The 29th Division is being closed in at night by numerous German troops. With only a handful of tired but motivated replacement squads the situation is looking bad for the platoon. The command orders to gather in the northern bushes. When everyone moves noiseless but determined to the new hideout a loud explosion suddenly resounds in the middle of the covering squad. Panic all over the place, because we see the iron scourge turn up from behind the trees. Mere seconds later machineguns fire their deadly charge at us. Only the gunfires, enlightening the environment, can betray the ennemy's position.

We're surrounded, no-one finds each other, the M10 bazooka team is lost, our .30 cal doesn't get ready, space gets smaller all the time, some stay down, others run as fast as they can to only come across more opposition. This is the end.

You may expect a lot of situations similar to the one explained above when you first play some of GI Combat's scenarios. Above that it's a game that doesn't impress a lot the first time you play it. Qua graphics and qua sound we are used to a lot more of present WWII-games. But... (good that there still is a 'but' or the review had been quickly over:)) GI Combat is first of all not a fps à la Medal of Honor and second it's not just a real-time strategy game. It is more a simulation, one where no detail is lost and where fans don't look much at graphics/sound or at a general impression but at the pure (realistic) gameplay itself.

Off course, that doesn't gives Freedom Games (under command of Eric Young, known of Close Combat) an excuse to neglect the graphics and despitefully that's what they did at times. That we only get one setting (Normandy) could be understandable, even if it gets pretty soon boring like that, but the fact that aside from the vehicles and the soldiers not much else has decent graphics is quite shocking. The quality of the trees (a 'tree'-mod has been released in the meanwhile) and of some fields form a bit of a scandal for GI Combat. As said the detail of soldiers and vehicles is quite well done but that only gives more contrast with other elements. Many gamers will already lose interest because of this, but the real fans of this genre don't care that much for it.

One of GI Combat's major problems isn't mainly the graphical part but rather the poor unit-animation. If you let a squad march, it's like they move with sandbags in their pants to a certain position. With all the commands they make a 'mistake' or a quite stiff movement; when they f.e. jump over a wall it happens in 'bullet-time'. This could have been done a lot better but once again the hardcore fans won't complain that hard because after Combat Mission and certainly after the Close Combat-series they have decent graphics with this game in this genre.

The background music in the menuscreen is good, in-game we can hear as background the usual battlefield sounds (bombs which impact further ahead etc.) or if you prefer tsjilping birds you can always choose to. No music here what's pretty normal since the realistic aspect of the game. The unitsounds are unfortunately not too variated although they're quite 'real'. Weaponsounds also sound very authentic.

The gameplay then... you can try out the tutorialmissions but they are a bit too simple, one big tutorialmission would have been perhaps better instead of a number of smaller missions who each only treat a single (and too small) aspect of the game. Camera controls are a bit clumsy but the patches fix that problem already for the most part. After a while you get used to it and you can even use the toppoint view of the Close Combat-series. The interface isn't always that handy for a real-time game but learning the hotkeys can help a bit. It makes the learning curve somewhat higher but it'll be worth it. Another important thing that you shouldn't underestimate is the psychic factor. Troops who run spontaneous in hostile firelines is quite common. Realistic for a panic reaction maybe, but to me it looks more like it's not worked out enoughor the AI isn't that good because a soldier who runs to the ennemy, stops and then keeps staring isn't normal, is it? I do have to mention that in other cases it does work, a soldier who runs away with all the power left in his legs from an approaching tank is very understandable.

Another point of interest is that you can't control individual soldiers/vehicles, there are only squads which you can command by seven orders ('Assault', 'March', 'Caution', 'Defend', 'Smoke', 'Fire' and 'Deploy'). No problem if the way some squad members moved wasn't irritating. They don't look at too many sides, covering someones back is something they don't know either. GI Combat runs in real-time but combat situations tend to become pretty chaotic because of that, definitely when you are playing with a lot of squads at once. Luckily there is still a pause-button (P) but even then it's not the perfect solution. The player is able to configure all kinds of things, the degree of realism depends on so many things that it can take a while before you have found the combination that fits you the most.

I already mentioned that the environment is quite simple, Normandy with its green fields and small French villages gets boring after a while. The way you can choose a certain scenario is as follows: you can make your choice out of three sorts; Battles (battle on 1 map), Operations (battle that can continue on a couple of other maps) and Campaigns (four or more maps after each other, depends on which campaign you choose). Freedom Games could have made things more interesting by putting more of a story in the campaigns but on the other hand you do have a dynamic campaign. Too bad that you can only save after a scenario. The more than 40 vehicles/artillery-units who are in the game create some panic when suddenly another ennemy tank appears or when one of your own vehicles doesn't find his way (pathfinding isn't always what it should have been). The information about the vehicles and the different squads is brought in a decent way and is for these kind of games indispensable. The (small) manual is also full of descriptions of vehicles and sorts.

The scenario editor allows you to edit existing scenarios, make your own mission goals or adapt the weather. Everything you've seen in the regular missions you can use here also. Only bad thing is that you can't modify the terrain itself. But there is a modcommunity present which can fix and make a lot of things. About the system specs I can be very short; these are pretty low, on a PIII 600 without a Geforce card everything still went smooth so that issue can't hinder someone to buy this game.

As conclusion: GI Combat is more for freaks and not really for 'normal' gamers. 'Freaks' sounds negative but it isn't meant that way, I really understand that people are crazy about this genre because everything has his historical background and because of the realistic gameplay. But I fear most of us won't even take the effort to try this game out because of the graphics alone. Above all that there is the fact that the retailversion of GI Combat has quite some bugs which is a pity since this game has the potential to become a classic in the genre. Freedom Games doesn't sit still and they have released already some patches which solve most irritating problems, support clearly is a thing they value high there. Mods and the multiplayeroption extend the length of this game spel substantially and this is where GI Combat has its strong point. Are you not sure, then you can always try the demo first.