TITLE: 101st Airborne, or why I'm stuck in a parachute under six MG42's... AUTHOR: Jim9137 DATE: 3/12/2005 05:32:00 ip. ----- BODY:

So how should I start this blog entry today. Hmm... I'm not going to rant about FPS's... I'm not ranting about Game Industry... I'm not ranting about the feel... Ah well, guess it's just regular review sort of thing today. Well, they are most of the time, but still. What is 101st Airborne: The Airborne Invasion of Normandy? To answer that question. Well, I could refer to these fancy WWII games which think they capture the gruesome reality of the paratroopers well. Or then I could just say that well, if you have 18 men in the start and after a hour you have only five, there is something about this game. And no, I'm not kidding. Or trying to be sarcastic. Or be witty. This game is bloody hard. It even scores you how you did... using the real 101st as evaluating basis. Like the readme said, "There's some luck involved - ask our designer - it took him three tries before he could successfully complete the Main Objective in Campaign 2!" That didn't answer your question. Well, its basically a squadlevel turnbased strategy. Turnbased is usually good, but I don't know with 101st... Which brings me to the mainpoints of this blogentry. The gameplay. This is thankfully taken in consideration far more than it used to, even so that the gameplay kills creativity... Anyway, the cripes I have with 101st is the fact that it's bloody slowpaced game. You'll take about 10 turns to get in proper action, assuming you parachute right on to the enemy. Well, you're wanting to avoid the enemy most of the time, but still. The maps aren't small, and the whole big map is divided on several smaller ones... Meaning that it will take 30 turns or so to get from edge to edge. Realistic, yes. Fun? Maybe. You can also groupmove if there ain't no enemy around, but this could have been done way better. For example, the hybrid realtime/turnbased like in Jagged Alliance's would have fitted well. The animations are slow too, even increasing the time you're spending to watch them. 101st doesn't fall on those weaknesses though, it's actually quite fun when you get hang of it. The pre-mission phase is one the most well done in gaming history. (Or, in my gaming history.) You're required to make a 'stick', or load a plane with your men. All the men have better than average biography on them, explaining where they come from, what are their motives, and how they affect the group. There are these Don Juan's and what not, but hey, it beats a faceless marine hmm? You also have to make careful decisions with the equipment. More you take, more weight and less effective your men will be. But if you leave stuff out, their morale will drop... You have two equipment bags, but when you're jumping they likely will get lost. Even the jumping order matters. Why? Well, the actual jumping process is a bit of "sit and pray" part of the game. It might go well (rarely), you might get AA on yer arse, the men's parachutes might fail, they might get lost from the group, they might be shot on the way down... Et cetera et cetera. Hence, if you're on a burning plane the ones in the back might not make it before the plane explodes. If you don't like fiddling with equipment/personnel too much (could be a game itself), you can just let computer pick the defaults for you. Action. Well, ever seen the Saving Private Ryan? Remember the starting part where they invade the beaches? Yeah, that's pretty much how it goes. Your men die like flies, the germans shout "Hilfe der Allisch schum!" and you're hoping that the sniper's bullets hit your helmet instead of your face... Well, that's how it goes assuming you have good imagination. The mechanic itself follows pretty much the traditional TBS way. I move, shoot, do other stuff and then the enemy shoots. It's all based on the iniative who goes first and in what order. The interface itself is quite confusing, as you can see from the picture. *slaps his walking stick on the OK button* See this one here? You'd think it was OK button to let you return on normal menu. WRONG! It just displays your man's condition. See, this cleverly hidden arrow here is the one you're looking for. Talk about bad colors hm? And to end your turn, you have to press the red button over *SLAP* HERE. And if you have previous orders that needs to be completed, *SLAP* which you can see from here along with other status information, in which case you have to press *SLAP* THIS green button. But if you start doing something else, you will lose all the progress. All in seriousness, the interface works, but you have to get used to it. Which isn't that bad I guess. You have to learn few things about it first though, and there are some bugs with it. But all in all, it works. The action is quite slowpaced, thanks to the slowness of animations. Tactical wise, you really have to use your head instead of just rushing in. For example, my man was feeling courageous and just walked through a hedge. Bad mistake. Got a bullet right into his head. The men behind threw few smoke grenades, to cover their way to a nearby trench. Naturally they covered an enemy into the smoke too, resulting in fierce close combat. Okay, that's 2 casualties. Nothing to worry about, I have 16 left. Oh crap, that wasn't a grenade was it *BOOM* And so and so on. Pretty darn fun, I can assure you. You can also search enemy bodies for letters and potential secondary objectives (The letters the germans carry are authentic by the way, according to readme.txt. It certainly boots the atmosphere up. And certainly makes me feel sad...) And you can also capture enemy soldiers, and even be a nice guy and heal them. One of the things I certainly miss is the big operational map. Most of the time I have no idea where I am, where I'm going, and what I'm supposed to do. But well, neither did the real 101st I suppose. EDIT: DAMN IT. I can't get proper screenshots of the game, and googling didn't bring up any either. Blooh. There went my idea to make fancier review.

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