Product Description

Barbarossa unleashed! Close Combat III: The Russian Front, the latest in the award-winning Close Combat series, puts you in command of either the Red Army or the German Blitzkrieg in the epic Eastern Front struggle of World War II.

Spanning four years, from the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union through to the 1945 fall of Berlin, Close Combat III combines all your favourite features from past Close Combat games, along with a variety of new twists.

Gamers are challenged to out-think and out-fight their opponent while keeping their troops alive. They start as low-ranking commanders and manage unit upgrade and maintenance as they attempt to advance in rank and acquire more troops and equipment. Lead wisely, and your troops might survive through the long cold winter months.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20095 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Microsoft
• Platforms: Windows 98, Windows 95

Amazon.co.uk Review
The third instalment in an award-winning series, Close Combat III: The Russian Front, sees the action move from the West to the East, as it covers the doomed German assault on Russia during the Second World War. Although the scale of individual battles remains the same, covering tactical squads of infantry and individual vehicles, the overall campaign takes in the whole encounter from the opening days of Operation Barbarossa to the retreat to Berlin, following the historical path, so that regardless of your achievements should you play as the Germans, you will end up fighting your way back to Berlin (if you live that long).

Much remains in place from the previous Close Combat games, with the overhead maps and simple control methods, but where this real-time strategy game disappoints in comparison to Close Combat 2, is it's obsession with tanks. Yes, tanks are lovely, but the Close Combat engine doesn't deal with vehicles as effectively as it does infantry, with poor path finding and poor AI, both friendly and computer controlled. However, tanks are so powerful in this game, that even when working your way through the tractor factories at Stalingrad, you are better off with a largely armoured force, which is a shame as the opportunities for street-to-street infantry encounters through heavily shelled Russian cities would have ideally suited the game, but never quite come to fruition. This said, some neat additions to the series, such as leaders with set command radius and the ability to apply waypoints provide enough to keep fans of the series coming back for more. --Jason Weston

Manufacturer's Description
Command a fire brigade of soldiers on the Russian Front in this real-time strategy game set in World War II featuring unequalled detail, realism, and scope. Play as either the Soviets or Germans as your orchestrate your squads' attack, defense, and survival over four grueling years of the grandest and bloodiest war the world has ever seen. To succeed, you must guide your men though the mortal dangers of war while physically and psychologically defeating your enemies. Your soldiers are counting on you. Don't let them down!

Customer Reviews

Great !
This was the first of the Close Combat series I played and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Covering the Nazi campaign in Russia during WWII, CC3 allows the player to take on the role of either the Germans or the Russain forces in what proves to be an engaging and engrossing wargame.

The graphics do their job well, there's some gorgeous snowbound battle maps here, and if there's one flaw I could pick (this goes for CC4 too) it's that it's a little too easy to lose your troops against the background - the camoflage must be a little too good !

The enemy AI is pretty good and it takes a fair amount of hard work to find the best general strategy to beat your virtual opponent - always a plus.

The sound is great fun as the respective sides issue orders in German and Russian - it meant nothing to me but sounded excellent! There are also plenty of explosions and "tracked vehicle moving" type effects to keep things ticking along.

It's possible to play individual scenarios (for quick battles) or take on a campaign which adds extra depth tothe whole proceedings, be warned however, some of these missions are deceptively tricky and the urge to keep playing until you've beaten the enemy to a bloody pulp will make you late for work - guaranteed !

Brilliant with slight flaws
Waiting in the two storey rubble of Berlin as a monstrous JSIII crushes its way down the road toward you, your exhausted yet determined team hide as the behemoth rumbles past. Then, smelling the exhaust and the seeing weak spot of the most formidible tank of the war you shoulder your panzerfaust, take aim and shoot at a range of less than 10 yards. The flame, smoke and confusion allow one of the Russian tankers to escape. Now run! Did you work out your exit strategy? Will the other tanks see you, buttoned up as they are? These fellas have fought with you since Stalingrad - some since the very beginning; they're more than battle-hardened veterans, they're literally the only team you have who could have pulled off that stunt.
This game is superb. Team selection and development is an entertainment in itself, infantry teams are more powerful and varied than in ABTF (the nature of the operations), new command teams personalize the battle further. Unfortunately, tanks can become all-powerful, in some maps elimination of enemy tanks is the only route to success and the tanks in TRF are truly frightening (Kursk is a particularly poor attempt at re-enacting a historical battle). CC is obviously better suited to infantry battles (one would have thought the war in Asia would be an ideal arena for CCVI). Disappointingly, hard won, decisive victories end up with you fighting a superior foe on the same battlegrounds as the operation maps offer nothing but a linear collection of landscapes for fighting. End the war by capturing Moscow/Stalingrad? Er no, you'll still end up hiding in the cellar of the Reichstag.
The fighting is, however, awesome.

GREAT !
This together with the other cc games, IE 2,4 and 5 are great.
But they do need to be played using an older pc running windows 98.
I purchased these titles when they were orginally release,they were great then and still are. I do wish a company would bring out more titles, updating the software to run on XP.
But apart from that keeping the same game system.
Must admit I am surprised at the cost now of these games. But I still think they would be worth buying.