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Close Combat 5: Invasion Normandy
by Nelson "Admiral" Hernandez

The map is a simple overhead view of the battlefield. This is as good a time as any to point out that the maps are really beautiful, and the graphics generally are crisp and pretty much like they have been throughout the series. The tanks have a kind of pasted-on look that didn’t seem quite right, but otherwise the graphics are of a very high standard. The sound is also very good, with weapons chattering and voices calling out in English and German. My only quibble about the sound is the main menu music: obviously someone read my review of Dark Reign, where I jestingly proposed that someone make an RTS game to a Mills Brothers beat! While I’m flattered, the jazzed-up version of the “Caisson Song” in the game just doesn’t seem to set the right mood for the Normandy landings. Listening to that, a man’s thoughts turn to the fairer sex and connubial bliss, not storming a blood-soaked beach under a hail of bullets.

Artillery strike

After setting up your units you hit the “Begin” button and the game goes real-time. The great real-time versus turn-based debate can be taken up by someone else, but suffice it to say both sides have their advantages and disadvantages. I never felt overwhelmed by the fact that the game was real-time, but I can imagine that if I were playing against a human I would want time to think out my decisions and coordinate my forces.

Orders are given by simply clicking on a unit, at which point a pop-up menu appears with the different orders: move, move fast, sneak, defend, ambush, pop smoke and target. The defend and ambush commands allow you to set the arc for the action, so if you are anticipating an enemy move from a particular direction you can plan for that.

With the target command you can order your machine guns to lay down suppressing fire on a building thought to contain the enemy, and then have your swifter troops move in. The machine guns lift their fire automatically when the friendlies get in the building.

Street fighting

If only tanks operated so smoothly. In what has been a problem for the whole of the series, they are sometimes excruciatingly boneheaded about movement. They still move in a very herky-jerky way: five feet in one direction, turn 45 degrees, five feet forward, a turn, then reverse… and so on. They go nowhere fast.

 

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