Reviews - OseronPhaer

For a strategy game mod, Divide & Conquer does something that strategy is often weak at: immersion. By separating out various factions from the larger ones of Third Age: Total War, D&C adds new challenges and often makes more sense. For example, the distance between Imladris (Rivendell) and Lindon often made their combination into the same faction a little odd. Now they are each their own faction with their own objectives.

At this juncture, the mod seems a bit buggy (my own games have seen what appear to be irritating oddities) and it's unclear if some of the weaker factions are properly balanced or have achievable goals. But the beta is definitely a solid game and worth a try.

Amusingly, this mod manages to pull off what most Star Trek games fail at: being fun. I rate it down a notch due to a few minor technical errors and less tender, loving care being given to a couple of the factions. Otherwise, battles feel every bit as thrilling as those seen in the various series.

I have to give it a seven. While the mod most certainly looks nice, it's scale, both visually and gameplay-wise, doesn't work well in Sins. All costs have been increased and so has resource collection, but they feel harder to control as a result. As for the appearance, all the systems appear to have been scaled up in size and the ships scaled down. I would have preferred the game to have more of a vanilla Sins feel than it has now because it makes you feel more involved when you can see your ships without having to zoom in nearly all of the way. Also, ships feel too fast, at least from a game play perspective.

It seems like a lot of these elements were made to be more reflective of the scale of the Star Wars universe, but it ends up feeling like the elements of the game were stretched to their limit to get that effect. On the other hand, I still believe it to be a very playable mod and those issues I note are mostly able to be overlooked with a little effort.

A solid mod, to put it simply. Instead of aiming for balance, like the vanilla Empire at War did, this mod aims for accuracy according to Star Wars lore. So yes, your Imperial-class Star Destroyer will indeed be stronger than almost any similar cruiser the Rebel Alliance can throw at you. However, that makes it all the more satisfying when that star destroyer is crushed by a more strategically built force.

The mod is far from complete, but the team actively works on it and produces quality news posts as they approach the release of each new version. Additionally, the current version is more than adequate for play. This mod is well worth the time to play.

Eastern Front is easily one of the strongest mods I've ever played. Though it's been a while due to the myriad problems introduced by the Steam version of Company of Heroes, it's always left a good impression on me.

Both the Soviet Union and the Ostheer are well-made factions and add a whole new dimension to the CoH battlefield. For the most part, they are functionally different from the vanilla factions and require different playstyles to handle effectively (though the Soviets are strongly reminiscent of the Americans). Coupled with new maps, the original CoH is refreshed by this mod. The mod team is also continually working on balancing, as inserting entirely new factions can easily result in imbalances.

Eastern Front is a must have mod and certainly merits top marks for the work put into it.