Gettysburg Gets Ugly | Gettysburg: Armored Warfare Review

<p><em>Gettysburg&colon; Armored Warfare<&sol;em> is new title out on Steam today that was developed by Radioactive Software and published my Paradox Interactive&period; It is a real-time tactics game with the ability to take control of a specific unit on the battlefield and personally fight in the smaller engagements within a third-person view&period; The setting is an alternate history take on the Civil War&comma; where futuristic weapons and vehicles from 2060 are brought back to change history&period; Sounds great&comma; right&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Not entirely&period; The game&comma; being a multiplayer-only title&comma; has two game modes and four maps&period; The game modes are &OpenCurlyQuote;Deathmatch’ and &OpenCurlyQuote;Army Skirmish’&semi; the former is much like <em>Battlefield 3<&sol;em>’s &OpenCurlyQuote;Conquest’ mode with 64 players and third-person shooter gameplay&comma; while the latter is a four player RTS skirmish&period; The maps are very large&comma; each living up to the promise of 9 square kilometers&period; Sadly much of this space is unutilized because the five &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;capture points” &lpar;think <em>Battlefield 3<&sol;em>&rpar; are located in the center of the mini-map&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The &OpenCurlyQuote;Deathmatch’ gametype offers more opportunity for fun and experimenting with different units&period; Those units range from standard foot soldiers to armored foot soldiers&comma; even tanks to zeppelins&period; When a match begins you have to rush to find a unit to control for the rest of the round&period; In my experiences the zeppelins were taken first&comma; followed by tanks&comma; and finally soldiers&period; I managed to get in a tank for a few rounds&comma; which handled well and provided for several fun moments against the opposing soldiers&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;&quest;attachment&lowbar;id&equals;" rel&equals;"attachment wp-att-8198"><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-large wp-image-8198" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2012&sol;03&sol;06223928&sol;465307&lowbar;367328066633838&lowbar;180953878604592&lowbar;1119061&lowbar;987602250&lowbar;o-1024x533&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"590" height&equals;"307" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The soldier units play as mere cannon fodder and there isn’t much to do about it&period; There is no sprint&comma; so getting to the capture points takes a while&period; It is extremely hard to hit anything and there is no cover to take&period; You can also switch to sniper&comma; much like I did&comma; and find that there is no first-person scope to look into in order to come close to hitting a target&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Aside from those problems there are a slew of more&period; The game feels clunky and every animation is flat out awkward&period; Here’s an example&semi; if you run into a fence in a tank&comma; it will stop you then disappear&period; Then you can continue on to wherever you were headed&period; Take an instance like that and apply it to the entire game&comma; and it’s that type of straight up awful gameplay that you find yourself in the middle of&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The biggest problem this game has is the mountain-high stack of promises that were thrown about to gather interest&period; It was supposed to be a fluid free-to-play hybrid between real-time strategy and third-person shooter gameplay&comma; and all of the previews I saw of the alpha and beta footage made it out to be just that&period; Except it isn’t fluid and I had to throw &dollar;10 into a pot of uncertainty&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;&quest;attachment&lowbar;id&equals;" rel&equals;"attachment wp-att-8197"><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-large wp-image-8197" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2012&sol;03&sol;06223942&sol;462580&lowbar;367328046633840&lowbar;180953878604592&lowbar;1119060&lowbar;881224959&lowbar;o-1024x533&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"590" height&equals;"307" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The only redeeming value in this game is the sound design&comma; at least in the sense that vehicles sound great and weapon fire is different&period; Aside from that and some vehicle handling&comma; there isn’t much to praise in this title&period; As I write this review I wonder if I be so critical if it was free-to-play&comma; but I would&period; With this year’s free-to-play titles&comma; such as <em>Tribes&colon; Ascend<&sol;em> and <em>Blacklight&colon; Retribution<&sol;em>&comma; garnering much attention and praise for their stunning quality&comma; it is shocking that <em>Gettysburg&colon; Armored Warfare<&sol;em> couldn’t afford to have even a sliver of that quality&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Honestly&comma; there were moments when I had fun in <em>Gettysburg&colon; Armored Warfare<&sol;em> and I really enjoyed the sound design&period; But those are two small things compared to all of the various complaints and issues the game boasts&period; The game design overall is extremely poor and will leave you wanting your money back if you purchase it&period; That’s the situation I find myself in now&comma; so heed my warning and stay away from this title&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;