Iron Front: Liberation 1944 Review
In its attempts to be realistic, Iron Front: Liberation 1944 bites off far more than it can chew.
The Bad
- Filled with bugs and technical snafus
- Controls and situational reports are confusing
- Graphics and sound are terrible
- Multiplayer matches are hard to find and set up
- AI is absolutely awful.
Realism in shooters is something the computer game industry has both striven for and struggled with for some time. It's good to feel that what you're doing has some connection to the real thing, especially when historical settings are involved, but it isn't fun to spend half your game time field-stripping rifles and doing KP. A veneer of authenticity can make for a more emotionally charged experience, but to pull this off, a game needs to hide the inevitable lack of realism that's at the core of first-person shooter gameplay. It's a delicate balance, and one that Iron Front: Liberation 1944 utterly fails at. As fate would have it, Iron Front also fails at not crashing constantly, not looking like its graphics were drawn by a teenager, and at being any fun at all.
Iron Front starts with a solid historical basis, at least: you play either as a German or a Soviet soldier in the middle of a campaign to win the Eastern Front in World War II. It's an enticing premise for those who have imagined the life of a foot soldier in the ranks of two of the world’s most ruthless dictatorships. Gameplay lands somewhere between ARMA and Battlefield 1942. There's a thick coating of realism, alongside a kitchen sink full of possibilities. You start off as a simple soldier, but ultimately you can do everything from manning heavy weapons to commanding tanks to flying fighter aircraft. Sniping, stealth, huge frontal assaults: everything’s included. Iron Front: Liberation 1944 is highly ambitious in scope, but ends up trying to do way too much. The ground portions do feel somewhat realistic (at least in the sense that you can die and kill instantly), but the opaque control system makes flying a plane cumbersome and inorganic.
To its credit, the game offers dialogue in both German and Russian (subtitled) or in horribly dubbed English, if reading isn't your bag. The thing is, regardless of the language you choose, you won't care what anyone is saying. Apart from the occasional stultifying cutscene in which you listen to a narrator read text that's already visible onscreen, most dialogue in the game is AI-generated radio babble that comes so fast and furious, and is so poorly tracked on your heads-up display, that it may as well be a TV left on in the background. Iron Front tries hard to give you a feeling of being one part of a much larger battle, but because the briefings interface is totally obtuse, and because the way information comes at you in missions is so confusing, the interface overwhelms both you and itself.
In fact, the entire game overwhelms itself. During the review process, Iron Front received a large patch that fixed some (but by no means all) of its stability issues. Yet in spite of the patch, the game still crashes, just not as often. Other bugs have revealed themselves since: loading screens frequently hang, necessitating forced quits; controls stop responding mid-mission for no apparent reason; AI entities stand around doing absolutely nothing while receiving effective incoming fire; and sound suddenly cuts out or goes extremely quiet in the middle of critical briefings. AI pathfinding is also a huge issue, with non-player characters frequently getting lost or trapped on geometry, and enemies patrolling in endless circles, doing nothing of importance.
Gamespot score 2.0 = Terrible....game developer hasn't wired me any money on paypal yet.
A 2.0 is a little ridiculous. Is Iron Front as good as Arma 2? Definitely not. I expected this review to have a midrange score in the 5-7 range and complain of meager content, lackluster netcode, and steep system requirements. Instead I read that the game is bad because you die without knowing what killed you, the controls are too hard (they're really pretty simple), and that the game bombards you with too much information. Those kind of complaints indicate that this isn't really the type of game the reviewer typically plays. This is where the review system is flawed. Eric Neigher's arguments are completely valid for him, but they're strongly biased by his perspective on the game. To the sim fan a lot of controls are expected, authenticity is considered fun, not an obstacle to it, and lots of information is usually a good thing. Often I see the justification that "Well the review is for the average gamer and not just fans of the genre" which is based on the flawed assumption that there is an average gamer. There isn't. Every gamer I've met has unique tastes that make them particular to certain genres, sub-genres, certain games, certain systems within the games themselves, etc. Imagine if you saw a review of the next Call of Duty game with a lower than expected score by a sim fan and the review had complaints like, "The enemies didn't use proper military tactics, the control scheme was overly simplistic, tank physics are non-existent" Every arcade fps fan reading the review would be very confused because those are features they expect. I don't know Eric's background in gaming but it doesn't seem like this is his genre and games should be reviewed by people experienced in them.
Ragingbear505
you sir, are very correct. i want my sim games to brief me with 10 pages long and make me spend 2 hours setting up the tactics beforehand.
Ragingbear505
your probably right but that doesn't stop the game from sucking horiblly. Either way, the game really is disappointing and definately unappealing.
So this game us based on an ARMA II mod? No wonder it sucks. ARMA II was one of the worst games I have ever played - pointless briefings, unplayable combat, detail creep, I couldn't stand it.
I played this game and finished the german campaign, it was fun, the graphics were amazing you just need a good pc, gamespot probably has shitty pc's and couldn't run it maxed
on emassive thing reviewers always seem to miss out on games that are like this. Is the editors. They completely ditch the editor mode. Ive spent over 500 hours on the ARMA 2 editor alone, you can design FGULL blown military opreations in ARMA 2 adn everything. I think reviewers need to review the whole game not just part of it.
This is a game that needs all the love and TLC that only a true computer gamer can give it. Full of bugs and glitches to sate the desires of technical tinkers, both subtle and gross--but it's not for the timid.
They should have named the game Iron Front: Modern Warfare. Get's a 9/10 gaurenteed.
I too will admit this review does not seem to be as well thought out as it could. Hell, I played IF a bit back when it was still a mod for Arma 2, and it worked well. Sure, the AI is still not the best, but everything else worked fine. Played like Arma2 to me, only with weapons & vehicles from WW2. So unless they did something drastic to the game when it was made from a mod to retail, this review is overly harsh.
i thought this was a review, but this guy didn't seem to mention any of this game goodness.
d34nh46i The review did seem a bit tilted.
Well, this has to be the most stupid Review for a long time...
If the Reviewer isn't intellectually equipped to play a Game more complex than CoD DON'T LET HIM REVIEW IT! The entire Review is total nonsense... "Gameplay lands somewhere between ARMA and Battlefield 1942." This Game is nothing more than a Arma2 Total Conversion Mod and it plays exactly like ArmA2 in Multiplayer... nothing new... But Mr. Eric "mentally challenged" Neigher doesm't know, because he isn't doing his job...
Controls are fine, but if you play for 15min. and can't even doubletap a Key in the right moment, well then you are too stupid for it...
Multiplayermatches hard to find and setup? Yeah, totally hard to choose a Mission from a List and click OK, when everyone is ready... You may need a special College degree for that...
Graphics terrible? Graphics are at least ok, when you set them right and according to your Hardware... But again, you would need to know what you are doing...
The Mission-Editor isn't even mentioned, well it's important, because you create Missions with it, which are fun... Too stupid for it? WRONG GAME TO REVIEW!
This Game isn't very good, it isn't worth the money and it's filled with bugs, but it is NOT a 2.0 and Mr. Eric Neigher did an horrible job reviewing it...
Time to get rid of some underqualified Staff Gamespot!
and how i'd hoped for a world war all ensemble game ...
Another terrible Gamespot review. I have a feeling this guy only plays halo. Considering this game is basically ARMA in WW2 nad that got a high review...I'm a bit confused. I Own the game and it still needs a lot of polish but the graphics are very realistic. The sounds are realistic but to to subdued. I see great potential in this game. I would say in it's current state more like a 5.5-6.0. The ARMA engine has always been clunky and I really don't get why they won't fix the basic things but the game is much better than a 2!!
Dredloc ARMA 2 doesn't have garbage graphics, and it has a large modding community and tons of developer support.
A year ago i played ONI and it uses double tapping w to sprint and imo it's better than using alt (skyrim) or space (mass effect)
"double tapping the forward key to sprint is extremely clumsy"?
How? are you using a computer with a 1.6ghz single core cpu and integrated graphics to play this game? I've never have any problems double tapping "w" in A.V.A (Alliance of Valiant Arms) to sprint. What did you do GS? Get the Xbox reviewer instead of the PC reviewer, or does your gaming pc just suck?
Reviewer woke up on the ugly side of the bed... LoL! I dug it cuz I can dig it!
>=)
Huh, this doesn't seem so great.
Despite this review I still want to play it. The extreme realism talks to me. Bugs can get fixed, and it may be entire crud, but it still deserves a chance (when it's cheap).
I guess it was the usual PC reviewers day off and they had to enlist the Nintendo Wii reviewer.
Case in point:
"a morass of impenetrable key bindings"
"double-tapping the forward button to sprint is extremely clumsy"
Obviously Wii doesn't let you remap keys.
lol, thats funny as...nintendo wii reviewer....LOL.
i love it. ARMA 2 is the best open warfare game in existence. head and shoulders above BF3 in my opinion for so many reasons. These editors need to play around with all facets of a game like this not just 1 aspect. The editor mode in games like ARMA and this are a MASSIVE part of the actual games. Some people only play these games to design thier own military operations in the editor. In order for the operations to work though, the Ai DOES need to be damn good though and they ar in ARMA 2,
Eh, kind of a bad review. I haven't played this game but from looking at the screens it's pretty obvious that this is an ARMA mod. The UI is the same the briefing screen is the same etc. Everything that the reviewer complains about, with the exception of the crashes, are prevalent in ARMA games. The controls are the same, the briefing screens and other UI have the same functionality. The AI radio chatter is depicted in the same way on the HUD when in game etc.
The reviewer is basically complaining about everything wrong about this game that's also wrong about ARMA games but this game got a 2.0 and ARMA games didn't.
If ARMA 2 got a 2.0 id scream and complain. ARMA 2 is amazing and now wiht all the patches etc, the bugs are practically non existent.
nyran125 Yes ARMA 2 is pretty awesome. I didn't mean to imply it should have gotten a 2.0. My point was that it's funny that the controls that seem to be just fine in ARMA2 are horrible in this game according to the reviewer even though they are exactly the same. The score is just dumb. And the reasons for it are even dumber. Why would you drag a games score down due to controls that the user can easily change? Moreover it's not the game's fault if most people speak german online. That has nothing to do with how good the game is.
It's just sad that this game gets a 2.0 for totally nonsensical reasons.
I just love reading review with scores below 3 ... good break from E3 :)
wow.. they deleted my reply with a right re-view of the game.. how rude!
People are thinking, for some reason, that the reviewer gave this game because it attempts to be realistic. Not true. If you read the review you'll see he gave it such a bad score because it's buggy, confusing, the AI is terrible, and it crashes like crazy.
Please, read the WHOLE review before you get angry.
Colekern That might be a little much to ask of people these days XD
Colekern come, he forget the most of the futures of the game.
He just looked at that.
I remember that COD had laggy version of BO. That was also not rated as 2.0.
Colekern
Ever heard of PATCHES? This game will probably get patched later on dude, there have been a lot of buggy games IE: Skyrim, CoD, that get good reviews even though they are buggy, all i see in this review is: BUGS! IT'S TOO HARD TO DOUBLE TAP "W" TO SPRINT! BUGS!
Hobbes444 Yes, but this is so buggy it makes the game basically unplayable. Yes I know, Patches, Patches, Patches. But you're missing the point. They reviewed this game BEFORE the patches. It won't help now.
Colekern Hobbes444 I agree that it is too late, but that is why I like Game Informers "Second Opinion" article which negates factors such as bugs and other fixable options and is less biased. Gives you both the reviewers opinion and an if you like such opinion. Though it is not too much of a concern, I played this game and I like it, honestly I say wait till they make a demo and judge for yourself. If you don't, that is your choice, many including myself will have fun with this game whether many of you buy it or not.
Just 4 fucking paragraphs? You didn't fucking describe anything. What a joke review.
Richmaester6907 Good job finding the bright blue "Next Page" button, bud.
NickOOOShea Richmaester6907 Maybe he has eyesights problem.
2.0? Ouch.
lalala_la
A 2.0?? Man that's worse than DRIVER 3, and it's even a pretty decent game with not very many bugs!
Driver 3. I remember I ramped a hobo bus off of a cliff in that game, landed on an unlucky pedestrian, then watched the poor guy run off. It was hilarious.
I congratulate any game that challenges the gamer... All the games I love on console like "AeroElite Combat Academy", "IL*2 Sturmovik" on Realistic setting, and "Operation Flashpoint" on Hardcore setting are discounted due to a steep learning curve. Well, GOOD. I'm glad there are wash-out factors for the heartless. And I'm glad not every developer out there figures something needs to be "distilled" down to Call of Duty noob-ish-friendly... There ought to be a lot MORE games which strive for that sort of realism, and not to coddle the gamer so much...
With all of the back-up concerning "ARMA2" here, I can't help but think the reviewer might not have been the correct choice by the editor? Perhaps someone who had a little more time on a tactical shooter of this scale would have been better.
Even if the guy reviewing was a fan of realistic games, it still wouldn't help. Being broken, with absolutely stupid AI, and even the controls going out mid-mission doesn't make the game realistic. It just makes it annoying.
Colekern Arma2 broken at launch was patched later...still got better scores than this game based on the exact same engine....explain
calum1984 Read the review of Arma 2. It got the sucks you in award, the great sequel award, the outstanding gameplay award, the technically proficient graphics award, the unique award, and the variety award. This game has none of that, Broken, buggy AI, Broken multiplayer, doesn't take advantage of the graphics capabilities of the engine, multiplayer that doesn't work... the list goes on. Just because a crappy game is based on the same engine as a good game, doesn't mean the crappy game is automatically good.
Colekern calum1984 Yes, but all of these problems are correctable excluding graphics unless they want to create a whole new build which I seriously doubt. Though such graphics could be taken advantage of when mods that improve such are released, probably not for awhile sadly. ARMA 2 is similar to this enough that I think it could have been given a better score if the correctable problems were negated, but I know that cannot be. As for you calum I can explain, tbh I love this game so I do not want to seem like I am against it, there are many problems with this game and you cannot negate them when giving a review, some of these complaints are silly such as controls as that is apart of the learning curve yet can still easily be mastered, and we are not dealing with the same reviewer as the one who reviewed ARMA 2 either so that is another factor. All in all this game is great imo, but it is obsolete too, I only bought this game because I love this engine, love WW2, and for the main reason as acting as a placeholder until ARMA 3 comes out. I still say there should be a section like GI's Second Opinion to provide a more unbiased part to it, but they have a schedule and they need not waste any more time on something which can be discovered by yourself, look up videos, buy the game, wait for a demo, etc. It is not as if they are forcing these same opinions on you, bugs will be fixed, connection problems will be fixed, negate those if you like games like this, they will be fixed.
Colekern Why would I need to read the review of arma 2 when I have it and play it EVERYDAY since release, guess what it was broken at launch, STILL has buggy AI etc Also explain buggy multiplayer please because what is so buggy (which you bring up twice)?? Im pretty damn sure you ahvn't played arma 2 because you would know all of the issues present in iron front are present in arma 2 with various patches either fixing or somewhat improving them (Like I mentioned AI is still a problem with arma 2 with some upcoming patches testing out new ai they're planning for arma 3)
MonkeySpot The PC versions of GRAW were also very good, and reviewed badly for their difficulty.
Remember; the score the game gets, is highly dependent on the review'er himself. This is a highly biased "buisness", and subjectivity seeps through a lot of GameSpot's review. Is this the way it is suppose to be? Should a review'er give FIFA 3.5, a fairly low score, just because he doesn't like football? Should Dragon's Dogma get 3.0 because the reviewer doesn't care for fantasy-schmantasy games?! Should Mass Effect 3 get 10 because slight chance of alien side-boob?I thought RE:ORC got a horrible review, and I was quite angry because of this. Just imagine what would happen with Gamespot's comment and Forum-sections if Call of Duty:Black Ops 2 gor a super-low review score. It would be funny...
_Judas_ That is known, but for a game like this they should have had the reviewer who reviewed ARMA 2 as he would have more experience, knows the game better, and could point out the flaws and what disappointed the reviewer in comparison to ARMA 2 if need be. I do not question that this is biased, but it was unnecessary to get this reviewer to review IF.
Arma2 gets 8.5... This gets 2.0 yet is the exact same bloody game.
Reviewer is a n00b and clearly doesn't understand Arma. The fact that he didn't even pickup on that this is a stand alone mod for Arma2 is a joke as well.
Game Emblems
The Bad
User Reviews
Iron Front : Liberation 1944 sur PC est un jeu de tir tactique se déroulant durant le Seconde Guerre mondiale
Iron Front: Liberation 1944
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- Publisher(s): Deep Silver
- Developer(s): X1 Software
- Genre: Strategy
- Release: May 25, 2012 (US) »