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• gamedeal user

  May 20, 2014

  With help of the manual, tutorial messages and forum you have made it past the clunky UI of the operations map. Your units have been resupplied, at least most of them, and you figure out that it will have to do for whatever is coming next. You arrive on the battlefield at 06:48 a.m., the morning mist creates a surreal look of the environment. Will you even be able to make contact with the enemy? You wanted to take your time and encircle him, at least secure your flanks. But he surprised you and attacked first... Are his units as battered as yours or did he bring reinforcements in without you knowing it? You have no idea about what`s coming at you... One thing is sure, however, you don`t want to let objectives Amethyst and Malachite fall into enemy hands. So, you decide to split your forces in two battlegroups. One is worn out, but has better equipment left and the other one... well, they are rookies, but you don`t have anything else. And the tank, what will you do with the tank? Should he try to break a possible attack in the first minutes or do you keep him in reserve, as a last option when everything else has failed? You decide to leave the tank behind and use him as a wild card, if one of your battle groups is wavering. Both task forces are set up along the way to the objectives, based on the environment you found good ambush spots and hope that the enemy will pass through them. You are confident with the way you placed your forces, the only thing which makes you worry is ...both battlegroups are separated by around 3 kms. 07:14 a.m. and still no contact. You chose the most battered squad and send them on a recon run in the hope to get a position of the enemy`s assault force. 20 minutes later you are sure, the opponents main attack will hit the rookies... What will you do with your units of the second road block? Should they hold their position in case of enemy activity, should they rush for aid to help their fellow comrades at the first road block? 5 minutes later you are still not sure, if you need the second ambush point at all? Meanwhile forward elements of the enemy have made contact with your weaker task force. Mortar rounds are pouring in on them, the whole task force is in danger of just being swept away. You decide to mobilize the units of the second ambush point. It seems to be more important to support your buddies than waiting for an enemy who might not even arrive. But it`s 3 kms through rough terrain, will they make it in time? And what about the tank? The tank will maintain his position and you decide to only use him in case of utmost emergency. In the meantime the mortar fire on the first task force has stopped and it looks like for the moment they can defend their position. Battlegroup No. 2 is still on its way and around 1,5 kms out. Suddenly, they receive fire from a small forest and you think about dealing with them first or to continue to their original objective which was "helping out those rookie guys". It looks like the rookies earn their stripes and haven`t moved back an inch, you decide to clear out the forest to secure the flank of the rookies. Halftracks are moving in, infantry disembarks and you follow them into the misty forest. The halftrack with the much needed 7,5 cm gun takes the first hit, it goes up in flames you can only feel pity for the ejecting guys. Yet, you don`t know what hit it. Infantry is continuing their march into the woods when they suddenly spot an AT gun, secured by an HMG. Your people are in the line of fire of both guns and hit the ground earlier than you could order them to fall back. They are pinned down, one by one is being taken out, but still, they are crawling towards the guns and still push forward. Of course it has to be like this way, while your second task force plays hide-and-seek in the forest the rookies are giving in to the pressure and it looks like the line is ...vanished. Time for the tank! You have high hopes for the steel beast to turn the tide of battle in your favor. Eagerly you follow your tank while it uses the road for faster movement. After about 100 m something explodes around the tank, you zoom in just to find out that the enemy has secretly managed to sneak engineers through your lines. The tank treads are gone... Why didn`t you at least spare a squad to secure the tank? You will never know, meanwhile the tank, stationary like a AT gun, is fighting for survival. The engineers throwing everything they have, ...but miss. Burning spots around the tank, but the crew inside manages to stay calm and takes out the enemy one by one until he surrenders. The tank didn`t live up to your expectations, but, at least he is not lost. Unfortunately that can`t be said about the units in the forest. They have overcome both guns, but at what cost? After having sacrificed 70% of their strength you move them back to the halftracks, let them embark and try to save the rest of what`s left of task force 1. There is not much shooting anymore around the first ambush point, it seems both sides are exhausted. A few minutes later the halftracks finally arrive at your first battlegroup and bring much needed support, though tiny in numbers. But, as soon as the first vehicles open fire the enemy is offering a cease-fire. Will you accept it and call it a day, ...or, what if, the enemy is close to break? Should you risk to go all-in with your tiny relieve force and take a not so glory victory back home? You decide to go in for the kill and, at least this time you were right, soon after the transported infantry disembarks and joins the fight the enemy surrenders, the battle is won. It is 08:33 a.m., you lost 85% of your combat strength and you think about, if there`s enough left to continue at all. Then you notice that your enemy lost even more... For the battles to come you will adapt, ..and you will repair your tank. And you won`t make the same mistake twice. And, since this round lasted almost 2 hours, there`s still laundry to do and your wife needs help with the kids, you decide to leave the game behind for now. Yet, you surely will return. You lost 85% of your troops but you feel like General of the Month... At least until your wife enters the room and recites the "today`s to-do list" in front of you...
• gamedeal user

  Jun 9, 2014

  I had this game on Gamersgate and bought it again just for the convenience of Steam, and to support the devs. It is great! Imagine ... Total War with WWII soldiers, but smaller scale and very realistic ... imagine ... Company of Heroes but without all the silliness of spawning units. You have a map, like a chessboard, on which you control various platoons. When battle occurs, you get a top down view from miles in the air, and you can zoom right in to see individual men. Tactics are paramount. Very tough! Unforgiving, but with great replayability, because small decisions can have big long-term effects, and dead men and broken vehicles don't just appear again next move. There is very detailed hit modelling for vehicles, and the devs patch to improve things like the way grenades interact with tree branches! If you like real time strategy but don't like cartoonish exaggeration ... if you like realistic WWII games in which your tactical skill makes all the difference ... if you want to hear lonely dogs howl in the darkness of a Russian village as men die in the snow ... This is a game for you.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 7, 2014

  Rating: A Graviteam Tactics is a game that used to be called Achtung Panzer, but after some sort of nonsense involving the old publisher, they had to change the name when it went on Steam. Or something. I don't know the specifics. But it's a good game. More people should know about it. It's not very accessible and the UI is confusing, but once you get the hang of it, it's a good time. Though I'll admit, after nearly 25 hours so far, I still don't totally know what I'm doing. That speaks partly to the game's depth, but also how to the lack of transperancy regarding mechanics. At its most superficial level, it's kind of like a Total War game set in World War II. But it's a lot more of a sim than Total War is, and the design intent is very different. The Ukrainian fellows who made Graviteam Tactics are well known in sim nerd circles for their tank simulators, at least one of which used to be on Steam but doesn't seem to be any more and I don't know why. Their obsession with WWII and tank damage models served them well for making a game of a grander scale, where you command little germans or little soviets in squads and weapons teams, and whose lines of communication and chain of command you must manage as you order them to march onwards towards the slaughter. After a battle in this game, one can find the battlefield littered with meat. Manflesh, to be exact. You have a bird's eye view of the happenings, starting with the turn-based operations map where you move companies of men and tanks around, check their supply and tell them where and whom to attack. Once a battle commenses you get dumped into the planning stages of the real-time mode, where you set up your little soldiers and give them their opening orders. Opening orders are important, because they have no command cost and allow you to set up your plan and watch it unfold. Your squads and teams for the most part work on their own, though you can of course order them, but they decide on their own behind which trees to take cover, when to shoot and when to hit the deck -- you have no control over such precise details. The best you can do is tell them a general location to move to and a general direction to concentrate their fire. There is little micromanagement in the game, and you are even disuaded from trying to micromanage, as giving orders costs you command and the more into the fire your men get, the harder it is to command them. It's a neat little system, but it isn't readily apparent when you start the game up. It took me more than a few games--and reading more than a few game guides, of which, I might add, there are scant few--to know what the hell the blue bar at the top of the screen meant and why it would change when I tried to order my half-dead, panicking engineer squad to suck it up and advance into machinegun fire (which is a terrible tactic, by the way). Between battles you can manage your men, splitting up their squads and allocating ammo and fuel for vehicles. It's a fun a little management game, and is pretty simple. You cannot build units in the game, so what you start with is what you get, though there are usually reinforcements showing up on certain turns and whose arrival and availability you are well informed of. Operations are dynamic and different each time you play, with the possibility of fighting over the same town or the same hill across multiple battles, each side taking and subsequently losing the objective over the course of one or two in-game days. It gives the game a fun, fluid and unpredictable narrative that enhances replayability. In addition to the operational campaigns, you can also play individual battles with units from force pools on any part of the included maps. What's kind of lame, though, is that you can't set it to have the computer generate the enemy force, so you always know exactly what the enemy has right from the get go. Major bummer for me. BUT IN CONCLUSION: it is a solid game that deserves more press and more people talking about it.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 8, 2014

  Graviteam Tactics: Operation Star is not for you if you are simply a gamer. This is a game for tacticians; The armchair generals who have the patience to get past the immense learning curve. Do not expect to just jump right in and take command. Your troops won't always just go and do what you tell them. If they are being torn apart, they may run away terrified on their own. Your soldiers may take the initiative and, with a lack of orders, charge headlong towards the enemy to destroy his positions. If your unit commander dies, multiple assets and communication break down. If your communications aren't effective, your units can't recieve orders. The interface, though at first confusing, begins to make sense after paying attention during tutorials. If the player is willing to accept some devestating losses in the first few attempts, it isn't so bad. The layout is effective enough to apply all the necessary options for troop formations, movement and types of fire. It just takes some orientation to understand how to apply these options. I am somewhat well versed in combined arms tactics and skills covered in Marine Corps warfighting doctrine (MCPD-1) and easily understand how and why this title is actually utilized in European militaries to train infantry officers and platoon leaders. The enemy UI is challenging and responds realistically and effectively to offense, but tends to do poorly when advancing or attacking. He tends to stop dead in his tracks during attacks when fired upon and consistently maintains a defensive posture. Hopefully in the future this can be tweaked a bit to give the UI a more impactful attack pattern. You will find that application of standard military tactics per doctrine is played out extremely effectively. I.e. Deploying maching guns with long and unobstructive lines of sight, overlapping with infantry and armour. Or, combined arms suppressive fire. Graphics are of the era this game was originally produced. Don't expect a melt-your-face mindblowing world here. But the graphics are good enough to get the job done and can still really impress at night. Smoke, tracers and explosion lighting give the game a real atmosphere. Speaking of atmosphere however; the ambient audio makes me want to throw my speakers across the room. Noises like a rooster cock-a-doodle-doo'ing every 10 seconds become like nails on a chalkboard. Fans of the Close Combat series, Combat Mission series, and even the Total War series will likely appreciate this game. Be warned however, the learning curve is several hours. Highly reccommended with enthusiasm.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 9, 2014

  Graviteam Tactics comes closer than any other game I have yet played to representing the complex situational challenges of the WW2 battlefield. It is a superb game, limited only by a clunky interface and weak marketing, that every serious war gamer should definitely have in his or her stable. Graviteam has clearly been designed by a team with a deep understanding of military tactics and a passion for realism and historical accuracy. I can't praise the game highly enough and I can only say to those of you who have not yet purchased it, or who gave up on Graviteam because the interface had you baffled, that you are missing out on the opportunity to experience and contribute to the finest WW2 simulation ever made.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 22, 2014

  A night operation. I'm not a military man but without night vision equipment it would be difficult to see the enemy. However this works both ways and I had the advantage of greater manpower and greater weapons. So the operation started at 4am, my halftracks rumbled in towards the town from the left and my infantry from the right. A platoon of halftrack engineers I sent to the river crossing next to the town so I could move straight over after the battle. Barely five minutes later, one of my infanry platoons saw the enemy pretty much right on top of them. With my firepower and supporting troops the firefight was over quickly with the entire enemy platoon being eliminated. I was pleased and ordered my troops to converge on the village. However at the river my engineers began taking fire from a single machine gun from the forest, perfect positioning to engage my forces as they crossed. However the engineers were no rookies and followed my orders to attack the forest and clear it out, the battle was still in my favour. To the right hand side of this engagement the enemy was spotted, I assumed it was another machine gun, set up to give a crossfire killzone and so I quickly ordered my reserve squad within the platoon to sweep in and at least supress it with support from my heavy halftrack. This gun was eliminated with a lucky shot and was immediately destroyed as the dismounted engineers closed. As a looked at the destroyed weapon my eyes widened with fear. It was an Anti-Tank gun, well people, they never travel alone. I ordered a platoon in the villlage to come to the aid of my engineers as there were now more men in the forest than I had thought. Suddenly as I looked for heavy halftrack to move to engage, it burst into flames. The unlucky crewmembers running out ablaze, in between them I saw a lone Russian solider crawling by the vehicle, he had slipped by and had molotoved my heavy support. Following this my men in the village came across entrenched Russian infantry, bogging them down in a firefight so they were now unable to support my isolated platoon, a retreat could not be ordered as they were already in too deep into the forest and to bring them out was suicide. Two minutes later the village was in my control and the enemy was offering a ceasefire. I had won at the expense of a platoon, a hollow victory. However I now knew exactly what the enemy had and I knew exactly what to use aginst them. After all that was just the first battle.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 4, 2015

  This is one of those games that confuse the hell out of you at first. First time I installed it, I hated it and regreted my decision of buying GTOS. Later on I cooled down and have read some of the other reviews and gave this gem another chance to prove itself. I spent couple more evenings trying to figure out what the hell is going on on my screen, studied a few tutorials and manuals online and then one moment it struck me. Damn! This game is absolute blast. I've played 90% percent of the WW2 games out there, no exagerrating, if you know some obscure WW2 FPS/RTS/Tactics, chances are I've played that. I'm wargames nut, I've played old and new games, I've played good and bad games. I've tried almost every popular and obscure WW2 games, it'd be pointless to list them all. But this one, believe me, will deliver you insane amount of fun if you will spend a bit more time learning how the stuff works here. Give it a little care, treat it with patience and it will treat you in return. It's new, it's fresh, it's a gorgeous game, beautiful and stunning outside and very deep and complicated inside. It will suit all your WW2 nut needs. Amazing, breath-taking, painfully realistic, grim, brutal tank and infantry battles (with some close air support & artillery options). I've never seen a combat in a WW2 game portrayed so gritty. Yet I've played Close Combat, Combat Mission, Men of War, Theatre of War (all of which I love and play till this day) but none of them could reach this level of aestethics. Men will scream, bleed to death, sand will fly in the air, shells will strike the ground and leave you deaf. It also has such important aspects as realistic radio & wire lines system, something very similar to Combat Mission if you've played that. Chain of command is obviously present in the game too. And the best thing? You can set everything and anything in this game, extensive number of options lets you edit the game experience to you liking, making it either a true, die-hard, hardcore war sim or arcade RTS, or even a mix of both. If you don't like micro-managing stuff too much it's okay, little men on the battlefield are smart enough to act on their own. Few words regarding the setting, atmosphere and premise of this game. It's set in Ukraine/Russia circa 1941 to 1943. (Two of the DLCs are set in some-what moden time). One thing I'm going to say that is, Graviteam developers have hit the nail here. The land, terrain, nature, forests, atmosphere, sky.. Oh my god, it looks stunning. It absolutely perfectly depicts and resembles real places and lands. I myself was born in Russia and as a little kid, I used to walk around a lot, exploring all those forests and big, endless lands of my country and let me tell you a thing, if you're a foreigner, who wants to see true russian nature and not stereotypic stuff, play this game. It's art, pure art. Do you like war movies? Hell, you can just start a battle, grab a glass of whatever favorite drink you prefer and watch the hell let and break loose. One of the best games I've got from steam and absolutely deserved money that I paid in the past year. If you feel like it's too much for you, try waiting for a bit, they do have discounts sometime but nobody can predict when those happen. No doubt, reccomended. Buy and see it for yourself, don't listen to anybody complaining about interface or other stuff, you WILL get used to it and it's going to be comfortable using it. Also keep in mind, this is not just an RTS, it's tactic, so all these buttons matter. Last thing about DLCs. Yes, yes, yes, get all of them. (except hi-res textures, game looks fine as it is.) I oppose the idea of DLCs in general, but these are good, believe me, they are worth the price. P.S. If you get in this game, after playing few battles you might want to get "Aunthetic Battle Sound mod" and the "Uniforms mod". These two are mandatory for even better experience and are available on the internet. Do a little googling. Feel free to ask me questions if you have any. Have a nice day.
• gamedeal user

  May 10, 2015

  Like probably all the other reviewers out there this game pissed me off and seemingly sucked at first. I'd try playing it, get angry and quit for a day or a few hours then i'd try playing/learning it again, rinse and repeat. Finally I looked up a tutorial, got a bit of bearings going, and while I still suck at the game, I am improving and when you understand the mechanics and facets of the game it becomes probably the closest thing to actual WW2 battlefield simulation you can find. Sit your troops in a spot for a while and they will dig trenches, add a Artillery Spotter or Air Support Spotter to a platoon and give them a little more oomph, replace dead troops in a squad or vehicle by getting them to a conscript unit and refill their ammo by sending them to a supply group and replace any busted vehicles and fix any that can be repaired. You can order your troops to do things but theres so many variables that can hinder their progress or cause them to not achieve their directive. Of all the things that make this game hard to get into at first i'd say this is the largest. I STILL have a very hard time getting my tanks, soldiers, vehicles and ESPECIALLY MY GOD DAMN ARTILLERY GUNS to do what I tell them. The mortars seem to work fine, but even when I keep commanders from my Arty unit spread out to relay orders and spot land for fire missions they still often just sit there with their thumbs up their asses. The other problem is that about 60% of the time my troops will not target the targets I pick out for them. When i desperately need a tank to be killed and even when my AT guns/Tanks have clear lines of sight they sometimes just will screw around a lot more than actually do something productive. It causes me to panic and usually makes my troops far less effective in combat than the AI's. The odd thing is, i'm not even sure if it is an ACTUAL problem or just my units acting unpredictably, as would happen in real life. There's so many different outcomes to even the smallest scenarios that it could just be circumstances and the game is doing exactly what it should. I just can't quite figure out whats going on, but its really the only major complaint I have, however, and its concerning an important part of the game so It needed mentioned. My only other really big complaint is that there isn't very many units. All the units are authentic to the time period and are extremely detailed, I just really wanted to see some Panthers and T-34/85s and IS-2s and other awesome late war tanks. Overall a fantastic WW2 RTS/Simulator Pros -Very detailed environment, map and units -Authentic everything. Map layout, terrain, units available its all authentic. -Pretty nice graphics in my opinion. Nothing amazing but very solid. -Really realistic reactions from soldiers and units to the various situations. A squad that suddenly loses 3 or 4 men from a mortar could easily be panicked. -A ton of strategic depth -Play as germans or russians of course -Custom battles -Very specific and in depth settings for difficulty and gameplay -Runs fine and no crashes in the 30 hours i've played -Completely dynamic map and battlegrounds. Where your troops are on the strategic map is where a battle will take place in the RTS portion. Its very dynamic but i can't think of a good way to describe it. -Varied time periods in the DLC expansions Cons -Not very many units to choose from even though they're all authentic -Only a single strategic map. The map is huge and has quite a few different areas but still theres only 1 and it'd be nice to have at least 1 or 2 more. **EDIT** (I don't know if i missed them or if its because I bought some DLC on the recent sale but theres more maps to choose from than 1. I know for a fact some of them are exclusive to the DLC but I believe I was wrong in assuming the base game only has 1 map, at least for quick battles. Its still only 2 or 3 at the most so its staying on the cons list) -Relatively large learning curve combined with a ho-hum tutorial. -Overpriced and stupid Hi-Res textures DLC -DLC Doesn't seem to add very many WW2 units, if any, and just adds a new battle area/battle map -Confusing UI and difficulty getting units to always follow orders. Overall, worth getting especially if you like detailed and realistic WW2 games. This is the pinnacle of WW2 strategy when it comes to realism and authenticity, its better than Men of War in that aspect. Its got some quirks but something about it keeps me coming back even when the AI kicks my ass and I rage quit I still find myself coming back to it.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 14, 2015

  Ever played a game where you hid your troops in an unforgiving, winter wasteland with no real cover except for maybe a shellhole from some battle before (when your group was at full-strength and chock full of ammo) or among some skinny trees? Oh, did I mention they're short of ammo, at half-strength, and their Commander was killed in the previous engagement four hours ago? Well, here you are, a young German soldier swallowed up in Mother Russia in 1943 manning a hill with 5 combat effective infantry units left out of the twelve you started with and it's 3 a.m. and blizzarding and the Popovs are coming hell bent on a suicidal charge to knock you out of some hard-earned ground. Hope to God they don't have armor because your Engineer Squad got decimated and the Pak gun you have won't penetrate what they've been rolling out. Well, at least you have some mortar support to call in but those rounds are few to spare so be careful in calling it in because if it's just a probe and you waste your rounds, well.... ...Soviets show up, In force. No one is dug in. You call in what few mortars you have left to break up and hopefully stop their assault because if you can survive till reinforcements arrive then maybe, just maybe there's a chance because the half-tracks you rolled into this winter hell in are either smoking ruins or immobilized and you're damned lucky to have survived with anything. Now is usually when the praying starts. Mortars fall heavy in their midst but it's so sporadic because the spotting is off that it kills no one except 3 men of yours because the fucking mess fell short and they run off screaming into the night ablaze [that is not drama folks; your troops will burn, and they will scream, and you will try to block it out after a while]. Then the mortars finally hit spot on and after watching your enemy suffer a bit as they burn and scream and run off into the frozen landscape to satisfy your revenge, you call off the bombardment early to salve your last sense of humaity. And you relax. The battle's almost over, you may just hold this worthless piece of real-estate. Time to call for a Cease-Fire and hope Ivan is as tired and spent as you are. Resupply is on the way...just survive this turn. Then, without warning, an uncannily accurate artillery bombardment rakes your position and destroys a large chunk of the men you have left... Because YOU called off the mortars before his forward artillery observers were killed. Live with it. And are those advancing tank engines you hear in the distance...? Sheisse ! Welcome to GraviTeam Tactics kids. This is not a nice guy's wargame. [There's my drama laden review. With 700+ hours and counting on this game, it's safe to assume I recommend it enthusiastically, but only if you're willing to learn it's daunting rule schematic. For you old wargame grognards, it's like "Squad Leader" come to life. Nuff said]
• gamedeal user

  Dec 9, 2015

  This game has a very steep learning curve and is not for the faint hearted. I've played a lot of RTS games and I'm a big Totalwar and Wargame fan, but this game proved a challenge both for my skills and my patience. The biggest challenge is just working out how the game works, never mind trying to work out how to win it. Until you fathom out the former the later is an impossible dream. If you have the commitment and patience to overcome the poor interface design the game itself is well worth the effort. But don’t buy it unless you have the determination and time to invest in establishing the mysteries of the interface. It's really unnecessarily complicated and cryptic to say the least. Basically, great game hampered by a poor UI.