Combat Mission is essentially a turn-based wargame. But don’t click away yet; this wargame is unlike any that have come before. It depicts small --a handful of tanks, a couple of hundred men-- World War II skirmishes in Europe. The few of you who have played Avalon Hill’s Advanced Squad Leader board game should get the picture, the thousand of you who haven’t must imagine intensely brutal fire fights between German SS and British Tommies (infantry), American Sherman tanks and German King Tigers. The ROM includes units from six armies and hundreds of weapons, but who cares? It’s all been done before. What hasn’t been done is how the SS, Tommies, Shermans, and King Tigers are thrown into combat and the way they look once there.

Lets look at the look first, and the combat next. The terrain and units are 3D. Now I’m not talking pretty, gee-look-at-the-little-swordsmen 3D, but those-trees-block-my-cannon’s-sight 3D. The Combat Mission landscape is full of undulating hills, meandering rivers, forests, buildings (several kinds), railroad tracks, marshes, stone walls --in short real world stuff. And, unlike any other 3D game I can think of, all these landscape features matter! Tanks can hide in the scattered woods (or dips in the ground), squads of soldiers can take cover in buildings or behind stone walls, and marshes can bog trucks and tanks. Of course you can rotate/elevate and pan/zoom your view. Want to know if your antitank gun can spot the tank cresting the distant rise? Just zoom in to a ground level view from the gun and see for yourself. Yep, there have been real-time games that dabble in realistic line of sight, but this is virgin territory (Blue Byte’s Incubation excepted) for turn-based gamers.

3D terrain would make Combat Mission a cool game. But what destines the title for greatness  (and a host of game-engine copycats) is the turn-based/real-time action. The orders phase is turn-based. Take your time, click on each unit, check line of sight, and direct the machine gun to chop down the approaching Germans or the Sherman tank to move into ambush behind the hill. Nothing new there, what is new is how your orders play out --i.e. real time. You see, while you where ordering your units, the computer was ordering its own, and when you click “Go” the results are simultaneously played out on the 3D battlefield.

Imagine a two-minute slice of Saving Private Ryan in which you control the actors. Your machine gun team will no sooner open up on the approaching Germans than a Tiger tank will appear in the street to your right, gun tube lowering to obliterate your men. The Sherman you ordered to the hill may hit a mine and the crew dies horribly at the hands of a previously hidden German MG34 machine gun. I frequently found myself cheering on an exposed platoon as it ran for cover, fearful that a hidden German squad would cut them down --and this is *turn-based* gaming. I’ve played Unreal Tournament death matches that were less exciting.

You may rewind, fast forward, pan, zoom, pause or whatever you like during the playback. Even save a special moment to show a friend (or taunt an enemy). Ever wish you could show your buddy just how your Zerglings swarmed the Terrans? With Combat Mission you can --aside from the fact that it has no Zerglings or Terrans. It is just fantastic.

Unfortunately, it is also obscure. Lack of gaming clout regulates Combat Mission to the back pages of the gaming magazines and the review archives of all but war gaming review sights. It’s a shame, because in an era where each new game claims to take its genre to new heights, Combat Mission truly does. And that’s a fact that money can’t buy.