The Underdogs

Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord

The new legend

Instead of a small game gone big, Combat Mission is a big game gone small. Originally scheduled to be the official license of Avalon Hill's wargame "Squad Leader" the license was pulled, and Big Time was left with a great game and a cloudy future.

Advancing.

Getting ready to bombard.

Besides being peculiar in these circumstances, our discussion of Combat Mission isn't a preview, it's been out for a few months since it was released via online distribution. However, since those first few credit cards began a jingling Combat Mission has begun sending ripples out through the wargaming community.

To give a bit of perspective: the magazine Computer Gaming World ran an article on how Combat Mission revolutionized the face of wargaming. Now, keep in mind that the entirety of the game has been sold exclusively over the internet at Battlefront.com, we've never heard of a game that is internet distribution exclusive, bypassing the brick and mortar retailers all together, having such an influence on any genre.

Bird's eye view.

Getting far from his squad leader.

Combat Mission was an ambitious endeavor, a first of firsts. For years the wargaming market has been technologically behind the RTS market, Big Time sought to bring wargaming into the future, and its product has stood up to all but the most cynical of critics.

The facts

3D isn't a feature you hear about much in wargaming. For a group of players who were raised to recognize an entire unit by a simple dot, 3D is almost a pipe dream. Panzer General III brought wargamers a 3d engine, but what it didn't do was bring 3d to the gameplay.

Tanks closing in.

Firefight.

Combat Mission's gameplay takes place entirely in the third dimension, you highlight a grouping of units, and then order them to a given position, if the position is questionable, you can move yourself on over to the position and examine and re-examine it by moving your camera around. If it is still questionable, you can draw yourself a line of sight marker from the position you would like to move your troops to. You can then extend this line as far as you would like, if something obstructs a unit's line of sight, a break will result in the line, showing you where you are having problems.

Damned trees.

Close in on the tank.

Instead of a given place affording "cover" as most scripted places in a wargame's engine will do, the entirety of the map always provides cover against somewhere else. A tiny barrel may give cover to one of your soldiers, but the rest are required to lay down on the hill just prior to the barrel. A hill may give cover to the grounds in front of it, but those enemies on the hill across have the right angle to see your prone troops.