Steel Division 2 Single Player Review | Unbiased and Concise
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.ย. 2024
- Steel Division 2 has hit the digital shelves. Does the hybrid RTS/Sim covering Operation Bagration improve upon the potential left at the table of its predecessor, or does it manage to fall short? Check out this unbiased and concise single player review to find out!
"If we want the genre to grow we can't afford to not support this" I wish more people understood this concept, specifically the Mech Sim genre. People need to dial it back on their hate, and provide constructive criticisms, let the developer react... anyway, great review, going to check this one out later this weekend.
Yeah, we can't expect to get more badly designed and dumbed down wargames if we don't support rubbish like this.
OH no
Companies are people too
we gave them money for lootboxes
why aren't they making good games
Love this game but you're spot on about the speed. I just find it too frenetic to be enjoyable. There is a mod (Red Storm 44) in which the vehicle movement speeds have been slowed down to more realistic levels & I find it a lot more enjoyable to play. If you're the kind of player who loves spam or had a supercomputer for a brain, then you probably won't mind the speed but for an average gamer like myself, it's just too damn chaotic.
One of the best SD2 reviews I have seen so far! Thanks for doing it :).
no problem!
Thanks for your review. Still on the fence, but pretty sure its only a matter of time before I cave in :)
Great review that still holds up after all the expansions and updates - I wish the speed was slower.
You are very balanced and fair. Your review is focused more on the game than on what you are saying about it. That relative absence of "ego" I've noticed in your Mius Front videos where you neither personalize victory or defeat. It's really refreshing generally speaking and particularly in this venue: TH-cam. TH-cam is generally all about branding yourself. Your brand is understated in an effective way that allows the games and the developers to be the focus.
I really appreciate you taking the time to write that out. Means a lot. Glad you enjoy the vids
You see a middle ground game that won't fully satisfy fans of either genre, I see the best of both worlds beautifully presented.
Yeah I gotta agree with you on that. I enjoy the game myself, but see most people knocking it for that reason
I have just bought the game and this review nailed it for me. I have been a wargamer for over half a century starting off with miniatures and progressing through Avalon Hill and eventually ending up here. To be honest I still haven't found the "perfect" wargame. Having played through the entirety of the Squad Leader series I was rather hoping that when wargames made the transition to pc's the minutiae of wargames as complex as SL would be handled by the pc. Nah. Instead of making games more playable just more and more complexity was added, they just found something else for the gamer to think about rather than actually simulate what it was like to be a commander. This is why I was attracted to SD2. I have never properly played an RTS before as they always seemed too contrived to me. I have modded it to slow the game speed down to 70% of normal time and initial signs are good. Time will tell but I definitely agree with the sentiment that we need to support this as the bean counters only have one way of counting your vote.
Honestly I was a bit disappointed with steel division 1. It was just a wargame game with a WW2 setting and a weird kind of campaign that if you made one mistake you were fucked in the later missions. It was fun playing skirmish but I wanted more. So when steel division 2 came out i didnt even bother looking at it all that much because i thought it was just more of the same. But after watching this and seeing that beautiful army general mode, I can safely say that I'm going to buy steel division 2 right now and play the hell out of it. That campaign mode looks gorgeous and it's exactly what I wanted. Thanks for opening my eyes
Excellent review, I'll be getting it after that!
Very informative review, I have just purchased it on Steam
Bought the game but have only tooled around with it from time to time.Was hoping for some Graviteam like graphics during the battles, but it felt very arcade like. Some things look good but most just didn't grab me the same way the Mius Front series by Graviteam does. I still tool around with this game occasionally but Mius Front is still my favorite go to game for east front WW2 action.
Yeah a lot of the animations are "canned" so they don't look as good to me either. The visual itself may look marginally better, but the fact that it is a rinse and repeat animation no matter the situation puts me off. Still enjoy the game, but like you, prefer gravi.
Have to say...that is a really really GREAT review. BTW...it is baaaa..graaa...shun. Please.
It's fucking not bah grey shun, even though the retards in this shitty game say that, it is ba grat ion, exactly how he said it. Because that's probably not the first time he heard it from this shitty game. Dumbass.
I have probably only logged like 10 hours or less on the game but I find SD1 to be more fun and feeling like world War 2. When you look at the zoomed out level view the map turns into this grainy mess more so than in SD1. When you zoom right in then it gets pretty cool to look at. The majority of the game though is zoomed out which means you are looking at a really ugly map.
This might grow on me as I figure the mechanics out a bit. I came from War Game Red Dragon to SD1 and initially didnt like it but then it really grew on me. hopefully this will do the same.
I just came across your channel yesterday while looking for graviteam gameplay. Love your content keep it up! I'm even your 700th sub.
Hopefully we can have a game of this but in Pacific war
Army mode brought back some fond Panzer General 2 memories, just has Normandy '44 did remind me of Close Combat when it came out.
Great solid review man,
I have a problem with Eugens later titles; I tend to get swamped under hundreds of unit variations, and am continually losing focus of macro-management while fiddling in depth with the details of one corner of the map
- This game seems to continue in that tradition........hmmmm, maybe this one's not for me then.... :S
If the micro puts you off, for sure be careful before buying. It's more micro intensive than SD1 for sure, but I think the devs just put out an update that helps in some way. Haven't really checked it out but heard of it.
How dafuq you have only 703 subs!!
Nice videos, keep uo the good work.
Thanks my man. I'll try
Awesome review man! I kept checking the time I had left thinking you were going to say "but....", and then say something negative about it. I love the SD games, and I really hope SD2 was profitable enough that they continue to make content for it, and/or make SD3.
Me too. I think the game is really in a tough position because it isn't an arcade RTS like coh, but it isn't full-on simulator either, so neither group gets 100% satisfied and it's easy to complain. I get it, but SD is still a lot of fun. Have you played this one? It needs a bit more micro than the original (more units), but I think there was an update to help lessen it some.
@@TheWarSimmer I have a little bit. I have only 5 hours in it, but I saw what you're talking about. They added a system about 6 months ago where you can give a general order of sorts, and your units will do their best as the AI, but you're free to micro them if they get into heavy action.
Also, apparently they're doing well enough financially to release a free mini DLC with more Western Front units! It was just announced today! Some great units I might add for both sides! I'm a huge fan of how they treat their customers. Sure hope the business model is sustainable. Same goes for the Graviteam games I'll add!
@@TheWarSimmer Indeed! There is now an option to give a group of your units a generic "Seize this area" or "Hold this area" orders and they become AI controlled and are reasonably effective at carrying out your order. Most usefully, artillery can now be ordered to automatically fire at targets of opportunity or counter-battery. This SIGNIFICANTLY reduces the micromanaging load. I find myself when playing Army General sometimes deploying a full company of infantry and then just ordering them to seize and hold a whole flank of the map while I micromanage the tanks and the recon units for example.
Great, honest review. Appreciated.
After finding out about this game i was skeptical because of the reviews, but i finally bought it not even waiting for a discount and i must say i have enjoy every moment of it and i am already in the 100hrs mark in just 3 weeks.
So i am absolutely puzzled as to why it has a mix review, and it is just as you said, ppl with hundreds or even thousands of hour leaving a bad review because of a little tiny detail, ignorance or a completely unrelated thing to the game itself.
This is the worst reviewed game i have ever seen, this game is a hidden jewel should be at least very positive in steam.
Thanks for the review mate, you sold it for me!
Killer review. Great depth and I agree with your perspective. Subscribed....
Thanks for the review man, I saw this game come out and passed because I didnt think id be good enough to play it, but now that its 13.59 I think its worth the risk.
Now imagine what we can do with Unreal 5 and Nanite. Or at least when it matures it will simple change the face of gaming.
great video and great review! i wasnt sure because of the mixed reviews but the you convinced me to buy SD2!
Thanks. Just remember, gameplay wise it is very similar to SD1- so be sure you are ok with that. It's like SD1 with good SP campaigns
@@TheWarSimmer Im biased towards "simulation" games like Graviteams or Armored Brigade (have you ever played it btw?) and even though I still liked SD1, the focus on competitive MP was a bummer. So yeah a great SP Campaign is a must for me!
bought it 1 year ago, started playing yesterday. Well i started to play army general mode, and i must say that AI is prety decent. Thing i do not like is it seems to be a much bigger&faster than first steel division, especally in multiplayer, but well - the scale of eastern front was much bigger than a western so i just need to get used with it.
Yeah, that was my gripe with the game too. I haven't played in a while, but heard they put in mechanics that ease the micromanaging. Is this true?
@@TheWarSimmer yes they did, now you can select few units and give them order to "seize" territory, or to hold territory.
But they dont doing it very well.
There is also lot of RoE things that you can set up, like - covert movement for infrantry, or vehicles should stay on roads when moving fast etc.
Well main thing that i dont like in SD2 is total arty/air spam and its still there . In army general its hard to win battle against arty batalion when you going only with infrantry for example.
The whole AI thing that didnt been working on your review is working much better right now i think, but i think they should rework how your army composition is working i army general game mode - now its realistic but it's not fun at all. This game is not a mius front, mechanics works in a diffrent way, and i think in this game mode you should have general units pool to choose from before a battle, but its just my opinion.
@@TheWarSimmer Well i need to give some time to this game, game is good but not fun for me, dont like when my inf squad is dying in 5 seconds, i liked the pace of first SD much more.
Hope they will fix it.
The game isn't for me the 'problem' is the small dev team tries to do too much at once and I kinda feel bad.
Thanks for the review, saved time and money.
Good review, nice narration.
Will probably get it on sale, but at least i‘ll get it. I jumped onto SD1 but refunded it after about 5 hours playtime, back when people played it. The hardcore rng with the so called armor points turned me waaaay down so I’m glad to see they realized it. I still have mixed feelings about SD2 mainly because of what you call clickfest, the speed really is a bit off chart and I became more of a slow enjoy the bits player. But you saved it for me, I would never have bothered with SD2 because I thought the arcade mechanics are still much present, the dynamic campaign is a huuuge plus for me. Think i‘ll be able to get used to the pace, all in all it looks quite fun.
Thanks very much for the review I would never have realized they changed so much without you.
I only have one question about the 2000m effective range: is the penetration steady across all the 2km or will it drop the further you shoot?
Glad you enjoyed it. But be careful. If the mechanics of the game-play itself is what turned you off from the first, you'll have the same feelings about the second. It plays very similar. The army general mode is a great addition, but be wary if you don't enjoy SD's style of game-play. I liked the way 44 handled, so with the addition of a competent game-mode it was icing on the cake. I'm pretty sure there is still a "hidden" health bar on units as well, but can't be certain. Imagine SD44, but with a good campaign. That's it in a nutshell.
The WarSimmer
Aight thanks for the headsup.
Kinda expected it, but as i said I will get my grip on it when it’s on sale and I try to be critical enough to be able to refund it soon enough when in doubt.
Will take your warning to my heart
Hey russian speaker here you mention that the name "Bagration" is pronounced incorrectly in the game which is false it is pronounced as it is in game other than that good review
Im late to the party.. Did they fix the issue with splitting the battle between you and the Ai in two halfs? Controlling only support sounds fantastic as an idea.
Is the AI problem patched in Army general mode? Fantastic review btw.
Just imagine a Graviteam game at this scale... my god
That'd be almost impossible to manage, my god.
@@SadenIsWatchin still less clicks/second than Steel Division
Nice review, but i have a question. When i check the steam reviews i see alot of people complaining that the AI are super snipers with just about everything. Their artelliry being spot on and knows where your troops are all the time. Is this true? Cause that would be quite a downer for those who like to play more careful or more defensive if the AI can just snipe you with highly accurate artelliry barages.
Personally, I think the AI in both Steel Division 1 and 2 are very good compared to most other RTS and feel more natural. If you want to see the difference between a "natural" AI and a bad one, play a round of SD and then play a game of wargame (wargame is made by the same people who created SD). That being said, the AI is still probably aware of where you are, and you WILL have to be prepared to do counter battery fire if you play defensively. That is, you will have to watch and pay attention to where he is firing from, and fire back. You will also need to displace and move after firing your own artillery.
@@TheWarSimmer Ah doesn't sound to bad then. Thanks for replying!
Very helpful review. Thank you.
Nice looking game, but pretty much cant play it zoomed in so kinda mutes its beauty! Having a visual moving front line is kinda weird, still really Just a RTS click fest! I'll stick with Mius Front not as pretty but much more depth and cheaper too! thxs for the review!
Great review.
Great review. Very concise and convincing. You should be a real time PR war spinmeister
Good review
nice and fair review instant subscribe
i thought this was an extremely fair and very well balanced critique.. my own assessment would have been far less balanced. not because i dont like the look or feel of the game, indeed i was happy to buy it.. it looks great, has some very cool features and huge maps. i just wish that it played better and that skirmish was more than rush to the flag..
Destruction mode is quite interesting. I've only played it a couple of times but it's a far more stealthy affair. There are flags, but they're further back & controlling them increases/decreases your income rate. The main objective is to kill a set amount of enemy units. Great if you're looking for a slightly less frenetic experience.
Hi, doesn’t the game have a slow down time ability? I thought it did? I think the games are difficult with all the clicking. Good review
Sure does. I also think the devs made a lot of management changes to ease the click-fest burden.
Thanks sim, nice job, I am going to try again later
A game being addictive and a game being good are two different things. It's not hypocrisy. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. "I played it a lot, therefore I enjoyed it".
Disagree.
2000 meters is actually a pretty accurate cap for the average experienced tank gunner. The longest confirmed kill for a tank is a tiger 1 in world war two at 2300 meters. Which is close to a mile and a half shot. Using math and simple optics. For an experienced gunner in a Sherman tank. 1500 meters would be max. Any targets hit above 1500 meters was considered pure luck by historians.
I guess, but it was odd to me that virtually all the armour had the same effective range
Would you choose this over mius front?
nope
The WarSimmer great to hear you’re sticking with mius roots!
2:47 eehh.,.. Do all soldiers of the same category look the same??
Out of curiosity, where do you get your pronunciation of Bagration? The way the narrator pronounces it is the English pronunciation, the way you pronounce it seems like a transliteration from the Russian word.
A lot of people have mentioned the pronunciation, and you are most likely correct that the game uses the English version and so may technically be ok. The way I found the "bag-rat-eon" pronunciation was by asking native speakers. Here is the closest I could find with a quick youtube search: th-cam.com/video/VbcBcnGDD5o/w-d-xo.html
Though I haven't looked much into it, I would imagine it would be akin to literally saying "wehrmacht" with a w, rather than a v.
That’s true, I think it just felt like an awkward middle ground to use the native Russian name without using an accent as well. This was a good review, though. Thanks!
as always nicley put🤓👍
this or graviteam mius front yeah? which is better..
I can't decide between SD 2 vs the first one.. New the series and I really don't care too much about the eastern front so maybe the first one would be more up my alley?
It depends. If western front is more your style, and you dislike micro, I would go SD1. Both of them require a decent amount of micro, but SD1 needs a little less. SD2 has a much better single-player campaign, however.
@@TheWarSimmer ah cool ty for replying!
If we got multiplayer campaign scenarios we could play in versus mode I’d buy the game.
Multiplayer just for Rank and Skirmis battle up to 3 vs 3
There is a 1v1 multiplayer option for the campaign mode now
i found like many players that even on hard level the AI is not that good. i played as the germans in orscha campaign and only lost a few battles and held the russians to a 20 mile advance, and in some areas pushed them back,
The AI wont attack in strategic map, and is easy to defeat when dug in with all the extra trenches barbed wire and AT guns you get. Playing as the russians is more challenging, PS played 200 hours so far
Are you talking in a strategic sense on the maps? If so, that's pretty glaring. It's one of those games dude- has it's issues but we still put hundreds of hours into it, for whatever reason!
0:46 Deal breaker
The smoke trails of the rocket barrage is completely wrong .. the rockets should only emit smoke at the moment they are launched. Then they fly smokeless for the rest of the flight.
Good review though.
I agree but I think this has been added so you can spot where enemy fire is coming from & counter battery. Poetic licence for gameplay purposes.
Meh, ill maybe pick up the expansion SD 3 if it looms good.
no feense but from my experiences with the first game its hard to call it leaning sim but I hear
Coming from COH2 I think it’s a good compromise. I just do multiplayer or skirmish they’ve come a long way either the campaign but I don’t really play it.
COH2 fan here. will i like this game?
Grt video
Does anyone happen to know if the army general mode now works the way it should? Talking about that 12:00 -> stuff.
Does the A.I. use infantry to attack your trenches properly or is it yet again a game where tanks by themselves obliterate entrenched infantry?
The AI paths infantry into cover and uses artillery to suppress any strong points. It does a good job--too good, sometimes. The magical AI ghost sight and elephant-level memory can make tactical battles annoying.
Trenches are actually a bit useless in this game because forests and buildings provide the same level of cover, but tanks are completely blind and helpless without infantry support or at least specialized recon tanks spotting the enemy for them, plus most infantry types can one-shot any tank at close range with AT grenades, Panzerfaust etc., which means you HAVE to use infantry to clear out villages and forested areas where tanks can't stay far enough from the enemy infantry.
If this game would be slower , maybe 2/3 or speed then it would be better .. but the tanks run like hell
8:43 You get pronunciations wrong all the time? Like the way just mispronounced "pronunciation"? Hehe. Good review, picking this one up on Steam Summer Sale. Seems like a steal at $16.
Thank you
Do you think the Army General mode is an adequate competitor with Graviteam Mius Front.
I wouldn't class it as a competitor. They're too different from one another.
I think the operational level which generates a tactical battle is very similar to Mius Front.
@@arthurflorman7659 It's on a much smaller scale. You're playing with regimental-level battlegroups plus micro-managed artillery and air support in Steel Division. Also it's much more of a game. Graviteam Tactics is far and away a sim.
at 3:58, armor attributes Front, Side and Back is in mm of steel, but Top says "Strong".... ??
Strange, I know, but the front, back and sides have armor values because they implemented proper armor and penetration values for ground vehicles in SD2. The TOP armor is about being hit with bombs and artillery shells which don't have the same penetration values, but then how do you know if a shell or bomb can penetrate the armor? I dunno.. They really should just add penetration values to the bombs and shells too.
I think this was just carried over from SD44 (the first game) where penetration values were simplified into small numbers
Top being Strong or Weak is basically whether or not you can take the vehicle out with HE ammo if you drop it on top. An open-top tank destroyer like a Marder or M10 can be killed by a mortar, a Molotov cocktail, or a fighter-bomber strafing it with machineguns, for example, but none of those will scratch a Strong top tank.
I see a lot of people complaining about the AI use of artillery but I think they're just bitchin. I've paid attention to it in my games and my impression is that it doesn't know where you are in the fog of war. But if you fire a shot, or it gets even a glimpse of one of your units, then it's smart enough to estimate your position, which is completely reasonable. I've seen it miss me by a few hundred meters or fail to target concealed troop concentrations often enough to not believe that it can just see my troops wherever they are.
Ohhhhhh yeah ….. give me that WAR MAP
WAR MAP BABY
the way you say mosin nagant lol
Bagration was well pronounced
I love it:” I also get pronounciations wrong” yup it’s pronunciations 😳😳
😅
I loved your vids on graviteam tactics which is my no1 but i have to say this one is far too gamey and childlike for me i so wanted to like steel division normandy but once i saw those little toy soldiers running around with their little firing streaks i just knew i never wanted any of it, good vid though thank you.
ahahah yeah it definitely is a bit more arcadey than something like gravi.
You can turn down the pace of the game, or at least the point gain speed.
Is it just me, or does it seem everything in this game moves way too fast?
I think it moves a bit fast too
Realistic? Really? Decks, DECKS! Maybe a fun MP game but that's all SD2, and 1 for that matter are. A realistic portrayal of the Eastern Front in WWII it isn't. Good review - kept me from spending my money on it in the current Steam Winter Sale. Thank You. Really - thank you.
The Decks are really just an army building mechanic, which is oddly effective in the game. It's not deck building like say, a competitive card game. The deck system allows for even beginner or novice players to understand how to build an army and deploy it. Think of it as a familiar system most gamers understand, used to explain something in war games that often confuse newcomers.
@ZaireXII
Army building? The units that can be built under the SD1/2 system are fantasy units that never would have been put together on the Eastern front. That's NOT realistic.
That said: I can't deny the fun factor of deck building - especially in an MP game (and I stress game). BUT - deck mechanics in a game that many espouse as a "realistic simulation of combat on the Eastern front" is IMO an absolute farce.
@@werewolf1336 But the game does have Army General mode where all the units are historically composed.
@@talknight2 - Really - good to know since I either missed that in the marketing hype or it just isn't there. Might be worth another look when it goes on sale again.
@@werewolf1336 What do you mean? Even this video talks about and praises Army General mode at length. Army General is one of the biggest features and selling points of SD2; it's the whole turn-based Operational level where you control historically-accurate battalion/regiment-sized units on maps based on Operation Bagration, while the DLC add other fronts such as Romania, Poland and Finland. You combine different battalions on the strategic map to form your battlegroup in the tactical battles. In this mode the forces are not equally balanced - the Russians always have realistically overwhelming numbers - but the campaign objectives are fair to both sides. You can also play this mode in multiplayer now.
Btw, is anyone here knowledgable enough to know whether or not, the "mispronunciation" the youtuber is triggered over is actually incorrect? or is he just American and ignorant that British English is different? No offence intended, but I know alot of the time, the second option is the case. Try asking an American what year world war 2 started, you'll see what I mean lol. They have to have it the American way.
Named after Pyotr Bagration, when spoken in native tongue, I have almost always seen it pronounced this way. For instance, the russian actors in war and peace pronounce it as such.
This ti = sh thing is just an English oddity. Curiously, it makes a tz sound in German and I think an s sound in French, but luckily all the other languages seem to know how to pronounce their own alphabet :P
It is pronounced how the game announcer says it. It's the name of a Russian general from the Napoleonic wars.
Interesting. All of the research I have done pointed to it being pronounced Bah-grah-tee-OHN.
Nevermind, great video anyway, it helped me with my decision on whether to buy it!
@@TheWarSimmer You're right. Don't listen to the native English speakers, they can't even pronounce their own language :P
I always pronounced Bagration from the. Announcers pronunciation. I must have heard it that way over the past 40 years of reading Eastern Front battles and vhs views. However, I think I mis-pronounce Mi-us front, oh well it’s all good for me pronunciation is the least part of my worries with games.
Does terrain have any effect in this game?
yes, it affects los and fire
Its a good game but its way too fast paced.
"mispronOWnciation"
"Don't get me wrong I get" pronOWnciations wrong all the time"
*pronunciation
Otherwise a good video but if you can't pronounce pronunciation then maybe you shouldn't comment on mispronunciatuon.
Can I play this with a gtx 1050ti card?
I know that people played the first one with 8gb ram and 1050ti without too much of a problem. SD2 would probably be ok too, just not on high settings
Graviteam Tactics is better.
I personally play them both, and I don't think they're quite competitors completely. Gravi is more a sim, and SD2 never attempts to enter that space. Just my 2 cents on it.
Perhaps less time spent playing the game will result in you finding a woman with whom you're compatible.
The trick is not letting them know you're a gamer until after marriage
It's pronounced proNUNciation
Oh good grief that pronunciation
fuck steel division, do graviteam pleassssssseeeeeeeee
I'm always going to do Gravi- next dlc there will be another vid
This is just a fast paced, arcadey and mindless version of Mius-Front. Definitely avoid if you want anything deeper than a puddle.
Also it's madness that the AI is so bad when the game is basically built around sharing control of your forces with the computer.
himmler xD
GOT EM