Customer Reviews

Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Battle

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Waterloo, Napoleons Last Battle is a great game. It gives an accurate recreation of one of the most important events in the history of Europe. The Game is a work of art. Each armies individual units are displayed in the actual uniform they wore on the day of battle covering the field with a riot of color spiced by flags fluttering in the wind.

There is a lot involved in learning to play the game its play is so rich. The learning curve is aided by six scenarios and a jewel of a game manual. Once up to speed the game's true deep becomes apparent.

The AI is extremely good and will give you a real challenge. The addition of cavalry tactics so important in the napoleonic era to the SMG engine is a one of the really neat aspects of the game adding whole new dimensions to battlefield tactics.

A very enjoyable game and a chance to experience a fascinating era in history. Lets hope Breakaway develops more games from this era.

First off, don't buy Waterloo if you are expecting Sid Meier's Gettysburg. The game has changed, from different time periods and warfare. Many have given up because Waterloo forces you to use advanced Warfare, never seen before in Gettysburg. It is a must for anyone who is up for a challenge, has an interest in the Napoleonic warfare or who is a RTS War gamer.

The reviews written previously have highlighted the negative problems from Waterloo when it was originally shipped. A patch has changed everything. The Cavalry has been re-tuned; the artwork has been revisited to give it the Gettysburg! look and feel, new features, such as Artillery hide in Infantry Square make this game so much better.

Other Gettysburg! Features have been added since the original release in the second patch, including the right click to move feature, absent from the original release.

New game play changes have made it possible to fight the AI and handle the larger scenarios. A very stable game, with relatively few bugs, Waterloo provides pure entertainment. Waterloo also provides a large amount of history. Thorough research has gone into the scenarios; unit artwork and game play, making it one of the most historically correct Napoleonic PC war games to date.

Also, the game allows for you to create your own battles, either in the new easy to use Battle generator, or through text editing, making scenarios for the game. The din of battle has been captured excellently, as you can hear your flank being assaulted while caring after troops at a different area. All commands for the French troops are in French, and the same goes for the Prussian units. Over 60 different types of unit artwork has been included, and they have all been researched beforehand. Along with the game, more materials come along, and even explain the exact amounts of the rate of fire, from different types of units, how stress can defeat your army (and the many different ways it is calculated)

Your units can make a wide variety of formations, including 4 deep lines, assault columns, squares; all of which have different firing limitations and bonuses, per situation. Cavalry, if used correctly can be a dangerous force, but if used incorrectly, can give your enemy an advantage.

The multiplayer features included in Waterloo give the game a long life, that allows for unlimited replay ability (from the battle creator, which allows you to randomize the locations & units) never limiting how long this game can be played.

I hope this has helped, and don’t be discouraged at first, it does have a learning curve. A few notes, as the current DEMO is at original reatail release, and is not a fair representation of what it now is under the second patch. Look around, and have an open mind. The new patch has given Waterloo a new life, and is well worth the purchase price.

I have found this game far more exiting and challenging than the alternative turn based war games. I must admitt I did leap into the deep end without fully completing the tutorials and smaller scenarios but instead elected to take on the full blown battle.I soon found I had to constantly use the pause button to survey the battle field and then dish out orders. To not use the pause button frequently, is inviting a rout if enemy cavarly are lurking nearby and cavarly can be absolutely devasting in this game. Victory points are gained through obtaining field objectives,inflicting casualties, demoralising your enemy. Performance on the field is affected by factors such as cohesion, stress and battle formation of your units and enemy units. The graphics are good but not brilliant and sound effects are very good from the thundering cannon fire, clash of sabres, to the cries of charge and retreat. In this game you will learn to constantly survey the battlefield and change your battle formations and keep reviewing your strategy. The AI is certainly a handful and I have only attempted battle at the easy level so far. I have not yet downloaded the patches which apparently will increase the graphics quality and tone down the devasting cavarly attacks. This is a game that may take a bit of practice but it is worth it.

"Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Battle" (WNLB) is the third game to use Sid Meier's "Gettysburg" engine- the most successful PC wargame of all-time. Of course, any game using a 1997 game as its base is not really going to blow anyone in 2002 away with its graphics, sound, or interface. To put it bluntly WNLB looks very dated, especially the terrain graphics. The game does contain wonderfully researched and accurate uniforms of the numerous units involved in this epic battle. No plain blue and gray here, instead we get the huge spectrum of colors that made up the uniforms of Napoleonic armies. In fact, the entire game's attention to historical detail is very admirable.

But to an experienced wargamer eye-candy will always be secondary to gameplay, and it is here where WNLB shines. Sid Meier's engine has been excellently updated to demonstrate the complexities of the Napoleonic battlefield with its "rock, scissors, paper" battle between infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Cavalry is the instrament of decision, and careful use of your mounted resources is the key to victory or defeat. The AI is also very good, and in some scenarios it will crush the human player. This is real time action, so it requires a quick hand and eye, and judicial use of the clock and pause key if the action gets too chaotic. A realtime engine works wonderfully for small to medium sized scenarios, and really introduces the player to the chaos of 19th century combat. However, this engine is far less successful in the larger scenarios- the player will have very difficult time keeping track of all his units without playing at the slowest speed and using the pause button every 10 seconds or so.

WNLB suffers from a lack of replayability that hurts all war games based just on a single battle. There are only so many times one will want to keep refighting the battle of Waterloo. The game does come with numerous scenarios to help replayability. However, alot of these scenarios are large sized, and are quite unplayable due to the engine's limitations. Due to its lack of replayability and dated graphics, I can't really recommend WNLB to anyone other than die-hard wargamers and Napoleonics buffs.

The games graphics are not the cleanest, prettiest artwork ever to grace a game but they bring more atmosphere to the game still. At the end of the day it should be gameplay which decides the quality of the game and so it is with Waterloo. This is the bit thats uneven.In single player the game is approachable and on the lower difficulty settings the ai can be beaten fairly quickly without haveing to be a tactical genius. On the higher difficulty settings the game is considerably harder, perhaps even too hard but everyone can find their own level. Where the game can shine most is in multiplayer, where it can surpass Gettysburg in terms of tension and is even more gripping in the heat of battle. And for this the game gets 5 stars and deserves it thorougly. The addition off cavalry plus defensible buildings counts a lot for this. Also is an army morale rating that counts as casualties at the end of Battle. All these and many more features add to the flexibilty of the game, and most importantly rewards the tactical ingenuity of the player. Though the interface is not as navigable as it should of been and the Random Senario Editor though with more selection options, is not as truely accomplished as the one in Gettysburg the game can still be superb fun. Though some people(as i have had to) may have to stick at the game a little to get the most enjoyment out of it. It's easy to be dismissive of a game that's as complex as this. The demo is a good example of this, it has no multiplayer and the senarios are fairly hard for the beginner to handle which can lead to fustration.

Good concept of the problems of command in the era. Limited instructions, to large bodies of troops; sometimes with limited intelligence. If your a student of the era you'll love it. If you're not a student of Napoleanonics this game will help you understand the strategy and tactics from the higher levels of command. Graphics are only fair, but the instructions and menu's are intuitive to anyone fimilar with line, column, and square formations. The novice to the era may get bogged down into some of the terminology--but if your willing to study, this could be a good way to become very fimilar with the battlefield of the early nineteenth century.

Having found my copy of Gettysburg (The best PC game of all time) out of order, several years ago I turned to Waterloo as a substitute. I have no stopped playing it since (Even when Gettysburg worked again). The game is complex, realistic and beautifully detailed. It truly captures the spirit and style of Napoleanic warfare, a subject with which I am quite familiar. Anyone who enjoys studying Military History must buy this game, as much as a tool for learning as a fun program. One never runs out of new experiences in it, and each battle is completely unique and challanging. The well-researched units and orders of battle are superb, and make for a smooth and historically acurate gameplay. I really, truly can't stress enough how great it is. Although, to be fair, only people who like Napoleanic warfare will get into it.

Someone who'd never played any of the games of this type (like Gettysburg, etc.) will find it very difficult to figure out which troops you're controlling at any time. The mass of little flags on the map are difficult to control, and if you're not used to 18 C army structure you might find it difficult to keep units near their commanders, which is a key to the game. Also, the game takes a lot of patience to play. It takes considerable time for pre-mechanized armies to develop and then execute your battle plans. So, in short, you might not like the game if you're someone who wouldn't like ANY of the games in the series because of the aforementioned difficulties that are par for the course.

As a big fan of Gettysburg, my opinion is that this is a worthy descendant. Get the 2nd patch and some of the problems notes in earlier reviews will go away. Before widespread rifle use, cavalry played a huge role in battles and are accurately represented in the game. If you're used to Gettysburg, you fast learn that you can't leave your soldiers in line formation for the duration once the battle starts. Once you learn to use cavalry, though, you quickly can torment the other side the same as they do to you.

One small problem: the background is set a little bit too dark, probably accurate for Belgium after a heavy rainfall, but I liked the terrain colors better in Gettysburg.

So: if you liked Gettysburg and want what I think is a better game (perhaps a pro-Napoleonic era bias coming through) get this. If you're new to this kind of game entirely, download the demo and see whether you like it. But note that the real game runs better, has infinitely more variety, and comes with a tutorial to allow practicing movement, formations, and use of artillery and cavalry.

By the review title, how much you will enjoy Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Battle (WNLB) depends on what you expect of it. In the tactical scale (the interaction of the combat battalions, or "units"), Breakaway has certainly done a commendable job of evolving the SMG game engine to cover Napoleonic-era tactics. Cavalry has greater variety in its light & heavy classes, and infantry formations are expanded to include different column & line formation options (dependent on the unit's nationality), including the ability to "square" against cavalry attacks. Small-arms variations allow special light troops' rifles along with standard smoothbore muskets, with notable differences in firing range. Even so, the relative short range of small arms (compared to Amer. Civil War weapons) in WNLB allows that close "shock action" melees can be more common, and therefore Breakaway has added the feature of unit "cohesion" beyond the "stress" factor of SMG; when a unit loses cohesion through various movement & combat actions, it loses the ability to engage & stand in melees. A significant improvement in patch version v1.002 is that artillery crews can hide in infantry squares when cavalry threatens to attack, and that cavalry is pared down overall in its earlier potency. By & large, in the tactical realm, WNLB captures the differing traits of the opposing armies quite well, giving the feel of a live-action miniatures wargame with 15mm figures. (This is further enhanced by the excellent graphical detail applied to specific unit types, being much better than in the earlier SM games.) "Army morale" has also been added to accent the effect of one side taking greater losses over the other; reduced army morale translates into surviving units accumulating stress much quicker, and provides victory points to the opposing side. The game's AI also gives a creditable job in its ability both to attack and defend, and applies unit fire so to "gang up" on certain units and stress them out very quickly. In spite of all this, WNLB has a central failure---the ability to play larger battles (corps-level & above) in a plausible way. And Napoleonic battles are more compelling when played in the grand-tactical scale. Historical "command & control" abilities of the various leaders are minimal in application (as it was with the earlier SM battle games), with control being defined more by a gamer's arcade-style mousesport. Unit movement animation is very choppy & irritating in the original version of WNLB, although patch version v1.002 helps rectify this. Map scroll is also frustratingly slow, further challenging the ability to play larger battles except at larger zoom levels, but then unit control becomes harder in turn. The game is therefore is its best when playing division-level tactical exercises in less expansive areas. The shallow command-and-control treatment perpetuated in WNLB, however, combined with the continous-time game clocking (instead of the much better "we-go" resolution shown in last year's Combat Mission game), gives an unsatisfactory treatment if attempting the full battle on grand tactical level. Multiplay hasn't been attempted yet by this reviewer, but problems with synchronization in the original game have been reported at Breakaway's game forums, although again patch v1.002 (and a later patch) are to rectify this also....

This is a beautiful game for history buffs and gamers. To experience the pageantry and drama of the Napoleonic battlefield you won't find anything better. The game uses the SM Gettysburg engine and gameplay is very similar. However, it has much more to offer and is rich in historical detail. Differentiations are made between light and heavy cavalry, rifles and muskets, light and line infantry and finally different formations are availabe to each side as historically appropriate. The complexities of combined arms tactics lend much more depth to the game and are much more difficult to master. Calvary charges for instance, can be, and often were, decisive. The graphics may not be as smooth as some of the latest techonogy touted in Shogun and Cossacks (which I haven't seen) but if you love to recreate historical battles and play the invariable "what if", this game has all you need. The AI is a tough competitor and you can play the game online. The game has 60 different uniforms and in my opinion the artwork is great. The "smoothness", in my opinion, is not even an issue once you start positioning your hussars to crush a battalion of highlanders. For me it is the history as much as the game and I have already gotten my monies worth.