RTS Representations of the D-Day Invasion Series - Order of War (2009) - Chapter 2 (HD-4K Ultra)
7GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 | NVIDIA TITAN RTX
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10850K CPU @ 3.60GHz
Memory: 128 GB RAM (127.87 GB RAM usable)
Current resolution: 3440 x 1440, 50Hz
0:00 Narration
1:28 In-Game cut scene for Normandy beach landing battle
2:52 Start of Normandy beach landing battle
4:47 In-Game cut scene: Bangalores clear mines and sand obstacle
5:25 Rangers silence MG-42s and German pillboxes at the flank of the defensive cliff structure
7:25 In-Game cut scene: US forces flank and disable cliff defenses
11:35 In-Game cut scene: US destroys last cliff bunker and new mission briefing to remove artillery
12:33 Start of second-phase of the mission, to remove beach artillery
16:06 In-Game cut scene US forces silences artillery encampment, and move on to last phase: the assault on Vierville
17:08 Start of final-phase, assault on Vierville
24:24 Concluding In-Game cut scene
The 2nd (and final) chapter for my sampling of the game "Order of War". This chapter engages the player in the Omaha Beach landings itself. There's a few interesting points to make about the game, and the mission. First, as stated, the game engine although simple, is not actually bad. From my understanding, it's all built from PhysX, and there isn't really a "proper" bespoke game engine for the game. Though I will look into this in much greater detail in the near future.
This design/development choice is likely due to several factors
1. Lack of money/expertise/time
2. Desire to have simple portability/cross-platform capability
On the later, this era of games, the late-aughts/early 10s, saw the proliferation of many titles across genres, beyond FPS, ported over to consoles. Recall that even Eugen System's RUSE, was ported over to the PS3 and XBox 360. Though "Order of War" did not similarly get a multi-platform treatment, it's hard to believe that this possibility was not within the scope of plans for the publisher, who was Square Enix of Final Fantasy fame (a traditional console RPG title).
This leads to the other point of point 1, which is the lack of expertise. The developer for this title was Wargaming, which has since become renowned for their work on World of Tanks and other cross platform multiplayer action games, as well as their acquisitions of many classical developer teams within the RTS genre, most notably Chris Taylor's Gas Powered Games. However, at this time, this was only their 2nd title in the genre, and the lack of in-depth expertise/genre-experience shows. Further, being a relatively young firm, in eastern Europe, meant that they were likely put on a very strict development schedule by their publisher (who unfortunately often used talent from the region during the aughts/early-10s less as an original team of creatives/talents, and more as "staff augmentation"). This later point is entirely conjecture on my part, but one that fits the facts of the game.
Still, regardless of these points, the game itself is not bad, from either a presentation standpoint or a engine standpoint. On the later, the game could be improved dramatically with some simple fixes IMHO. As with the presentation, Square Enix seems to have pulled all the stops to make the game "pretty", not only providing AMAZING cut scenes, but mating those scenes and the game play with stellar music from the well known and talented Jeremy Soule, who delivers a riveting action-score that captures the "feel" of a "WW2 epic" film.
As for the fidelity to reality, at least for this mission, there might be some issues here, specifically the nature of Omaha Beach. The beach itself seems much too shallow and small, and the cliff faces seem much more oppressive than they actually were/are. If this is the case, the developers were likely drawing inspiration from film vs. reality, with the mission feeling very much like something out of "Saving Private Ryan".
"Order of War" could have been a "Total War" for WW2, a few changes to the mechanics and engine, and more maps/support for the skirmish/multiplayer could have given this title legs. Alas, like so many titles made in this era, preference was given to short-sighted corporate accounting metrics of success and not art/design/user-satisfaction, and so this game was abandoned fairly quickly after launch. As is, it has it's place in the history of this sub-genre, and will make for an interesting case study on historical RTSs from both a design/mechanics and a historical fidelity standpoint.
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