Men of War: Assault Squad features a completely new cooperative skirmish game mode with access to five different nations (Russia, Germany, USA, Commonwealth and, for the first time ever in the Men of War series, Japan) as well as increased realism and accessibility.
Assault Squad is essentially the shinier more visually appealing version of Men of War, I dont find that it adds a lot other than the skirmish mode, some new maps. some new units, and some new models replacing pre-existing ones.
It's not exactly groundbreaking however, seeing as it pretty much builds off of the success of it's predecessor, I'm really not even sure why Assault squad was even made, my guess was targetting a streamlined Multiplayer platform, but the game is equally popular as a singleplayer game.
Since I first purchased the first Men of war, to be honest 90% of my time has been in the editor, making my own battles, maps, etc, and playing with it. Very entertaining, it's like a virtual toybox. this coming from someone who had massive lego wars in his basement as a kid.
My issue is that Digitalmindsoft doesnt seem to want to fix the important issues, and churns out other stuff like DLC to make money off of when they should be focused on things such as engine bugs,
not to mention the priority issues, they chose to give high quality infantry weapon models first, instead of upgrading the infantry models that have been around since faces of war. realistically the level of detail put into most of the small arms isnt even necessary as most people wont be zoomed in that far.
in contrast, some of the new vehicle models are nice, but the Russian and Japanese factions have been barley touched, and essentially every faction has a few old dinosaurs that need to be replaced, the Panzer IVs, Tiger IIs, T-34s, all very staple and/or popular vehicles, and they dont even look like they're from the same game compared to things such as the M4A4 or the new Panther.
Men of War is successful because each game naturally generates its own narrative. It is brilliant because it has character. It is great because (in campaign missions at least) you feel attached to your troops.
Assault Squad is Men of War minus all of this, and is horrid.
Its lone addition is the new Skirmish mode: a depressing, soulless grind against entrenched AI. Instead of wire-tight combat against a fellow human comes wave after wave of artificially buffed but simple-minded robots; in place of the memorable set pieces of authored missions is crushing repetition both within and between maps; and both motivation and opportunity to delve into the game's intricate simulation are lost beneath a constant stream of replacement troops.
Buy and love Men of War, but skip Assault Squad. DigitalMindSoft apparently don't understand what makes their games so good.
(Edit: Assault Squad does also include all MoW multiplayer modes and maps. Those are excellent, but have not significantly changed from last time.)
Indeed a great game, very realistic and fun to play with friends! The downside with the game are some smaller bugs, and there is a lack of units in the coop missions, but I will definitely give this game a nine :D
A marked improvement in terms of online competitive play and ease of use over Men of War. As a package, on the whole a great game; there are however areas in need of improvement although lets hope AS2 can fix these issues on release.
Sturm.
Great game specially in LAN
and graphics are great
AWESOME!
The best game of the world
AWESOME GAME
great for lan party's
fun to play with all the new weapons tanks etc but it is not challenging at all wish it had a story like the first men of war.
Men of War Assault Squad community is great, great modding community partially due to the fact the game is so mod friendly, engine is quite powerful as far as what can be done with just a mod. Game itself offers so many possibilities that no other RTS can even touch.