*Read before watching* I noticed that this video has been getting a lot of views recently, so I want to clear a few things up. I make a couple of historical claims in this video that are just flat out wrong, especially in the 5th chapter "why invade?". This is still the biggest project I've ever uploaded, and unfortunately I wasn't putting as much time and effort into research for my projects at the time I made this video compared to now. It's something that has bothered me about this video for a while now, and I've made great effort to take my work more seriously going forward. I still stand by the rest of the video where I talk purely about the game, and I hope you enjoy it regardless.
Everyone can make a mistake about those, don't worry. Also, history is full of different versions on the same event depending on source, ideology, side, etc, etc. "Objectivity" in history is a luxury, not the common situation.
welp, ima go full nerd mode and just add anyways in case anyone is interested in regards to Kursk submarine: it was a very secret high tech(even for the year 2000) vehicle, ofc Russia was reluctant to let Western specialists get close to it in regards to USSR asking for aid: 1980s Perestroika era USSR definitely could do it, and “why invade” question can be solved by saying “coup or whatever”
This was really good overall. I appreciated reliving this game again through your video. Maybe Pine Valley is so memorable because it was also used for years as a tech demo for new graphics cards. I saw some of the other comments mention the historical or military gaps in the video. If you have any need in the future, I'm a history major focusing on Eastern Europe and Russia's military, I can help with that.
"...so you take your first element and use them to suppress the enemy while your second element gets around the side" Meanwhile the date is downing another wine questioning how she ended up in this situation
this is why i call eugene lazy . their wargames and steel divisions can barely get near this game . only broken arrow seems to brinbg back some hope but still no fancy cinematics just in engine cinematics made by the game editor who allow mission scripting
@@LauftFafa Imagine if Eugen had campaigns with the same cinematic depth of WiC for the newer Wargames. I liked the alternate historical reality of European Escalation's campaigns but other than providing a basic backdrop for why what's happening is happening,it was very barebones
@@vito7428 They did have this, way before World in Conflict. Look up Act of War: Direct Action, it was Eugenes first titel. And still there best for us singleplayer crowd.
Just to clarify, Lebedjev appears to be a political officer which were often assigned to Soviet military units, but generally not directly a part of the chain of command. They're role was to observe and maintain the loyalty of personnel to the state, including commanding officers. Obviously, in this case, Lebedjev is not a hard-liner, given his agreement with Orlovsky, but he still knows how to use political speak to convince the ship captain to follow his orders.
It is made extremely clear that Valery likely became "disillusioned" with Communism sometime in his prime. After all, in the last mission for the Soviet Campaign, he fulfills his dead friend's wish of sending his men back home, back to safety. He's a good guy at heart, just has to play by the rules and what not.
Lebedjev is a KGB political officer whose place in Red Army units was...interesting...to say the least. While they held a formal rank in the Red Army to aid them in their duties, they could not give commands to army officers outside of very certain circumstances. This isn't to say they had no power, their reports back to the KGB could make or break someone's career, so their opposites were wise to follow their 'suggestions'
The discussion about the western aid at 13:00 is so wrong. You compared Putin's Russia and Gorbochev's Perestroyka USSSR. He did actually tried to ask for western financial support to revitalize the economy in 1989.
Yeah, whilst I’m sure pride factored into it, the main reason they didn’t want aid was because they didn’t want western military experts examining their most modern submarine, and wanted to be able to control the narrative of what happened
@@SerialWaffleStomper Dang You Got Recommended This Too? He Kinda Forgot That The USSR Is The Same Country That Both Accepted A Lend Lease That Was Worth 1.3 Billion And Then Made Pepsi One Of The Strongest Organisations On The Planet Just To Get Some Drinks
Interesting to note, in the event no one else did about why the US wouldn't pelt the Soviets with ICBMs in the scenario where the SDI existed: from what I've read, US policy during WWIII would've basically been to keep the war conventional for as long as humanly possible and only use tactical bombs if they really have to, the latter bit kind of like what was shown in the Cascade Falls mission.
For me. The fact the US in this timeline had no way to defend from a Nuclear Attack from Russia. It made sense they wouldn't force the USSR to retaliate. Even if Russia think Star Wars was in effect. They will try.
I think you may have mixed things up. The US pursued a policy for much of the Cold War (50s-mid 80s) of using nukes first, if needed. For the entirety of the Cold War the US was at a numerical disadvantage and for most of it, we were technologically outmatched by Soviet ground tech. Essentially, for most of the war we recognized it was likely impossible for us to halt a Pact offensive into Germany, so we focused on maximizing the amount of damage we could do to, including nuking entire formations of Soviet units to even the odds. This can be seen in how the Soviets were the first to develop tanks and transport vehicles capable of safely fighting in contaminated conditions, because they were extremely scared of us nullifying their ground advantages.
22:22 Roll on- Roll off- (RO-RO) ships are quite common at this point with their main advantage being their ability to have the vehicles drive themselves off. You can see the vehicles driving off the ships during the cutscene. A quite famous example of such a vessel would be the SS Atlantic Conveyor which was converted to carry Helicopters during the Falklands War and sunk by a Exocet Missile in 1982.
Fun fact, Both Captain Bannon and Malashenko is voiced by the same guy, who also voiced other notable videogame characters like Larry "Pixy" Foulkes from Ace Combat Zero. And Parker was voiced by none other than everyone favorite "gunslinger" Alec Baldwin XD
No, that's not right. Yuri Lowenthal is Pixy (BTW, nice you mentioned ACZ there.). No, Bannon was voiced by Dave Wittenberg, Henry Wong from Digimon Tamers, Kakashi Hatake from Naruto. Malashenko is Mark Ivanir who's had a lot of bit parts through the years; though he's in like most of the Call of Duty games. (He's the one conscript in the tutorial for Call of Duty 2 who's complaining about using potatoes as grenades during training) and even had a part in Shindler's List.
Well after wathing all I have some point to make: 1- Both PCs are the narrators of their sides. This fact was not open about it, but it sure didn't deny it either. 2-Mike and Anson's are one of the first people we met in the story, they were the off duty at that time iirc. 3- About Bannon's voice message to her mum: Bannon didn't know he'd die because it was a last stand kind of battle, he was ready to kill himself there. As we know Mark Bannon messed up big time in Europe, he's traumatized by his war crime. Since Colonel Sawyer keep antagonizing him his depression won over him. "I'm gonna do good tonight" does not sound good after you know what he has been going through. Not sayin he wasn't an asshole and a mess, but he was at least one can emphasize. 4- I also think in the cutscene of Seattle mission, Sawyer should have been hit, casuing Webb and Parker to take command to fill Sawyer's void and hold against the last ditch Soviet Attack until reinforcements arrived. That would make Webb as a more likable character (just a bit more), and Sawyer's praise for our desperate defense would mean something more than it did. And this would still play out similar: As Sawyer is wounded, Webb as the only highest ranked officer would take command Sawyer's troops and gives you his own unit to defend the position.
small correction: Anton and Mike show up in the first US mission in the first in-engine cutscene, after Bannon "greets" Parker at the barricade he 'conscripts' both of them into our hotpodge unit and they never have a chance to rejoin their own unit because of how chaotic all of the Seattle campaign is. I think their point in the story is to show that not everything in the war was big scale 'big heroes making big decisions with nuclear annihilations as the stakes'. It's also just random people trying to survive it all and it kinda worked for me. They're there from beginning to end, tragically with little say in the matter and they survive and get a 'happy' ending. Also intentional or not them not being am actual unit you can get killed in game is pretty brilliant, assuming you end up caring about them, since you can never be sure they survived until they show up in the next cutscene. You just do your best and hope that was good enough (yes they'll always survive no matter how badly you do but the first time you play the campaign the bare subconscious hint that how well you do does matter helps the immersion). 2:00:50 - Can you imagine Sawyer taking cover? I can't, Sawyer was built up as the rude loud super competent all American Hero General that always knows the right play and isn't afraid of nothing. Sure staying in the open and shooting back was stupid but it's what Sawyer would do, and for no moment did the game made me doubt that he did domed that sniper, with an m16 he picked off the ground, using iron sights. :D
@@watch.v-dQw4w9WgXcQ also he's in the middle of the street running is not a good position fight or flight and immediate aggression makes sense if you feel lucky with your aim rather than the snipers
WiC is such a hidden gem of RTS gaming. It's not available on anything other than GOG now, but the GOG version is updated and fixed. I love this game, and I'm currently playing it again right now.
Im pretty sure Parker is the dude who talks in the loading screens for america, as in the seattle mission he says that Webb addresses him as "parker". This assumes then his counterpart, Romanov, is the one who talks in the Soviet loading screens. Just an observation, Im sure the person who talks in the Soviety loading screens is definitely NOT Orlovsky
About the first mission...its actually realistic. I mean US soldiers being just not on the same level as special forces. That is true. I did my compulsory military service in special forces and our training compared to that of the army's was leagues away. So imagine here you have some "simple" soldiers on guard dudy, bored out of their minds (since thats what guard duty does to you) never even expecting an attack. Routine is a soldier's worst enemy they used to tell us. So yeah, a VERY trained team of operatives can easily take out a small base of untrained soldiers. And by training i dont mean only weapons training, i mean mental training.
Granted this is a game, and it makes a good set piece. Those "simple" troops should still be specialized. Given that AA defenses would be vital it seems that security troops would be defending it, troops specifically used for counter infiltration tactics. So yes SF could probably infiltrate through rear or support troops, but security troops are designed to prevent this specific tactic, just because some units may not have as many hours of training does not mean they are not specialized.
If Korea is anything to go by, never trust soldiers barely out of recruitment and tasked with guarding a base in a foreign country they can't even point to on a map to hold up against an assault by vastly better trained, veteran troops. The US Occupation forces sent to Korea from Japan got steamrolled by the North Koreans in the first stages of the war, and this was only 5 years after the US was the strongest military power in the region and in the world.
If you actually look at USS Missouri in the pine valley mission, you can actually see escort ships in the distant behind it, so it was escorted by destroyers and frigates. I know we are meant to feel sad for Bannon, but after all the times he mocks you or just complains and whines that he is not getting support or needs you to bail him out again really began to grind on me after a while. And when you do help him he then is never thankful and half the time helping him ends up making things more harder for your own troops especially on the harder difficulties. In the last soviet Mission reason why Malashenko did not get the new radio messages was because Lebedjev told all the forces under him and Romanov to shift frequency to another channel, While Malashenko was never informed of this shift- as to stop him from trying to stop the retreat to the ship not in Seattle.
I might be off on this, but I interpreted Major Lebedjev as possibly a political commissar (or rather the 1980s equivalent, given the term 'commissar' stopped being used in the 1940s). It might explain why he seems more in-tune with the political aspects of command, tempered by his long-term friendship with the colonel, as compared to being an official second-in-command. I think the strongest argument for that might be explaining the apparent need to record an after-action interview with the Colonel following the second-last Soviet mission (especially the part about 'no room for the truth on that tape', because it is a political record first and foremost).
Just so you know, when you said you had issues with the Soviets asking for financial aid right around the 11:00 minute mark, that’s pretty much what Gorbachov did in real life. He had a tour in the West basically selling Perestroika, Glasnost and Demokratizatsiya to various western governments (including the U.S of A) so he could finance his plan to bring economic reforms in the Soviet Union in 500 days. Although, he also suffered a Coup d’ etat so…
Heyo, good video so far. Haven't watched it all the way through but I noticed something at the segment at 11:50 regarding Western Aid. I think you misunderstood the prelude prompt. In game, the Soviet Union does not ask for financial aid, it essentially tries to extort Western Europe. I actually have a box copy of the game, that I bought as a kid wayyy back in 2007. The manual it comes with gives more context. Here is an excerpt from page 3, "As the 1980s drew to a close, the Soviet Union found itself bankrupt, disorganized and unable to keep up with the United States in the Cold War arms race. Adding to this bubbling cauldron, President Reagan’s US Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars” project, was threatening to significantly upset the delicate balance of mutual deterrence. Funds required for upgrading the Soviet nuclear arsenal and conventional forces were rapidly becoming scarce within the communist state. This led to increasing cuts in the civilian sector, which in turn caused widespread famines and supply shortages. As a last resort, the Soviet Politburo devised to blackmail Western Europe. They demanded from Europe the aid they needed, or they would invade and take it for themselves. The Western Alliance initially viewed the Politburo’s threats as a bluff and attempted to orchestrate an end to the crisis through diplomatic channels. However, despite the West’s fevered rhetoric, the Soviet Union had already decided on a path from which there was no turning back. As the crisis wore on, the Warsaw Pact steadily increased its readiness level, compelling NATO to mobilize a defense along the borders of the Iron Curtain. Then in what seemed like an instant, World War III had begun." The Murmansk incident was the Russians refusing probably out of pride or paranoia. The Soviets demanding financial aid in game was probably the political setup to the war. Like the Politburo would sell the war as "taking what the West won't give us" to the Soviet people.
11:24 this entire chapter of the video doesn't make sense. just because its the soviet union, doesnt mean they wont ask for financial aid with the west at the start of october 1988, and so during the "Winter 1988", the leader of the soviet union was mikhail gorbachev if you dont know, this man had a bunch of programs, regulations and laws introduced to get closer ties with the west, so requesting financial aid from the west would make sense you brought up the kursk submarine disaster, and how putin denied any form of outside help from western nations. then you proceed to say that the soviet union would've denied help even more, which does not make sense considering the leader of the ussr at the time the game takes place putin and gorbachev were completely different people, with different ideas, ideologies and goals. so in the end, bringing up the kursk sub. disaster was completely pointless, the leaders had completely different opinions toward the west, and the situations in the the ussr and RF were completely different.
The multiplayer in this game was just perfect. 4 roles. Support would defeat helo's, helo's would defeat armor, and armor would defeat support. That was almost never the case because it was always such a smooth combined arms battle. Then infantry just cheesing it behind the enemy lines.
There was a treaty that only a number of british and US Forces were allowed to be stationed in West Berlin. Actual German forces weren't stationed in West berlin. But I'm not sure if this still applied in 1989. But the so called "Berlin Brigade" was a thing that existed and consisted only of some british and mainly US Troops. So thats actually correct. But I'm pretty sure in the end of the second Soviet Mission you fight a few german Leopard 2 Tanks...
The multiplayer was really fun, like a "Battlefield 2" RTS! It's crazy to me that Ubisoft didn't bother to keep a matchmaking server up and work on a sequel. WiC had overwhelmingly positive reviews when it came out. To answer your question about Vivendi: it was a big company that owned a lot of game studios, but it was SO big that the leadership didn't care about making games. They sold off their game business in a very convoluted manner that coincidentally happened right as World in Conflict was a success. Imagine working for a company that is sold multiple times by people who don't even live in your country. The leadership of Massive Entertainment quit, and that was that. Broken Arrow is now trying to revive the dream, though!
On the thing you mention about the presentation. I think the unique setting plays into that as well. There is a certain untapped draw that the 1980's military equipment has just like how popular 80's cold war mods are in Arma. Might be due to the fact that it was the last gasp of cold war development mixed in with modern equipment we know today.
World in Conflict was my one of the first rts experiences ever and its still one of my favorites.I really love searching and knowing things about cold war and its my one of the favorite topics to research about it,and thats of course how ı discovered this masterpiece.İt really has that unnatural feeling that playing a rts game with a serious story,charecter devolopments,cinematics,soundtracks etc.The campaign is really realistic and creative for a WW3 scenario.And even the multiplayer is really still fun to play today.
Refering to 1:16:00: You cannot just shoot PoWs when you have no place or manpower to keep them in check LMAO. I mean... Australians did it once and it was massive war-crime scandal xd
You forgot to talk about the most important part, the trailer where a bunch of US soldiers try to retake a burger king restaurant. JK great video keep it up!
wic is the best rts ever, also the best setting ever, there is something appealing about its setting as the red dawn esque invasion of the us is much more plausible of a scenario than whatever cod had
also the ekranoplan in game isnt the caspian sea monster, that was the prototype , instead they are the lun class ekranoplan (but the point still stands, as they only ever made one and the other one was never completed)
how is this a "best rts"? Like i get the point about writing and setting, but i didn't like the gameplay, like it isn't skill based. I enjoyed Tomclancy's endwar gameplay much more tbh, I have to think of my tactics before doing things
@@marsdriver2501 that is purely my opinion, the gameplay is kinda mediocre imo too, im just biased towards the cold-war-gone-hot games, and there arent many out there
Honestly Starcraft 2 is the only RTS I can remember as having a similar emphasis on "cinematic presentation". Its also funny to hear about the AI fucking up threat priortization an armour alignment. Thats still an issue in Red Dragon. No clue if Eugen ended up fixing it in Warno/SD
Wow, I absolutely loved this video. Very well edited and paced. Never played this game, but I used to love EndWar back on the PS3. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to find this game instead.
Honestly, I liked the American campaign but damn the Soviet story is more gripping. I remember I would play the gundam games and be annoyed that I couldn't alter the course of the war for Zeon, but honestly, there is a more compelling story seeing a army losing the war as the stress of officers and soldiers takes it toll. I think it be interesting if devs were bold enough to tell a story of nation losing the war in a strategy game. Would of also been interesting to see the Russian commanders meet their American equivalents after being captured or something tho.
In the original version of the game on the final cutscene At 2:06:30 the original that was playing was Tears for fears - everybody wants to rule the world.
I was looking to see if anyone else remembered this. Wonder if they couldn't get the rights to the music when they changed distributors. Tears for fears was definitely a better song for the outro IMO.
Besides some points where a blatant lack of understanding of how things worked back then is evident, the video was fun to watch, it actually made me download the game once again.
I only remember two things about this game. It was fun as hell, and the second one is that I hated to have to be perpetually micromanage my tanks deploy smoke screens because without that the units would not survive 'til the end of the mission, my one and only gripe with the game.
The thing is that Ground Control set the foundation for WiC. The problem is that RTS and RTT as a genre are extremely resistant to the sort of consolidation of mechanics and controls that FPS underwent through.
51:27 What surprises me as a kid when I first played this mission is finding out that the SDI, which sounded like a whole sci-fi stuff, was an *actual project* that was formed in 1984 by Ronald Reagan and was nicknamed the Star Wars Project. The program essentially included space-based, ground-based, and directed energy systems bu the concept faced technical, financial, and political challenges, and was eventually scaled down and renamed the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) in 1993.
1:15:40 This is just a horribly bad take on your part. You do not kill civilians in wartime deliberately, period. Bannon should have let them go even if that compromises there location further down the line. Sawyer was 100% right to come down hard on him for it.
Thanks for the video, I'm a teaching assistant at the college and I actually showed this video game to my students when we had lectures about the Cold War. Greetings from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In regards to the mission where you attack West Berlin, it isn't that odd to only fight US troops. The Americans had the Berlin Brigade there to defend the city. There were also British and French brigades there as well, but to my reconlection, West Germany didn't have a part in the defence of Berlin. I honestly couldn't say if it was even part of West Germany or if they left it separately managed by the occupation by the allies. Could simply be your units were attacking where the American brigade was responsible for the defence.
When Lebedjev remarked'Time to choose'i believe he was actually referring to when Orlovsky told him he would have to choose his path too sooner or later just as Lebedjev said he had chosen his course for good or ill. Aside from that,this is an extremely great review. World in Conflict is probably the only RTS i find myself visiting once or twice a year. It's probably the single game that got me really interested in Cold War era military history,the soundtrack fecking slaps too. It's a shame it's a bit of a more obscure game
Through your review you did mention that you did not believe there were any modern RTS games that try to tell a compelling story through the cutscenes and during the gameplay. I would like to recommended a game that attempts to do this, Iron Harvest
Just finished the video, and wanted to speak to the multiplayer: it was epic. I was a top-50 ranked support player for a few weeks after the original release. It was very different than other RTSs like StarCraft, because it was all about tactics and less about strategy. Choosing when to spend versus use your support points, changing unit comps on the fly as the enemy comp changed, and coordinating with your teammates since nobody could have both helicopters and tanks, for instance, made it super fast-paced and close-fought.
You remember the battle of pine valley mission more than the others because they released a demo that had that mission and a small multiplayer component with that map. I played it so often that it’s the only mission I clearly remember.
Ground Control and its sequel is EXCELLENT and so is WIC. Imagine getting these when all you had was base building, resource gathering and unit spamming. It was REVOLUTIONARY.
43:33 A thing worth noting here, is that there are plenty of heroic Russians in CoD, even when they are "the enemy" Kamarov, who leads a bunch of Russian Loyalists (the guys supporting the existing government during the Civil War). Nikolai, who repeatedly comes to the rescue of the protagonists of the Modern Warfare series. and for a much smaller character, Chernov from World at War, who repeatedly get's bullied by his commander, for objecting to the heinous warcrimes commited around him (even critizing the Russian PC if he takes part in them, or praising him if he doesn't).
Kamarov is fighting Communist forces, therefore an enemy to "modern Russia" (USSR and then Rus Fed extremists who were part of commie russia), Nikolai was a informant against zakhaev originally and rebooted as a informant against Russia again therefore being an enemy against "modern Russia" even ur example of Chernov shows that he is rejecting the norm of the USSR (modern Russia) and that this evil, heinous norm is encouraged by his commanding officer none of these examples was ever someone who was, 1. In Command, or 2. accepted by "modern Russia"'s authority structures. These heroic Russians are heroic in COD because they fight against the cold war/modern Russia, Even now, when they rebooted Modern Warfare this still happens. They retconned general shepard into being alive and humanised his pmc that betrays both you (the player) and America in his actions, but do we see the same thing for the antagonists (who still just so happen to be pro Warsaw Pact ppl like always). No, we do not. on the flip side in WiC you see a humanised Commander and even Malashenko(who not viewed as normal by the rest of the cast) has reasons for his vileness and had a arc of sorts. remember that this was done in 6 DLC missions.
Pretty sure Lebedjev is supposed to be a political officer, thus being outside of the regular commandstructure and more of an advisor and guarddog to orlovsky. It also makes him the head of the fun police. Also Orlovskys Unit is VDV, they are meant to rapidly redeploy
If i recall correctly, at one point in history, gorbachev did ask for financial aid from the west. He was after all trying to reform the way things were in the soviet union. It does suck that there weren't any west german infantry units in the game, only french
You can slam the Escape key to regain control when the game is taking over your camera. Playing on hard, this was sometimes even necessary so units wouldn't die from lack of micro.
On the Kursk thing and Russian reluctance to accept outside help: The USSR did receive food aid from the west at some points. Same as north korea does now. You can bluster and posture for clout as much as you want, but if your people are starving, that's always a bad look.
yup and this aid is exacty the opposite of what nato would want they would look at this sich and go "nooo your just gonna backstab us and you collapsing is alot better for us"
@@Oppen1945 the point is a disaster or an accident is one thing but aiding and financially lifting up a nation who welched on ww2 debts and you are in a contest with to see who's system is better who you know does a ton of immoral stuff on the regular why would we support them? the usa was happy to let the ussr die
with bannon's sacrifice it is setup he's been slowly getting his nerve back on his recon he was fully on it and his call home serves as plenty motivation he's got alot to think about knowing if this town falls the whole country might also soldiers send messages assuming there gonna fail and die all the time also the reverend is honestly surprisingly grounded reminder all the soviets are well known for there persecution of the religiously inclined and he pulled this stunt during the battle to free the city
I'm from Seattle so seeing depictions of my city in video games is always fascinating to me. They get some things right but they get a lot wrong 🤣 Great video! Thank you, this is a video game I have been curious about for quite some time
This game just ticks for me on so many levels. I dunno what it is about red dawn esque invasions of America, but early in my gaming history I grew to love every single one of them. To this day I still remember those missions in COD Modern Warfare 2 as some of my favorites.
Damn, you didn't pay attention to the lore at all man. Berlin is inside East Germany, so West Germans being there makes no sense. The cargo ships were Chinese, so the US wouldn't find them suspicious. That's also why they join the war later. Does it make sense? Not really, but it's something.
This video was time well spent. LOL this was my first game downloaded from internet back in 2008. I have so many good memories playing him in my sh&t ass computer with 1gb of ram an athlon x2 and a geforce 6150 SE. For me this game it's so Influential it was the first of a new type of RTS. Shame that WiC 2 would never happen. (Thanks Ubish&t). Maybe Broken Arrow would be a better Spiritual Sucesor. For now at least I can Play Regiments.
World in Conflict is one of my favorite games of all times, I liked so much, that I replayed recently and I'm posting on my channel, despite of the age of the game, the gameplay is still enjoyable. Thanks for the video.
Honestly the whole Soviets demanding aid thing has actual comparable real world examples with USSR actually requisitioning humanitarian aid, although more material than financial with stuff like US providing loads of their beloved chlorinated chicken colloquially known as "Bush Legs", and later on operations like Providing Hope.
To be honest, I remember seeing it advertised in 2008, and got the original version in December that year, but my brother got the complete edition in 2010, because he saw the potential of this franchise
29:43 Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 (and perhaps Tiberian Sun) kinda of does this as well: When left to the AI's devices, and facing multiple valid targets, a unit will prioritize an enemy with lower hitpoints, then an enemy whose armor its weapon is more effective against (using a 'Verses' % value of warhead type against armor). The result is that units with lower health get picked off first, and less armored units tend to be destroyed before hard targets. A player's command overrides this, and it gives a nice boost to the 'smartness' of the AI. How those games are different from WiC, is that there are only 11 armors to choose from, and land vehicles use 2 (technically 3, the resource collector has its own armor). And most tanks have the same armor. So it largely boils down to %HP. It does give a nice priority over infantry which tank rounds are less effective against (and vice versa for anti-infantry weapons). Oh, and that those games are positionally anisotropic (armor has no different no matter the facing), and the game is fast paced. You would pay no mind when a tank chooses to snipe that APC carrier (in such a game, a transport is potentially more dangerous than a tank). :D
I don't think the the big issue was bannon shooting those guys but disobeying orders a second time, it wasn't his call on how to deal with POWs bruh keeps overstepping the command structure
nice vid, I don't play RTS much (or at all) but I got interested in this game since I saw the seattle cinematics i also didn't expect that mention of the somnium files VN and RTS go together like damn now that I think of it they're both for nerds
I was just thinking about wic and what if they made it into a TV series. But wic is just one of those games solo or multiplayer is unforgettable. The music, sounds, cutscenes, characters to player, endless hours playing with friends online. It's a game I picked up at EB games ( or gamestop ) in the early 2010s and played till they shut down the online servers in 2015 or so. The graphics, storyline and game play is better then some RTS games today. Wished they continued with wic and still there is or was a small community that still or tried to keep the game alive.
Thank you for your great analysis of this genius RTS game. To this day, I like to play wic once in a while because I absolutely love the presentation, setting and writing on this game. To this day I find it pretty refreshing. It is really sad that this game will probably never get a sequel…
WHOA!! a full 2-hour retrospective on "World in Conflict"? Bro, you deserve a sub, and I'm joining the Notification Squad. Keep up the good work!! I think if you'd make a perfect collab partner with Zade in videos about RTS :D :D btw, what's the title for the anime in 22:13 ? :) :)
It's not that the in-engine cutscenes run poorly in the first company pf heroes, it's just that they were animated at 30 fps, and only play back at 30fps, which is why they seem to stutter so much
They explain it in the game. The point was a large surprise attack that would overwhelm us defences and eventually help them reach “star wars” project that would disarm usa anti nuclear defence. It was never really a goal to conquer usa, they prolly knew it’s practically impossible to hold ground in usa without any support from locals. They also needed a large city to establish logistics and resupply. But the main goal was to get to Fort Teller (the location of SDI is fictional but in game lore it makes sense.
*Read before watching*
I noticed that this video has been getting a lot of views recently, so I want to clear a few things up. I make a couple of historical claims in this video that are just flat out wrong, especially in the 5th chapter "why invade?".
This is still the biggest project I've ever uploaded, and unfortunately I wasn't putting as much time and effort into research for my projects at the time I made this video compared to now. It's something that has bothered me about this video for a while now, and I've made great effort to take my work more seriously going forward.
I still stand by the rest of the video where I talk purely about the game, and I hope you enjoy it regardless.
Everyone can make a mistake about those, don't worry. Also, history is full of different versions on the same event depending on source, ideology, side, etc, etc. "Objectivity" in history is a luxury, not the common situation.
Funniest of all circumstances is RUclips recommend a year old video, so sure a mistake is the least of worries
Good summary however
Don't worry about it, you have a really nice voice and it is not a gratitude work. Keep uploading, maan
welp, ima go full nerd mode and just add anyways in case anyone is interested
in regards to Kursk submarine: it was a very secret high tech(even for the year 2000) vehicle, ofc Russia was reluctant to let Western specialists get close to it
in regards to USSR asking for aid: 1980s Perestroika era USSR definitely could do it, and “why invade” question can be solved by saying “coup or whatever”
This was really good overall. I appreciated reliving this game again through your video. Maybe Pine Valley is so memorable because it was also used for years as a tech demo for new graphics cards. I saw some of the other comments mention the historical or military gaps in the video. If you have any need in the future, I'm a history major focusing on Eastern Europe and Russia's military, I can help with that.
Parker seems like to type of guy to bring up Small unit tactics on the first date.
The army issued him a girlfriend.
Them war hero genes need to be propagated.
Or the guy standing in the corner in a party and complain about why his feet hurt😂
@@Spider-Too-Too *Angry grumbling and muttering* "My fucking knees" (an all too relatable reality for my existence lmao)
Parker is truly the American Montgomery
"...so you take your first element and use them to suppress the enemy while your second element gets around the side"
Meanwhile the date is downing another wine questioning how she ended up in this situation
Ah World in Conflict, a game which campaign held a replay value to rewatching a film. Also the explosions are a sound that never truly left me.
this is why i call eugene lazy . their wargames and steel divisions can barely get near this game . only broken arrow seems to brinbg back some hope but still no fancy cinematics just in engine cinematics made by the game editor who allow mission scripting
@@LauftFafa Imagine if Eugen had campaigns with the same cinematic depth of WiC for the newer Wargames. I liked the alternate historical reality of European Escalation's campaigns but other than providing a basic backdrop for why what's happening is happening,it was very barebones
@@vito7428 They did have this, way before World in Conflict. Look up Act of War: Direct Action, it was Eugenes first titel. And still there best for us singleplayer crowd.
Understood we're inbound, Phoenix out...
I hate rewatching films but I did replay the game idk bro
Just to clarify, Lebedjev appears to be a political officer which were often assigned to Soviet military units, but generally not directly a part of the chain of command. They're role was to observe and maintain the loyalty of personnel to the state, including commanding officers. Obviously, in this case, Lebedjev is not a hard-liner, given his agreement with Orlovsky, but he still knows how to use political speak to convince the ship captain to follow his orders.
It is made extremely clear that Valery likely became "disillusioned" with Communism sometime in his prime. After all, in the last mission for the Soviet Campaign, he fulfills his dead friend's wish of sending his men back home, back to safety. He's a good guy at heart, just has to play by the rules and what not.
Lebedjev is a KGB political officer whose place in Red Army units was...interesting...to say the least. While they held a formal rank in the Red Army to aid them in their duties, they could not give commands to army officers outside of very certain circumstances. This isn't to say they had no power, their reports back to the KGB could make or break someone's career, so their opposites were wise to follow their 'suggestions'
The discussion about the western aid at 13:00 is so wrong. You compared Putin's Russia and Gorbochev's Perestroyka USSSR. He did actually tried to ask for western financial support to revitalize the economy in 1989.
He doesn't know his history lol
Thank fuck for this comment, I've made it to that moment and immediately scrolled to see if anyone called him on that
Multiple times in fact.
Also its not like the Soviet union was adverse to using blackmail to get resources either.
Yeah, whilst I’m sure pride factored into it, the main reason they didn’t want aid was because they didn’t want western military experts examining their most modern submarine, and wanted to be able to control the narrative of what happened
@@SerialWaffleStomper Dang You Got Recommended This Too?
He Kinda Forgot That The USSR Is The Same Country That Both Accepted A Lend Lease That Was Worth 1.3 Billion And Then Made Pepsi One Of The Strongest Organisations On The Planet Just To Get Some Drinks
Interesting to note, in the event no one else did about why the US wouldn't pelt the Soviets with ICBMs in the scenario where the SDI existed: from what I've read, US policy during WWIII would've basically been to keep the war conventional for as long as humanly possible and only use tactical bombs if they really have to, the latter bit kind of like what was shown in the Cascade Falls mission.
For me. The fact the US in this timeline had no way to defend from a Nuclear Attack from Russia. It made sense they wouldn't force the USSR to retaliate. Even if Russia think Star Wars was in effect. They will try.
I think you may have mixed things up. The US pursued a policy for much of the Cold War (50s-mid 80s) of using nukes first, if needed. For the entirety of the Cold War the US was at a numerical disadvantage and for most of it, we were technologically outmatched by Soviet ground tech. Essentially, for most of the war we recognized it was likely impossible for us to halt a Pact offensive into Germany, so we focused on maximizing the amount of damage we could do to, including nuking entire formations of Soviet units to even the odds.
This can be seen in how the Soviets were the first to develop tanks and transport vehicles capable of safely fighting in contaminated conditions, because they were extremely scared of us nullifying their ground advantages.
22:22
Roll on- Roll off- (RO-RO) ships are quite common at this point with their main advantage being their ability to have the vehicles drive themselves off. You can see the vehicles driving off the ships during the cutscene. A quite famous example of such a vessel would be the SS Atlantic Conveyor which was converted to carry Helicopters during the Falklands War and sunk by a Exocet Missile in 1982.
Fun fact, Both Captain Bannon and Malashenko is voiced by the same guy, who also voiced other notable videogame characters like Larry "Pixy" Foulkes from Ace Combat Zero.
And Parker was voiced by none other than everyone favorite "gunslinger" Alec Baldwin XD
No, that's not right. Yuri Lowenthal is Pixy (BTW, nice you mentioned ACZ there.).
No, Bannon was voiced by Dave Wittenberg, Henry Wong from Digimon Tamers, Kakashi Hatake from Naruto.
Malashenko is Mark Ivanir who's had a lot of bit parts through the years; though he's in like most of the Call of Duty games. (He's the one conscript in the tutorial for Call of Duty 2 who's complaining about using potatoes as grenades during training) and even had a part in Shindler's List.
@@ackbarfan5556 Mark Ivanir is basically you're stereotypical voice actor for Slavs, which I personally adore.
Wait, you are telling me that Bannon and Malashenko are voiced by YURI LOWENTHAL? AND THIS IS HOW I FIND IT OUT?
In Polish language version Orlovsky and Sawyer are dubbed by same person also
@@darmansbar7900 No, two different voice actors.
Well after wathing all I have some point to make:
1- Both PCs are the narrators of their sides. This fact was not open about it, but it sure didn't deny it either.
2-Mike and Anson's are one of the first people we met in the story, they were the off duty at that time iirc.
3- About Bannon's voice message to her mum: Bannon didn't know he'd die because it was a last stand kind of battle, he was ready to kill himself there. As we know Mark Bannon messed up big time in Europe, he's traumatized by his war crime. Since Colonel Sawyer keep antagonizing him his depression won over him. "I'm gonna do good tonight" does not sound good after you know what he has been going through. Not sayin he wasn't an asshole and a mess, but he was at least one can emphasize.
4- I also think in the cutscene of Seattle mission, Sawyer should have been hit, casuing Webb and Parker to take command to fill Sawyer's void and hold against the last ditch Soviet Attack until reinforcements arrived. That would make Webb as a more likable character (just a bit more), and Sawyer's praise for our desperate defense would mean something more than it did. And this would still play out similar: As Sawyer is wounded, Webb as the only highest ranked officer would take command Sawyer's troops and gives you his own unit to defend the position.
small correction: Anton and Mike show up in the first US mission in the first in-engine cutscene, after Bannon "greets" Parker at the barricade he 'conscripts' both of them into our hotpodge unit and they never have a chance to rejoin their own unit because of how chaotic all of the Seattle campaign is.
I think their point in the story is to show that not everything in the war was big scale 'big heroes making big decisions with nuclear annihilations as the stakes'. It's also just random people trying to survive it all and it kinda worked for me. They're there from beginning to end, tragically with little say in the matter and they survive and get a 'happy' ending. Also intentional or not them not being am actual unit you can get killed in game is pretty brilliant, assuming you end up caring about them, since you can never be sure they survived until they show up in the next cutscene. You just do your best and hope that was good enough (yes they'll always survive no matter how badly you do but the first time you play the campaign the bare subconscious hint that how well you do does matter helps the immersion).
2:00:50 - Can you imagine Sawyer taking cover? I can't, Sawyer was built up as the rude loud super competent all American Hero General that always knows the right play and isn't afraid of nothing. Sure staying in the open and shooting back was stupid but it's what Sawyer would do, and for no moment did the game made me doubt that he did domed that sniper, with an m16 he picked off the ground, using iron sights. :D
Sawyer most likely domed that sniper using pure luck and rage since it probably reminded him of what happened in Pine Valley with the private
@@watch.v-dQw4w9WgXcQ also he's in the middle of the street running is not a good position fight or flight and immediate aggression makes sense if you feel lucky with your aim rather than the snipers
WiC is such a hidden gem of RTS gaming. It's not available on anything other than GOG now, but the GOG version is updated and fixed. I love this game, and I'm currently playing it again right now.
Amen
What fixes does GOG have over the steam version?
I was lucky enough to get this on Steam before it was pulled out just a few months later 😎Both the base game plus the expansion DLC 😎
Its on Ubisoft Connect, i had first played it a couple years ago in a free trial of Ubisoft+.
What's gog I've always wanted to play this but could never find it
Im pretty sure Parker is the dude who talks in the loading screens for america, as in the seattle mission he says that Webb addresses him as "parker". This assumes then his counterpart, Romanov, is the one who talks in the Soviet loading screens. Just an observation, Im sure the person who talks in the Soviety loading screens is definitely NOT Orlovsky
Yeah he is, it is also mentioned in the final loading screen where Parker recalls a conversation between him and Webb"
About the first mission...its actually realistic. I mean US soldiers being just not on the same level as special forces. That is true. I did my compulsory military service in special forces and our training compared to that of the army's was leagues away. So imagine here you have some "simple" soldiers on guard dudy, bored out of their minds (since thats what guard duty does to you) never even expecting an attack. Routine is a soldier's worst enemy they used to tell us. So yeah, a VERY trained team of operatives can easily take out a small base of untrained soldiers. And by training i dont mean only weapons training, i mean mental training.
Granted this is a game, and it makes a good set piece. Those "simple" troops should still be specialized. Given that AA defenses would be vital it seems that security troops would be defending it, troops specifically used for counter infiltration tactics. So yes SF could probably infiltrate through rear or support troops, but security troops are designed to prevent this specific tactic, just because some units may not have as many hours of training does not mean they are not specialized.
@@TribuneAquila russian conscription is a hell of a thing, where one of the most important thing people learn is how tolook busy while doing nothing
@@marsdriver2501… but they attacked NATO base? And there were no conscripts. What are you talking about?
@@marsdriver2501 Im preeeety sure in that mission aint just "conscripts", but the mf Spetsnaz, you know, the special operations guys
If Korea is anything to go by, never trust soldiers barely out of recruitment and tasked with guarding a base in a foreign country they can't even point to on a map to hold up against an assault by vastly better trained, veteran troops. The US Occupation forces sent to Korea from Japan got steamrolled by the North Koreans in the first stages of the war, and this was only 5 years after the US was the strongest military power in the region and in the world.
If you actually look at USS Missouri in the pine valley mission, you can actually see escort ships in the distant behind it, so it was escorted by destroyers and frigates.
I know we are meant to feel sad for Bannon, but after all the times he mocks you or just complains and whines that he is not getting support or needs you to bail him out again really began to grind on me after a while. And when you do help him he then is never thankful and half the time helping him ends up making things more harder for your own troops especially on the harder difficulties.
In the last soviet Mission reason why Malashenko did not get the new radio messages was because Lebedjev told all the forces under him and Romanov to shift frequency to another channel, While Malashenko was never informed of this shift- as to stop him from trying to stop the retreat to the ship not in Seattle.
I might be off on this, but I interpreted Major Lebedjev as possibly a political commissar (or rather the 1980s equivalent, given the term 'commissar' stopped being used in the 1940s). It might explain why he seems more in-tune with the political aspects of command, tempered by his long-term friendship with the colonel, as compared to being an official second-in-command. I think the strongest argument for that might be explaining the apparent need to record an after-action interview with the Colonel following the second-last Soviet mission (especially the part about 'no room for the truth on that tape', because it is a political record first and foremost).
Just so you know, when you said you had issues with the Soviets asking for financial aid right around the 11:00 minute mark, that’s pretty much what Gorbachov did in real life. He had a tour in the West basically selling Perestroika, Glasnost and Demokratizatsiya to various western governments (including the U.S of A) so he could finance his plan to bring economic reforms in the Soviet Union in 500 days. Although, he also suffered a Coup d’ etat so…
Heyo, good video so far. Haven't watched it all the way through but I noticed something at the segment at 11:50 regarding Western Aid. I think you misunderstood the prelude prompt. In game, the Soviet Union does not ask for financial aid, it essentially tries to extort Western Europe. I actually have a box copy of the game, that I bought as a kid wayyy back in 2007. The manual it comes with gives more context. Here is an excerpt from page 3,
"As the 1980s drew to a close, the Soviet Union found itself bankrupt, disorganized and unable to keep up with the United States in the Cold War arms race. Adding to this bubbling cauldron, President Reagan’s US Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars” project, was threatening to significantly upset the delicate balance of mutual deterrence. Funds required for upgrading the Soviet nuclear arsenal and conventional forces were rapidly becoming scarce within the communist state. This led to increasing cuts in the civilian sector, which in turn caused widespread famines and supply shortages. As a last resort, the Soviet Politburo devised to blackmail Western Europe. They demanded from Europe the aid they needed, or they would invade and take it for themselves. The Western Alliance initially viewed the Politburo’s threats as a bluff and attempted to orchestrate an end to the crisis through diplomatic channels. However, despite the West’s fevered rhetoric, the Soviet Union had already decided on a path from which there was no turning back. As the crisis wore on, the Warsaw Pact steadily increased its readiness level, compelling NATO to mobilize a defense along the borders of the Iron Curtain. Then in what seemed like an instant, World War III had begun."
The Murmansk incident was the Russians refusing probably out of pride or paranoia. The Soviets demanding financial aid in game was probably the political setup to the war. Like the Politburo would sell the war as "taking what the West won't give us" to the Soviet people.
I like how Sawyer speaking French makes sense because of Sawyer being a Nam’ vet.
11:24
this entire chapter of the video doesn't make sense.
just because its the soviet union, doesnt mean they wont ask for financial aid with the west
at the start of october 1988, and so during the "Winter 1988", the leader of the soviet union was mikhail gorbachev
if you dont know, this man had a bunch of programs, regulations and laws introduced to get closer ties with the west, so requesting financial aid from the west would make sense
you brought up the kursk submarine disaster, and how putin denied any form of outside help from western nations. then you proceed to say that the soviet union would've denied help even more, which does not make sense considering the leader of the ussr at the time the game takes place
putin and gorbachev were completely different people, with different ideas, ideologies and goals.
so in the end, bringing up the kursk sub. disaster was completely pointless, the leaders had completely different opinions toward the west, and the situations in the the ussr and RF were completely different.
oh boy, 2 hour video about my favorite rts
Copy that Phoenix is in transit with payload... Out..
The multiplayer in this game was just perfect.
4 roles. Support would defeat helo's, helo's would defeat armor, and armor would defeat support. That was almost never the case because it was always such a smooth combined arms battle.
Then infantry just cheesing it behind the enemy lines.
Bannon is the perfect redemption arc in a video game. Very much enjoyed his back and fourths with Parker
The Battle for Pine Valley was the mission included in the Demo! I played that mission soooo much before getting the full game.
There was a treaty that only a number of british and US Forces were allowed to be stationed in West Berlin. Actual German forces weren't stationed in West berlin. But I'm not sure if this still applied in 1989. But the so called "Berlin Brigade" was a
thing that existed and consisted only of some british and mainly US Troops. So thats actually correct. But I'm pretty sure in the end of the second Soviet Mission you fight a few german Leopard 2 Tanks...
French, British, and American. All used a combined arms brigade mostly using lsst generation equipment rather than top of the line stuff.
@@jacobscott1433 Ah thx.
The multiplayer was really fun, like a "Battlefield 2" RTS! It's crazy to me that Ubisoft didn't bother to keep a matchmaking server up and work on a sequel. WiC had overwhelmingly positive reviews when it came out.
To answer your question about Vivendi: it was a big company that owned a lot of game studios, but it was SO big that the leadership didn't care about making games. They sold off their game business in a very convoluted manner that coincidentally happened right as World in Conflict was a success. Imagine working for a company that is sold multiple times by people who don't even live in your country. The leadership of Massive Entertainment quit, and that was that. Broken Arrow is now trying to revive the dream, though!
there is community run multiplayer, just google massgate to find it
1:26 what you're remembering is Cossacks! Fantastic aoe like game with nearly infinite troop cap and no running out of collectable resources.
On the thing you mention about the presentation. I think the unique setting plays into that as well. There is a certain untapped draw that the 1980's military equipment has just like how popular 80's cold war mods are in Arma. Might be due to the fact that it was the last gasp of cold war development mixed in with modern equipment we know today.
And the fact that there was 10s on thousands of equipment available
World in Conflict was my one of the first rts experiences ever and its still one of my favorites.I really love searching and knowing things about cold war and its my one of the favorite topics to research about it,and thats of course how ı discovered this masterpiece.İt really has that unnatural feeling that playing a rts game with a serious story,charecter devolopments,cinematics,soundtracks etc.The campaign is really realistic and creative for a WW3 scenario.And even the multiplayer is really still fun to play today.
My favorite game till this day, and the reason why I'm so into 80s military and cold war history.
Refering to 1:16:00: You cannot just shoot PoWs when you have no place or manpower to keep them in check LMAO. I mean... Australians did it once and it was massive war-crime scandal xd
yeah regardless thogh mistaken identity I don't blame bannon for it but I also don't blame his co for not being it
You forgot to talk about the most important part, the trailer where a bunch of US soldiers try to retake a burger king restaurant. JK great video keep it up!
Thanks!
wic is the best rts ever, also the best setting ever, there is something appealing about its setting as the red dawn esque invasion of the us is much more plausible of a scenario than whatever cod had
also the ekranoplan in game isnt the caspian sea monster, that was the prototype , instead they are the lun class ekranoplan (but the point still stands, as they only ever made one and the other one was never completed)
It’s still kind of a dumb and very American scenario. But better than COD sure…
how is this a "best rts"? Like i get the point about writing and setting, but i didn't like the gameplay, like it isn't skill based. I enjoyed Tomclancy's endwar gameplay much more tbh, I have to think of my tactics before doing things
@@marsdriver2501 that is purely my opinion, the gameplay is kinda mediocre imo too, im just biased towards the cold-war-gone-hot games, and there arent many out there
Honestly Starcraft 2 is the only RTS I can remember as having a similar emphasis on "cinematic presentation". Its also funny to hear about the AI fucking up threat priortization an armour alignment. Thats still an issue in Red Dragon. No clue if Eugen ended up fixing it in Warno/SD
WarCraft 3
Look here look listen
Why So Many Likes?
The world wonders
Wow, I absolutely loved this video. Very well edited and paced. Never played this game, but I used to love EndWar back on the PS3. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to find this game instead.
For a less than 50k view, this is a really good analysis video about a game is also underrated.
Honestly, I liked the American campaign but damn the Soviet story is more gripping.
I remember I would play the gundam games and be annoyed that I couldn't alter the course of the war for Zeon, but honestly, there is a more compelling story seeing a army losing the war as the stress of officers and soldiers takes it toll.
I think it be interesting if devs were bold enough to tell a story of nation losing the war in a strategy game.
Would of also been interesting to see the Russian commanders meet their American equivalents after being captured or something tho.
Malashenko would make it so that either him or Bannon walked out of the POW camp alive
Romanov and Parker meet and they feel like they have met a long lost brother.
In the original version of the game on the final cutscene At 2:06:30 the original that was playing was Tears for fears - everybody wants to rule the world.
I was looking to see if anyone else remembered this. Wonder if they couldn't get the rights to the music when they changed distributors. Tears for fears was definitely a better song for the outro IMO.
Besides some points where a blatant lack of understanding of how things worked back then is evident, the video was fun to watch, it actually made me download the game once again.
I only remember two things about this game. It was fun as hell, and the second one is that I hated to have to be perpetually micromanage my tanks deploy smoke screens because without that the units would not survive 'til the end of the mission, my one and only gripe with the game.
The thing is that Ground Control set the foundation for WiC. The problem is that RTS and RTT as a genre are extremely resistant to the sort of consolidation of mechanics and controls that FPS underwent through.
51:27 What surprises me as a kid when I first played this mission is finding out that the SDI, which sounded like a whole sci-fi stuff, was an *actual project* that was formed in 1984 by Ronald Reagan and was nicknamed the Star Wars Project. The program essentially included space-based, ground-based, and directed energy systems bu the concept faced technical, financial, and political challenges, and was eventually scaled down and renamed the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) in 1993.
1:15:40 This is just a horribly bad take on your part. You do not kill civilians in wartime deliberately, period. Bannon should have let them go even if that compromises there location further down the line. Sawyer was 100% right to come down hard on him for it.
hilariously great timing cause I legit just bought the game 10 minutes ago
Thanks for the video, I'm a teaching assistant at the college and I actually showed this video game to my students when we had lectures about the Cold War. Greetings from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In regards to the mission where you attack West Berlin, it isn't that odd to only fight US troops. The Americans had the Berlin Brigade there to defend the city. There were also British and French brigades there as well, but to my reconlection, West Germany didn't have a part in the defence of Berlin. I honestly couldn't say if it was even part of West Germany or if they left it separately managed by the occupation by the allies. Could simply be your units were attacking where the American brigade was responsible for the defence.
West Berlin was officialy ruled by the US, UK and France. But it was de facto an autonomouse city state of the F.R.G
Look here, look listen. I've watched all the way. The perfect way to go through a long work day 😎😎
When Lebedjev remarked'Time to choose'i believe he was actually referring to when Orlovsky told him he would have to choose his path too sooner or later just as Lebedjev said he had chosen his course for good or ill. Aside from that,this is an extremely great review. World in Conflict is probably the only RTS i find myself visiting once or twice a year. It's probably the single game that got me really interested in Cold War era military history,the soundtrack fecking slaps too. It's a shame it's a bit of a more obscure game
I love this game 😢
35:18 I made it this far and I'm still going.
Through your review you did mention that you did not believe there were any modern RTS games that try to tell a compelling story through the cutscenes and during the gameplay. I would like to recommended a game that attempts to do this, Iron Harvest
Great, thoughtful analysis of one of my favorite games.
Just finished the video, and wanted to speak to the multiplayer: it was epic. I was a top-50 ranked support player for a few weeks after the original release. It was very different than other RTSs like StarCraft, because it was all about tactics and less about strategy. Choosing when to spend versus use your support points, changing unit comps on the fly as the enemy comp changed, and coordinating with your teammates since nobody could have both helicopters and tanks, for instance, made it super fast-paced and close-fought.
Didn't it state we lost a portion of the Pacific fleet and it was spread thin keeping an eye on China?
You remember the battle of pine valley mission more than the others because they released a demo that had that mission and a small multiplayer component with that map. I played it so often that it’s the only mission I clearly remember.
One day you will have a feature with Sseth, I just know. And I will live to see the day this channel blows up the way it deserves.
Ground Control and its sequel is EXCELLENT and so is WIC. Imagine getting these when all you had was base building, resource gathering and unit spamming. It was REVOLUTIONARY.
43:33
A thing worth noting here, is that there are plenty of heroic Russians in CoD, even when they are "the enemy"
Kamarov, who leads a bunch of Russian Loyalists (the guys supporting the existing government during the Civil War).
Nikolai, who repeatedly comes to the rescue of the protagonists of the Modern Warfare series.
and for a much smaller character, Chernov from World at War, who repeatedly get's bullied by his commander, for objecting to the heinous warcrimes commited around him (even critizing the Russian PC if he takes part in them, or praising him if he doesn't).
Kamarov is fighting Communist forces, therefore an enemy to "modern Russia" (USSR and then Rus Fed extremists who were part of commie russia),
Nikolai was a informant against zakhaev originally and rebooted as a informant against Russia again therefore being an enemy against "modern Russia"
even ur example of Chernov shows that he is rejecting the norm of the USSR (modern Russia) and that this evil, heinous norm is encouraged by his commanding officer
none of these examples was ever someone who was, 1. In Command, or 2. accepted by "modern Russia"'s authority structures. These heroic Russians are heroic in COD because they fight against the cold war/modern Russia, Even now, when they rebooted Modern Warfare this still happens. They retconned general shepard into being alive and humanised his pmc that betrays both you (the player) and America in his actions, but do we see the same thing for the antagonists (who still just so happen to be pro Warsaw Pact ppl like always). No, we do not. on the flip side in WiC you see a humanised Commander and even Malashenko(who not viewed as normal by the rest of the cast) has reasons for his vileness and had a arc of sorts. remember that this was done in 6 DLC missions.
Pretty sure Lebedjev is supposed to be a political officer, thus being outside of the regular commandstructure and more of an advisor and guarddog to orlovsky. It also makes him the head of the fun police.
Also Orlovskys Unit is VDV, they are meant to rapidly redeploy
World in conflict is quality. No RTS had touched it to this day.
If i recall correctly, at one point in history, gorbachev did ask for financial aid from the west. He was after all trying to reform the way things were in the soviet union. It does suck that there weren't any west german infantry units in the game, only french
Love this game so much. I hope to be able to meet Dave Wittenberg one of these days and tell him how much I loved the game. (Bannon's VA.)
i really needed a retrospective like this. i love this game so much and i am happy to see love for it aswell. thanks man. i love you channel!
GOAT RTS
Put hundreds of hours into it
You can slam the Escape key to regain control when the game is taking over your camera. Playing on hard, this was sometimes even necessary so units wouldn't die from lack of micro.
On the Kursk thing and Russian reluctance to accept outside help:
The USSR did receive food aid from the west at some points. Same as north korea does now.
You can bluster and posture for clout as much as you want, but if your people are starving, that's always a bad look.
yup and this aid is exacty the opposite of what nato would want they would look at this sich and go "nooo your just gonna backstab us and you collapsing is alot better for us"
@@Oppen1945 the point is a disaster or an accident is one thing but aiding and financially lifting up a nation who welched on ww2 debts and you are in a contest with to see who's system is better who you know does a ton of immoral stuff on the regular why would we support them? the usa was happy to let the ussr die
I dont think the USSR would enjoy further sanctions plus no food aid tbh, kind of puts them on the spot, attack now or starve and attack never i guess
The Provide Hope? Dude, that happened when USSR is actually collapsed
@@mikeivoyloff1656 and the usa actively wants them gone if there gonna collapse under there own weight good
This game really needs a sequel
Truelly a underated Masterpeice
with bannon's sacrifice it is setup he's been slowly getting his nerve back on his recon he was fully on it and his call home serves as plenty motivation he's got alot to think about knowing if this town falls the whole country might
also soldiers send messages assuming there gonna fail and die all the time
also the reverend is honestly surprisingly grounded reminder all the soviets are well known for there persecution of the religiously inclined and he pulled this stunt during the battle to free the city
I'm from Seattle so seeing depictions of my city in video games is always fascinating to me. They get some things right but they get a lot wrong 🤣 Great video! Thank you, this is a video game I have been curious about for quite some time
Parker voice is also done by Alec Baldwin, which I only recently found out.
Absolutely loved this game. Used to play it college. Multiplayer was a blast - almost always went infantry.
This game just ticks for me on so many levels. I dunno what it is about red dawn esque invasions of America, but early in my gaming history I grew to love every single one of them. To this day I still remember those missions in COD Modern Warfare 2 as some of my favorites.
Awesome video 👌🏻
Bannon's sacrifice will always be remembered 😢
Damn, you didn't pay attention to the lore at all man. Berlin is inside East Germany, so West Germans being there makes no sense. The cargo ships were Chinese, so the US wouldn't find them suspicious. That's also why they join the war later. Does it make sense? Not really, but it's something.
I’ve replayed and continue to replay WiC over and over to this day
This video was time well spent. LOL this was my first game downloaded from internet back in 2008. I have so many good memories playing him in my sh&t ass computer with 1gb of ram an athlon x2 and a geforce 6150 SE.
For me this game it's so Influential it was the first of a new type of RTS.
Shame that WiC 2 would never happen. (Thanks Ubish&t).
Maybe Broken Arrow would be a better Spiritual Sucesor. For now at least I can Play Regiments.
I recently discovered your channel, and by god I'm already subscribed. Nice work.
World in Conflict is one of my favorite games of all times, I liked so much, that I replayed recently and I'm posting on my channel, despite of the age of the game, the gameplay is still enjoyable.
Thanks for the video.
Honestly the whole Soviets demanding aid thing has actual comparable real world examples with USSR actually requisitioning humanitarian aid, although more material than financial with stuff like US providing loads of their beloved chlorinated chicken colloquially known as "Bush Legs", and later on operations like Providing Hope.
To be honest, I remember seeing it advertised in 2008, and got the original version in December that year, but my brother got the complete edition in 2010, because he saw the potential of this franchise
29:43 Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 (and perhaps Tiberian Sun) kinda of does this as well: When left to the AI's devices, and facing multiple valid targets, a unit will prioritize an enemy with lower hitpoints, then an enemy whose armor its weapon is more effective against (using a 'Verses' % value of warhead type against armor).
The result is that units with lower health get picked off first, and less armored units tend to be destroyed before hard targets. A player's command overrides this, and it gives a nice boost to the 'smartness' of the AI.
How those games are different from WiC, is that there are only 11 armors to choose from, and land vehicles use 2 (technically 3, the resource collector has its own armor). And most tanks have the same armor. So it largely boils down to %HP. It does give a nice priority over infantry which tank rounds are less effective against (and vice versa for anti-infantry weapons).
Oh, and that those games are positionally anisotropic (armor has no different no matter the facing), and the game is fast paced. You would pay no mind when a tank chooses to snipe that APC carrier (in such a game, a transport is potentially more dangerous than a tank). :D
You should review the RTS game R.U.S.E. It was made by Eugen Systems and I do believe you will enjoy it. If not for the campaign
Literally the BEST RTS game ever made… no one can convince me otherwise 🤷🏼♂️
I don't think the the big issue was bannon shooting those guys but disobeying orders a second time, it wasn't his call on how to deal with POWs bruh keeps overstepping the command structure
I'm one of those ground control enjoyers, both 1 and 2. Their mention brought back fond memories!
nice vid, I don't play RTS much (or at all) but I got interested in this game since I saw the seattle cinematics
i also didn't expect that mention of the somnium files
VN and RTS go together like
damn now that I think of it they're both for nerds
I was just thinking about wic and what if they made it into a TV series. But wic is just one of those games solo or multiplayer is unforgettable. The music, sounds, cutscenes, characters to player, endless hours playing with friends online. It's a game I picked up at EB games ( or gamestop ) in the early 2010s and played till they shut down the online servers in 2015 or so. The graphics, storyline and game play is better then some RTS games today. Wished they continued with wic and still there is or was a small community that still or tried to keep the game alive.
you can find worl in conflict: soviet assault on GOG its like steam but for old games
Thank you for your great analysis of this genius RTS game. To this day, I like to play wic once in a while because I absolutely love the presentation, setting and writing on this game. To this day I find it pretty refreshing. It is really sad that this game will probably never get a sequel…
It was romanvo doing the narrative for the Russian side and parker for the American side
World in Conflict is the best Cold Era RTS game of all times.
WHOA!! a full 2-hour retrospective on "World in Conflict"?
Bro, you deserve a sub, and I'm joining the Notification Squad. Keep up the good work!!
I think if you'd make a perfect collab partner with Zade in videos about RTS :D :D
btw, what's the title for the anime in 22:13 ? :) :)
Thanks, it's from an anime called You're Under Arrest, or so I'm told by Know Your Meme lol
32:20 you can press escape to skip them btw
Oh, the fond memories of playing this game in multiplayer all night long back in 2009.
Came for the cossacks video, stayed for world in conflict!
It's not that the in-engine cutscenes run poorly in the first company pf heroes, it's just that they were animated at 30 fps, and only play back at 30fps, which is why they seem to stutter so much
I never understood why they invaded seattle, alaska would have made more sense.
They explain it in the game. The point was a large surprise attack that would overwhelm us defences and eventually help them reach “star wars” project that would disarm usa anti nuclear defence. It was never really a goal to conquer usa, they prolly knew it’s practically impossible to hold ground in usa without any support from locals. They also needed a large city to establish logistics and resupply. But the main goal was to get to Fort Teller (the location of SDI is fictional but in game lore it makes sense.
One comment at 1:56:16. Are those prices accurate for 1989 ? 🙂