Firefight - WW2 12+

Surprised that this game hasn’t gotten much attention, as it is a very detailed and accurate portrayal of WW2 strategy. But like in any other game there is plenty of room for growth and improvement. Some annoying problems are that somethings troops and tanks do not move back when ordered to when they are fired upon, and tanks may actually expose themselves despite the order to move back which results in their destruction. The Tiger I and II have very slow turret traverse, despite having electrical turret gear in reality. This has proved to be a major disadvantage in many missions involving close combat, as Fireflies can easily knock Tigers out before they can even turn their turrets. Other than that the game works pretty well. I think an Eastern and African campaign should be added, as well as more Western maps such as Bastogne and maybe even Normandy. More units would definitely be appreciated, such as the Sherman Jumbo, Sherman 105mm, M8 Greyhound, M16 MGMC, M26 Pershing, Matilda, Valentine, M10 with 17-pdr, A34 Comet, Dicker Max, Nashorn, StuH 42 G, Wirbelwind, and the Jagdtiger. For infantry units medics, US and British Paratroopers, British Commandos, US Rangers and such would be great additions. A mission editor would be pretty cool too. I also think that there should be different game modes, for example defending a certain point or capturing multiple points. Other then that this is a fantastic game, and I hope to see more updates in the coming future.

One of my favourite game series of all time is Close Combat. These games showcased different campaigns such as the British operations in Holland, Russians vs Germans in the Eastern Front, and the Normandy campaign, and gave top-down views of the battlefields. I spent hundreds of hours immersed in these games, and was really bummed when the franchise moved away from that format into more modern, fire-team tactical games. Then for work reasons I switched over from PC to Mac, and since then haven’t been able to find a good MacOS or iOS port of the games.

Until now. I first downloaded Firefight a few years ago, and it immediately scratched that itch for me. Sean O’Connor has done an incredible job creating an entirely new game that feels very familiar. With core game you get one or two maps, and you can unlock other map packs for the European theater, Russian front, and Pacific theater (which I don’t believe was ever included in the original Close Combat series). Sean has also done an incredible job designing the iOS controls. It did take me a little bit of time to figure out the small details, but they were designed intuitively enough that it didn’t negatively affect the amount of fun I had.

If you are a fan of the Close Combat series and miss playing it, give Firefight a shot.

I love it. But I think it could be made better with air strikes and snipers. The air strikes can consist of fire bombs, rocket barrages, strafing runs, and large bombs. I’d also like to see some beach landings and night fights with flares. Please include Iwo Jima too. I think scouts need to be more effective at scouting. There should be a fast forward function. The enemy is still able to conceal themselves even when I’m right on top of them. Please also make rifle fire more accurate. I can two full squads firing at one guy and it took them 5 minutes. It would be cool to also have Viet Nam war maps and WW1 maps too. Give us an airfield to assault and some pillboxes to go up against. I’d like to see some urban warfare maps as well and maybe also give us the ability to take control of one of our own vehicles. Lastly, I’d like the ability to drop my paratroopers into the combat zone rather than making them start on foot with the other units. There also needs to be a way to assign different units with a target priority order so that my tanks don’t target an infantry unit when there is a tank or canon aimed right at it. I think that there is also potential to integrate a top down bombing campaign too. I think that with these modifications, this game will be incredible.