Review:
Order of War: Challenge

Order of War: Challenge is a real-time strategy battle game, developed by Waraming.net and published by Square Enix, set during the close of the Second World War. It follows hot on the heels of their original Order of War game which was released in 2009.

Like the original game, players can take on the role of American, German or Russian forces, and can fight in a variety of two-player or four-player scenarios on a selection of different game maps. Unlike the original however, Order of War does not provide a dedicated single-player experience. Instead, all games are set up online through Gamespy, and if you’d rather play against the computer you simply assign all the spare slots in your game instance to AI (i.e. computer-controlled) opponents.

When you start up the game for the first time you are invited to play through three introductory tutorial sessions which give the player an opportunity to learn how to control and direct your units. The controls will be familiar to veterans of the real-time strategy genre – left click to select units and right-click to position them or assign them targets, move the mouse the edge of the screen, use the arrow keys, or double-click on the strategic map to reposition the camera.

After the tutorials are completed you are left to find a game or to set up a new game of your own.

The objective of your battle depends on which scenario you select from the Game Lobby:

• In ‘Secure the Base’ the objective is to capture the enemy’s base flag while simultaneously defending your own. The supply track keeps updating throughout the game so that you can continuously add new reinforcements to the map as you go along.
• In ‘Expansion’ the aim is simply to control as much as the map as possible. The reinforcements keep coming just like in the previous scenario, but this time the available selection of unit types is much lower in the early game.
• In ‘Instant Battle’ you and your opponent are given an equal number of units, and you are not given any reinforcements – you fight to the last man using what you have been given, making your strategy count for a lot more.
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