the game. CCIV is essentially a dry run for the superior CCV, which in turn seems a bit shallow compared to Combat Mission, which is conceptually similar, but more hardcore, and in 3D. It's frustrating, and inferior to its sequel in every way. There is a popular "veteran's mod" for the game, which is about 76mb large and makes it harder but fairer, and it's not quite as bad played with the mod, but it's still not worth it. Fans of the series prefer CCIII and I agree with them.

The Good
This game is simply amazing. You get to micro-manage your troops, without feeling frustrated or overburdened.

Your men do not blindly follow your orders. They have realistic feeling when they are under fire. They run for cover, they get scared, and they even give up if they are overpowered. This game is definitely unique in that sense, since most strategy games have units go wherever you command them to without questions.

Tank battles are simply awesome in this game. I remember once when I was up against a German Panther (I believe it was a Panther) tank. It was a vicious fight as all my tanks were destroyed by this monster German tank. It came down to just one two-man bazooka team. I thought I had it good when the Panther was rolling next to the team on its flank. I take aim, and suddenly my guys get scared and takes cover. The Panther notices them and starts moving to kill them with its machine guns. I tossed some smokes to try and avoid it and it killed the assistance for the bazooka. I thought I was done as I desperately tried to pull my man to the flank of the tank. Suddenly, the man got the courage to launch the bazooka on the tank’s flank. The tank blew up, and I couldn’t believe it. It was probably the most exciting times for me in the game.

I played all the Close Combat games, and I really liked this one the most since it is very good. Years ago when I played the game, I thought the graphics were incredible.

The Bad
Well there’s some things wrong with The Battle of the Bulge. First of which is that in custom missions, you have to select the battalion you want, rather then being able to select individual squad types like in Close Combat 3.

The next problem isn’t really a problem with the game, but with the fact that you feel bad when your men die. In the game, you get to pick two sides, German or American. In both sides, the troops are actually given realistic names. It feels kind of bad when your entire squad is wiped out and you look over the name and think about what it was like in real life when an entire squad just dies in the woods.

The Bottom Line
This game is simply awesome. If you can, get the entire series as they are all good. I can’t find another game that’s like this game. Simply amazing piece of game that’s really hard to find a equal.

The Good
Extremely tense, close scenarios; top-down view (which I vastly prefer to cheesy, pseudo-3D views for getting an idea of what's going on on the battlefield); two very different sides (different quality of troops, different types of arms and vehicles, different objectives); airborne units kick butt (smart enough to pick up German Panzefäuste, so they can even knock out Tigers, but only once per unit)

The Bad
The amount of stomach acid each scenario can build up....

The Bottom Line
Contrary to the previous reviewer, I would say that with patience, a good gamer who knows a little bit about military history or tactics can win as either side. An impatient gamer who doesn't want to learn a little from experience is likely to find this game infuriatingly painful. Keep you infantry under cover until they have a good shot: make the enemy come to you. Similarly for American armor --- of course Shermans and Hellcats can knock out Panthers and even Tigers, but they have to do it from close range, shooting at the back of the German tank if possible, and preferably from defilade. After a few weeks of playing this game, I could win any of the scenarios, and the campaign, as the Americans.... but the cost is high.

The best endorsement I can give this game is that in 2001, I had a business trip to Brussels, and made a point of spending a day in the Ardennes to see some of the places where these actions were really fought. Go and see the monument raised by the people of Belgium to the memory of the victims of the Malmédy massacre, with its inscription about Nazi bestiality, and just see if that doesn't charge you up to win as the Americans the next time you play.