 We
were recently able to get our hands on the demo of the PC game title D-Day
by Monte Cristo Multimedia.
Even though the demo only offers one map, the invasion of Omaha beach, we
are now able to give you some first impressions. Which, from our stand point,
are not the greatest.
D-Day: The PC Game
First, a great aspect of the game is the look and
the ability to have the camera swoop down onto the battlefield. On that
note, the battlefield does look great and offers tons of obstacles such
as trees, mines, hills, hedges, that can react within their environment.
An example of this is when a cannon shell lands close and knocks down trees
in the vicinity.
Your units can also take advantage of corners and the fog of war like never
before in a RTS game. Tanks can hide within buildings without you, the player,
seeing them until one of your units, hopefully the scout, has caught them
in their line of sight. This is one of the greater perks of the game as
most RTS [real time strategy] games allow you to see all enemy units as
long as they are within a certain circumfrence of one of your units. However,
the computer seemed to understand this better than myself and took advantage
of my exposed units on numerous occassions.
 The unit
interface was interesting. Each unit has its own attack abilities and is
also granted a special attack feature for taking out large guns and tank
tracks. You can further command unit formations and tell each unit to dig
in if need be. The prone feature was another added benefit to D-Day.
While most RTS games automatically have your units lay low under fire, D-Day
allows you to command your units to go prone before hand with the added
ability to crawl forward or backward.. Hopefully allowing the unit's movements
to be more indiscrete.
With the Sweet Comes the Sour
With the perks of the game there were also a few
matters that bothered me. For one, the battle seemed to be out of my control.
Units will run and attack on their own without any issuing orders from the
player. It seemed that no matter what, my units were continuously under
some sort of an attack [a lot of the times the units would put themselves
in those situations].
As you advance on your enemy you can occupy buildings, turrets, MG nests,
and more. I did enjoy this aspect a lot but was never able to fully utilize
it. Every time I was able to take over a big gun, I could not use it efficiently
against my enemy. Some factors being range and visibility.
 The commands
were also slow to acknowledge. I would select a group of soldiers and tell
them to move with a right click and, at times, nothing would happen making
me have to repeat my order. In an RTS this can get on your nerves especially
when your men kick the bucket just like that under fire [as in D-Day].
A way around this issue is the pause command that D-Day has built into the
game. With a hit of a key, you can pause the game to help issue orders in
a more convenient matter [making the game a more turn based strategy rather
than a RTS].
If you are a fan of RTS games such as Warcraft and Command & Conquer,
then this game may not be suited for you. The games perks seem to come from
unique units, graphics, and the historical period. However, the only way
to really get a hold of the gameplay is to use the pause feature, which
most RTS-ers should refuse to do.
*Full version of the game may already be released by the time of the publishing of this article.
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