Ships Ahoy - Combat Mission: Fortress Italy

[Aug 02, 2012, 8:17 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

Battlefront.com announces the release of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy, which offers Windows and OS X gamers the latest installment in this strategy series. Word is this will be followed by a patch for the first game in the series and a demo: "A 2.0 Upgrade will also be available separately for the first game in the series, Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy, within a couple of months. A free demo of CM: Fortress Italy will be released within a couple of weeks. Customers who preordered and customers who order a mail delivery now can expect the hardgoods to begin shipping within 10-14 days." Here's the deal on the game:

This latest installment in the critically acclaimed Combat Mission series of tactical ground warfare simulations takes the players to Sicily in the year 1943, and the first Allied invasion of mainland Europe during World War Two. The “soft underbelly” of Europe turned out to be anything but, and the US forces in Combat Mission: Fortress Italy (including elite Rangers formations) encounter equally veteran German Wehrmacht (such as the Herman Goering Division) and Luftwaffe Feld Division, Italian Bersaglieri troops, new tanks and weapons, and unique steep, rocky and arid terrain.

In addition to all the new toys, 5 (!!) campaigns (including 2 special Tutorial campaigns, one for beginners, a second for advanced players), more than a dozen standalone missions, and 250 (!!) QuickBattle maps, CM: Fortress Italy also includes the long awaited v2.0 game engine! Here is just a very short list of some of the highlights of the improved game engine:

Moveable Waypoints

Target Armor Arc Command

Expanded Floating Icon Categories

"Fog of War" Floating Icons

2D Editor Map Overlay (so you can create your maps right out of real-life satellite photos and maps)

Auto-Assemble Road/Wall/Hedge Tool (“paint” a road or wall now!)

Camera Jump to Groups

Target Briefly Command

New Rendering Shaders (check out the new screenshots!)

Bump and Normal Mapping

Improved Framerates

Pausable Realtime TCP/IP Mode

...and more!

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Re: Ships Ahoy - Combat Mission: Fortress Italy

Aug 3, 2012, 14:09

Kosigan

Really enjoying the game - bought it on a whim as I was impressed with the graphics and updated interface. Had tried to get into the other Close Combat series in the past, but was unable to for one reason or another. The modeling in this game is great, love seeing my tanks rolling around - they even modeled the gears, engine parts, ammo storage etc. on the inside of the tanks if you clip through them. Had one epic moment where my one paratrooper detachment of three guys flanked two squads of suppressed Germans and made half of them surrender and the rest flee - only to be cut down :). Game has a great tutorial (I just printed the pages off from the PDF) that finally made me start to understand the mechanics of the game. Seems polished, no bugs encountered so far. The performance is mostly pretty smooth; I forced alternate frame rendering 2 for my SLI and that definitely helped things out some more(only have a flickering main menu as a consequence). Been waiting for a game to satisfy my Close Combat itch for a long time, and this definitely seems to be doing it so far!

Re: Ships Ahoy - Combat Mission: Fortress Italy

Aug 3, 2012, 12:17

Leper

W:EE is not CM, but it's not arcade garbage. They're completely different games.

Re: Ships Ahoy - Combat Mission: Fortress Italy

Aug 3, 2012, 09:57

Wolfox

wonkawonka wrote on Aug 3, 2012, 04:43: CM is the only game today where you feel that you really can make a difference by micromanaging your troops. Not the only one. You should take a look at Achtung Panzer: Operation Star, for example.

Re: Ships Ahoy - Combat Mission: Fortress Italy

Aug 3, 2012, 04:43

wonkawonka

I stopped playing with the marines version, then the other day I picked up on a Steam sale Wargame:European Escalation. Supposedly a good game like CM but more accessible. Well, in these kinds of game "more accessible" means lacking some critical features like perfect control over squad tactics and position, and in the end W:EE is utter arcade garbage where you feel like you can't use your expertise in any good way. CM is the only game today where you feel that you really can make a difference by micromanaging your troops.

Re: Ships Ahoy - Combat Mission: Fortress Italy

Aug 2, 2012, 21:02

Keith

Considering this is a grognard-type of game, the graphics look pretty damned good. I always like the idea of the Combat Mission games, but I've bought each one so far and just can't seem to get into them. I will probably reinforce this opinion when this one goes on sale. Early forum posters seem to be pretty positive though.

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