Double the Fun, Double the Warfare in Squad Assault: Second Wave

by Louis Bedigian

“No other real-time strategy game combines a realistic armor model, morale system, and historical setting like Squad Assault: Second Wave.” 

There’s nothing like a good war to settle a dispute.  Like that time I wanted to go the arcade and play Mortal Kombat, but my dad wanted to stay home and watch the Discovery channel.  He saw things my way after a super soaker battle didn’t turn out the way he had planned.

Or the time my friend argued that Street Fighter II was the best Capcom fighting game, when everyone knows that Street Fighter II Turbo is far superior.  My word wasn’t strong enough to sway opinions, so it was up to my box of water balloons to do the trick.

Things just wouldn’t have gone my way if it weren’t for what Anakin Skywalker refers to as “aggressive negotiations” (negotiations with a lightsaber).  Lightsabers don’t really exist, but the world does have an abundance of water.  If you can’t use the Force you might as well use H2O.

Squad Assault: Second Wave comes blasting toward gamers with all the strategic, real-time war action you’re searching for. 

It’s the expanded version of Squad Assault: West Front and is the yet another way to settle the many disputes that go on in this war-filled world of ours.

“Jimmy, turn that down!”

“What’s that dad?  Do you want me to turn it up?  Alright, if you insist…”

Squad Assault: Second Wave is said to be a significantly updated, enhanced and expanded version of the original title, Squad Assault: West Front. Assume I already own West Front -- what's the primary reason I'll want to run out and buy Second Wave?

Executive Producer, Eric Young: The primary reason is the new content. Operation Bloody Ground is a wonderful set of battles set in the Hurtgen Forest in 1944. The Market Garden Maps are excellent, and the modder upgrades to the stock maps make the new version head and shoulders above the old version. I would like to give credit to Benjamin Donaldson, Kari Salo, Wilf Thorn, Robert Tupniak, and Thomas Daxner, for their excellent work on maps included in this build and for the shadow tool Thomas put together.

Before we go deeper into the new features, let's go over the content that players may or may not be already familiar with, such as the game play. How does Squad Assault differ from other games in the genre?

EY: There are no realistic 3D World War II RTS games on the market other than Squad Assault-Second Wave. No other real time strategy game combines a realistic armor model, morale system, and historical setting like Squad Assault-Second Wave. The maps are as real as it gets. Dynamic lighting, weather effects and the new shadow model make Second Wave second to none. 

Get up close and personal with your units.

How many units are there and how many will players be able to control at a time?

EY: There is a twenty-unit limit in the game per side. There are over 300 individual units in Squad Assault-Second Wave with 130 vehicles and guns. There are 252 different weapons systems.

Squad Assault takes place during World War II. What kind of a story has the development team prepared: one of fiction, one of fact, or a mixture of the two?

EY: In any good war game you start with a historically correct setting, but then as the game progresses and you do better or worse than your historical counter parts, it turns into fiction. You land with the Airborne troops on D-Day and then storm the beaches of France. Then you fight you way inland and with the modding additions you can play all the major battles of the Western Front, including Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge. 

If that solider was a guard from Metal Gear Solid, the triangle would be replaced by an exclamation mark. 

Second Wave includes three entirely new campaigns, doubling the total of the original. Does this truly double the game's size, or does each campaign vary in size?

EY: The game is more than double in size. The modder campaigns are quite long in some cases, and some of them are non-linear. The modder campaigns are far superior to the original content that ship with the old Squad Assault.

What do these new campaigns entail? How do they compare to the other campaigns?

EY: The new campaigns range in subject and scope from the German attack on the Island of Crete in 1941 to the winter battles for the Seigfreid Line in 1945. Some of the campaigns are very long, like the Counter Attack campaign, which is a hypothetical battle after D-Day assuming the German General Rommel had a free hand in deploying and employing the Panzer Divisions in France. 

What are the operations and how do they differ from campaigns?

EY: Campaigns are linked together operations. So an operation can be part of a campaign, or it can be a stand alone entity. All of the operations that make up a campaign are by definition stand alone, but some make more sense in the campaign setting.

Things not going your way?  Send in a tank.  It’ll get the job done.

Second Wave includes a new world editor to create maps, as well as 50+ new modder maps. Who made the modder maps, and what do they bring to the table? Are they revised versions of the other maps in the game?

EY: Most of the maps where made by Benjamin Donaldson, Kari Salo, Robert Tupniak, and Wilf Thorn. Their work was greatly supplemented by Thommas Daxner's Shadow tool, which is a work of genius. All are original work based on good research. They range from the island of Crete to the West Wall of Germany.

How does the map editor work? How much control do players have over what's made, what kind of a gameplay experience the map will provide, etc.

EY: The user controls everything, from map size, to placement of objects, trees and terrain. Elevation, road nets, rivers, streams and ponds are all definable to the user.  Lighting, sky conditions and fog are also user controlled for weather effects. The underlying data for all the maps is the key to making the map work correctly in the game. With proper research a player can make just about any piece of terrain in Europe. It is not an easy task to complete but the end result is very rewarding. 

When soldiers run toward the screen, it could only mean one of two things: either the enemy is rushing us, or our men are retreating.  I can’t decide which scenario is worse.

What multiplayer features does Second Wave offer?

EY: You can play head to head with either an Internet connection or a LAN connection. Combat HQ maintains a lobby for multi player match ups.

Thank you for your time.