I've never played any of the Combat Mission games before, so I didn't have much idea of what to expect from Shock Force, the latest entry in the series. The official website is ripe with self-hype and it's definitely the best looking tactical war game I've seen. Looks can be deceptive, however...

The story is of a hypothetical war between NATO (the blues) and Syria (the reds) that seems like it's based on the recent war with Iraq and it evolves as you progress through the game's campaign mode. A well-written story is often overlooked in war games, so it's nice to see the effort put into this element. The timeframe is the near future too, so expect to see many familiar and real world units, such as the M2A3 Bradley.

Once into the game, you select units, give them one of a multitude of orders, such as move or bail out, and try to achieve objectives. You can also string together orders, which is useful for more strategic plays. Units automatically attack enemy units in their line of sight, but tactics and cleverly thought out plans are vital, especially on higher difficulty levels. There's also a neat feature of being able to choose whether you want to fight in real-time or take turns - I recommend sticking with the turn-based version until you know what you're doing, as in real-time it's much more difficult to forge plans while tank shells fly past and men scream as they die. Still, all wars and battles are fought in real-time, so it's much more realistic to play that way, but it's great that you're given the choice. When in turn-based mode, there is one annoying quirk - after you complete your turn and units have carried out their orders, you're shown a replay of the actions from the previous turn. This can be skipped, but starts automatically at the beginning of each new turn - an option to turn it off would have been nice.

There is a very steep learning curve for people such as myself, who have never played a game in the Combat Mission series before. There's no tutorial to take you step by step through the basics of gameplay, so you'll need to read the 'important bits' of the 200-page manual to get going - the developers seem very proud of the length of the manual for some reason. As well as no tutorial, the game's interface has no tool tips - there are no pop-up boxes to helpfully summarize the purpose of a button, so you need a high capacity brain to remember it all and not a somewhat leaky sieve like mine! The controls are difficult to master too; they can be changed, but not without editing a text file outside the game. Surely there should be an easier way? I expect that if you've played the Combat Mission series in the past then it's all fairly similar to what you're used to, but newcomers will really struggle at the beginning and might stop playing because they find it too hard. This is really unfortunate however, as the game does get a lot better when you know what you're doing and how to control units effectively.

It's not just a high-powered brain that you need to play, though; your computer needs to be up to spec as well. The minimum requirements can be found hidden away on the official website - they are not too demanding, but a bit optimistic. I surpass them all but the game is still jerky on low settings. It's my graphics card that lets the side down and causes the problem I think. It's still above the stated minimum, but quite old now. Any PC bought recently will have no problem in running the game on maximum settings. The game looks pretty good even at low settings, although there are a few problems with clipping, where units move into one another. Despite clipping problems, units are well animated; men run naturally without jerkiness, hatches on vehicles open, tank turrets turn and wheels spin when they should.

Units are given impressive amounts of detail too. One of the best features of the game is the feeling of weight that each unit has. A 40-ton tank feels like a 40-ton tank as it rumbles along, and it can't turn on the spot. Vehicles build up momentum as they move, spraying up dust in the process, and when a tank fires a shell, it recoils realistically from the blast. The wonderful sound effects reinforce the feeling of combat too; if you put the camera close to vehicles, you can hear the hum of the engine and roar of the turning wheels. Bullets twang off armour plating. If destroyed, the vehicle's smouldering wreckage burns, creating pillars of black smoke. The men inside scream and the fires crackle, while soldiers bark orders to the rest of their squad and explosions from wayward shells throw up dust as they impact the ground, causing the camera to shake if positioned too close. It's all very gritty and warlike. It's a shame that the buildings mostly look the same though; they're all just rectangular boxes, or combinations of rectangular boxes. It's a nice feature that you can order troops to go to a particular floor or to sit on the roof, but I would have liked some more variation in building design.

There are a few oddities though - enemy jeeps seem to have no drivers or other men inside, yet they can still shoot and drive around the map. Naturally, war can be a bit harmful to the environment, so constant artillery fire leaves craters. However, there isn't any terrain deformation at all, but you do get a circle of scorched earth, which is better than nothing. Like the ground, units are also not deformable - shards of armour and metal do not fall off vehicles when they are hit, which is disappointing. The only objects that can be broken are buildings; repeated fire on the wall of a building makes it crack and mysteriously vanish, exposing the occupants.

The levels look pretty, containing some plants and sandbags for decoration. You'll have to zoom in to see these though, as the game hides them to keep performance up. The most disappointing graphic is the one used for the edge of the map; you would expect some kind of border to limit movement and the basic map to just continue into the distance. The reality is that the map just stops! If you zoom out far enough, it looks like the map is hovering in mid-air. A sandy graphic is used to hide this problem, but it does not blend in with the map and so does not work. Obviously, units cannot fall off into oblivion, but this does destroy much of the realism that the game tries to create.

Another problem is the AI. In a single player battle you choose to control either the Syrians or NATO (but some missions are restricted to playing as NATO only). Each side has their own unique objectives - for example, to take control of a certain area. Unfortunately, I have never seen the AI push forward and try to do things other than kill all my units or wait for a draw (which happens after a set number of turns). Enemy units just lie in wait for my men to get close enough, then open fire. The AI never does anything to take me by surprise, such as sending troops round behind mine and flanking my position. It's not just the enemy AI that's the problem though; units don't react as they should. If you issue a move order, the unit moves approximately to where you told it to go, but if the unit then spots enemy units or comes under fire, it doesn't change course, return fire or dash to the first bit of cover it can find - it just continues on its merry way, as ordered. Another example is when you call in an artillery bombardment on a group of men. What will the men do when a shell lands near their back row, killing two of their number? Will the screams of the dying men prompt them to take action? No - they just sit there waiting, for the next bomb to drop!

Shock Force is all about realism of war. You are briefed before each mission with your objectives, the weather conditions (which do affect combat) and a basic plan of action. You can study two-dimensional plans of the area before getting stuck into the action. Some of the maps are quite large and, thankfully, the camera allows you to zoom out very far to get an aerial view of the battlefield. You can zoom so far that units are represented by small symbols and buildings are no more than coloured rectangles - good for planning, not so good for fighting. A minimap would have been helpful, but sadly you're not given one. To further this feeling of realism, each unit or man in a squad has a sort of identity. They each have a set amount of ammo, they have different weapons, they won't always go to the exact spot you ordered them to and they even have small inventories, which can contain extra ammo or other special equipment. Each unit has its own line of sight and on higher difficulties will need to spot an enemy or be radioed the enemy's location before they can shoot at it. This eliminates the problem I like to call 'Borg spotting' (as in the Borg from Star Trek), where once a unit has been spotted it's automatically known to every other unit on the battlefield, independent of how far away they are.

In terms of lifespan, Shock Force is not left wanting. If the large campaign isn't enough, there are many single battles to play through as either side or with a friend in multiplayer. There's a random battle generator too, which works remarkably well, plus a scenario editor that lets you create almost any battle you like. You can set objectives for each side and you can even write an AI script to change enemy behaviour! It's complicated though, so you'll have to return to that 200-page manual if you want to take advantage of this feature.

Combat Mission: Shock Force comes as something of a disappointment. It's by no means a bad game, but it's not all that it should be. It looks and sounds great, but the lack of a tutorial is a major letdown, as the game is just too complex not to have one. Even the first few missions of the campaign are quite difficult and don't ease you into the game as they should. The simplistic AI also hurts the gameplay in the campaign mode too. Those of you who have played the Combat Mission series before will probably lap it up, but newcomers will need a lot of patience to persevere and get the most out of what is a good, but not great, strategy game.

Reviewed by Tom Clark for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).