CPCW is an acceptable good Tactic-Strategy game. In my Opinion a good game to play on rainy weekends with a nice cup of coffee. Details:


Graphics - 8/10
The ingame graphic is awesome detailed. Enviroment looks close steps to realistic, nicely done with much love to detalis. Also the realistic reactions are nice to look at (example: Weather / grenade in forest burns trees down / ramming electricity pylons make'em flash and fall / after some gaming time the night comes and the tanks use activate headlights,....)

Sound - 7/10
Sound is okay. The music is a bit monotone but fits in. Talking/responding of the soldiers is clear and good. War-Sounds are very good. You feel like inside the game.

AI - 7/10
The Computer-Inteligence is also okay. Sometimes, your tanks or troopers dont go the way they should (example: tank turns cicles before driving ahead). It happens acceptable rare, but happens. Enemys react good. with nice tactic that gives you the "wow, could be human" effect.

Ingame functions - 9/10
There are quite a lot of functions, and I still keep finding out more. You can rotate your view from upper view to diagoal. You can tell the tanks where to aim at when they change position. You can group teams, individually. You have Maps to draw in for making plans with Multiplayer friends..... and so on.

complexity - 7/10
Well as someone who doesn't like the HUD filled up to much and stuff I gotta say: you should definetly take a look at the manual. Fly over it for about 10mins, make the Tutorial and I think you got it. Some things could have been easier, like Keyboard-Settings but its okay.

Single Player - 6/10
Story is easy to follow, but could be a bit more motivating to play. Seems a bit "loveless". Campaign could be a bit longer or DLCs could have been released. Anyway its fun to play through.

Multiplayer / Coop 4/10
Multiplayer is a bit frustrating. If you wanna go "online" then you need to activate an account wich is (meanwhile?) impossible, so no online servers possible to play with. It works if you use programs like tunngle and connect via LAN function to friends. There it is easy and with no problems to connect fast and fun to play. But sadly very less maps.

Price 3/10
Well, the game is worth buying it, but not worth the actual 20 EUR it costs. This was maybe realistic when it was released but nowadays a bit to expensive for this kind of game.


Ending words
You should definetly give it a try when its on sale. for a max Price of 10 EUR its okay to buy and you wont regret it.

I initially gave this a negative review because it crashes on launch. The (new?) developers of the game are clearly trying to update the game and have removed the TAGES copy protection. Hopefully they'll resolve the crash issue. Until they do, the game will lauch if the computer is offline. To my mind this is better than a game that insists on being online all the time.

Codename Panzers is a great series of tactical RTSs with the focus on action rather than base building. "Cold War" introduced some elements of reinforcements (similar to Ground Control/World in Conflict) but the main focus remains on tactical action. The graphics are good (for a 2009 game) and I enjoyed it as a slightly more relaxed alternative to Company of Heroes or Men of War. Unfortunately the game was largely overlooked on release (as per another Atari classic RTS, Act of War) and recieved little suppport. It's good to see that this game is now getting some developer support - and well worth picking up , especially if on sale.

Sort of like Dawn of War II Retribution, a sort of tactical RPG / RTS hybrid, but this has M48 Patton tanks instead of orks.

Previous games : Codename panzers phase 1 and 2.
Similar game : Road to Berlin
I played all years ago and enjoyed it.
The reason why i set my teeth on the lastest release, Cold War.

Game style :
* fun RTS
* rock paper scissor mechanism
* no base building
* fog of war
* in essence only infantry and amory (tanks, APC) so no air or naval battles
* healing (infantery) and repairing units (APC)
* no indepth tactics needed or reading a thick manual
* limited units due to fixed unit cap
* capture hot spots (Points of Interest) to gain access to a helicopter pad, armor factory, healing station, radar station and so on.

Difficulty : played on 'hard' level which is recommended to have enough challenge to
beat the game. If you played RTS before, 'easy' is too easy.
Most difficult battle is not suprisingly the last mission.

Story line (6/10) :
You will tackle 18 missions which are linked with each other.
Some have an intro and/or outro cutscene, some don't.
Cutscenes can not match with those of the C&C serie (for example).
Looks a bit amateuristic which has it's charm though.
Western world is pushing back the commies (USSR and China) and kicking them out
of Europe. Sorry, for spoiling the plot.
You will play both sides in the single player campagain.

Mission objectives :
Each map comes of course with several mission objectives.
The primary objective is to finish the mission.
The secondary objectives are optional but can you give an asset during the battle.
There are secret objectives which you can discover, for this you need to examine the entire
map (find an empty Russian tank which you can use, using a tunnel, destroy a boat).
Objectives (except the secret ones) are displayed on the left side of the screen sometimes with additional commments of your commanders. It's not the best way to do so as you can oversee it.
I paused the game and verified the message log from time to time

Medals :
For completion of a mission you will get a bronze, silver or gold medal award.
Based on which credits is not explained in the manual.
Even after finishing the game, i do not have a clue on what it is based upon.
Is it time related + doing all side and secret missions + not losing any unit ?
Not really, something else, who will tell......

Graphics (8/10) :
Even today, it is still standing, detailed units, nice explosions, collapsing buildings.
Looks fine to me and not outdated.

AI (7/10) :
Selecting a bunch of units and ordering them to move to another area can sometimes
be complicated. Armor units are turning from left to right and back again before
they move. Can happen that the units are blocking each other and do not move.
Enemy is not too cunning therefore as said before, choose the hard level.
Most events and attacks are scripted.

Sound (6/10) : the same fanfare (trumpets - horns) sound over and over again.
Units produces the standard text lines like yes sir.
Explosions, gun fire and other environment noises are okay.

Bugs : Not encountered

To play or not to play :
Pfff, Cold War is not a must play nor it is boring.
I found the first two games innovative during their release.
Cold War is more of the same. If you have time and game is on sale, buy it.

I love the smell of Panzers in the morning .

Lots of potential, but ultimately disappointing. The third entry in a realistic RTS series, it's absolutely filled with inaccuracies - supposed to take place in 1948, it includes tech ranging from 1940 to 1970 thrown together in truly haphazard fashion. Sometimes bizarrely accurate and little-known post-War inclusions are made, but much of the game is a mashup of "rule of cool" Vietnam era equipment that renders the unique 1948 date rather meaningless.

It dismantled the fantastic headquarters system of the previous Codename Panzers games in order to introduce a Starcraft-like resource control system on the maps, which makes it seem like a cheap copy of every other RTS game on the market instead of the more unique games that its predecessors had been. Speaking of cheap, the game was obviously made on a shoestring budget, as there's no audio for in-mission dialogue (a step backwards for the series,) little music, and what voice acting they do use is absurdly bad.

Then there's the story, which is so ridiculous that it becomes more painful to watch the longer you play. John Dillinger is *for real* a main character, having faked his death to defect to the USSR, and he flips wildly between his Chicago Gangster and Soviet Comrade personalities. The ending of the plot doesn't make any sense, mostly because it's hastily wrapped up in a final cutscene that plays more like a quick-cut montage. It's all so rushed that it feels more like an insult than a reward.

I got about 6 hours on the game and it is not a bad game if you buy it on sale at 80% off like I did remeber it is a old game and you want something new to play for a few bucks . The price of a 6 pack of Bud. will get you wa few nights of fun. I played it on a laptop with not a lot of power then a medium quad I5 power and was lot of fun on both. take it for what it is a run around the block blowing up russians Bombs going off all over the place It is not a Men of war grade I trying to say . but listen buy it on sale enjoy it and do not ♥♥♥♥♥ over the game because of the age , and such Hell I could find a lot more to find wrong with games i paid 30-50 bucks for on sale and are new then this game so . when on sale buy it and enjoy
Bob C
Crazy Bear Flutes

I looked at the forum for help in stopping the program crashes, and set an outbound rule to block cpcw.exe(located in steam apps), on my firewall settings, and I got the game to work. I'm running W7 64, by the way.

Not a bad game, and well worth the knockdown price.

This is a great game, but a little rough around the edges.
There is a huge difficulty jump in the last act of the campaign.
The enemy become very aggressive, constantly shells my position with artillery and airstrike, and always counter attack to attempt to take back control points. It plays more like a Company of Heroes game which isn't really a bad thing.
Unit line of sight plays an important role. Heavy tanks and artillery have short sight, if left by themselves, can be picked off by lighter units with longer sight.
The pathfinding could seem flawed if you just select a group and click a single point on the map and expect everyone to form up. This game wants you to position every single unit individually to maximise their effect.
A single playthrough on normal difficulty without completing all the optional missions took me around 20hrs.
There is also skirmish mode against AI and campaign missions can be replayed individually at any chosen difficulty.
Overall I think fans of Codename Panzers and Company of Heroes can probably get some enjoyment out of this game.

This is a pretty good game with a story line fit for any freedom loving person. Ignore most of the bad reveiws as those are mainly complaining about an anti cheat software that has been removed. Has some trouble running on windows 10 but still playable.

This game is a mess. Lets talk about the good stuff first.
The graphics and special effects look great. It would really add to the immersion if it wasn't for all the cons the game has.

Now, the bad. First lets talk performance. And boy is there a lot to say. This game runs at single digit framerates at times even on the most modern rigs. It is constantly below 30 no matter what you do. And that is if you can get it to start. Most people report they can't even get to the menu. Next we have the UI which is a blatant copy of the Company of Heroes UI. Talk about plagiarism. Next we have the units and their historical accuracy, or better, lack there of. This unit roster makes absolutely no logic whatsoever. There is much more modern tech for the factions and this is supposed to be the late 40s and early 50s?! The game also has no voice-overs while playing (meaning mission orders and events). Units shout and speak non-stop while a lot is going on but mostly a few sounds can be heard at the same time. Even if you have a lot of things going on at the same time the game blocks most of the sounds, especially gunfire and exposions. Nothing is telegraphed well via sound and the UI is cluttered because on top of the CoH UI they made everything larger and the color contrast and saturation is not good. The gameplay is very barebones and boring. It is quite "linear" for a "strategy" game. You always have a single way to complete a mission and mostly 1 road or path to get there. You get reinforced with everything you need moments before you actually need said reinforcements (you get minet detecting units and suddenly the next thing you do is spot for mines with them). The prestige system seems alright but the unit repairing and healing is broken with its intensity and range that with a handful of units and the support at the back you will never lose a fight. There is barely any tactics involved here. You just swarm with armor and repair vehicles and voila. The difficulty is unbalanced. Easy is too easy, normal is easy, hard is normal and ultra is hard. The problem is that the AI is broken and dumb. Pathfinding is also an issue i've gotten used to in this franchise though. Lastly, the game looks better than the CGI cutscenes. They look like they were made for the PS1... And lastly, the story. The story in the first panzers game was cringe and funny, the story in the second was lighthearted and alright, the story here is cringe and just plain bad. The voice acting is horrible and the story doesn't make sense to anyone old enough to understand history and warfare during the last 70+ years. The game has 18 missions and 3 of which you play as the Soviets which is a dissapointment compared to entire campaigns dedicated fo each faction in the previous games. The story can be summarised as a yankee-freedomer dream of destroying the USSR via muh freedom and friendship ("DATEBAYO!" - Naruto). Simping for the west is what this game does best.
Overall a waste of time and money. Don't bother with this "game".