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| |__ / \ | | | |__ | (___ ___ | |_ \ \ /\ / / / \ | |__) |
| __|/ /\ \ | | | __| \___ \ / _ \| _| \ \/ \/ / / /\ \ | _ /
| | / ____ \| |____ | |____ ____) | | (_) | | \ /\ / / ____ \ | | \ \
|_| /_/ \_\\_____||______||_____/ \___/|_| \/ \/ /_/ \_\|_| \_\
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NOTE: This guide is for the 0.22 demo of Faces of War released on 07/20/2006.
Copyright 2006 - Staley, Deuce ex Defcon. Any site that wishes to host any of
my guides is free to do so, provided you contact me prior to posting the
guide(s), as I like to know where they're being used.
I cannot guarantee any site other than GameFAQs will always have the most
current form of my guides, so if there's ever any doubt, always check GameFAQs.
If you find an outdated form of any of my guides on any site, please contact
me, and I will contact the site to get it updated.
All questions, comments, and so forth concerning this guide can be posted on my
site here:
http://thebrink.us/boards
Or if you're not fond of message boards, please feel free to email at
[email protected] or try me on AIM (Deuce ex Defcon).
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------------------------
| Contents |
------------------------
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0.00) General Notes
0.10) Important Controls
1.00) Walkthrough
1.01) Radar
1.02) Falaise
2.00) Glitches
3.00) End
3.01) Version History
3.02) Closing
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--------------------------------
| |
| 0.00) General Notes |
| |
--------------------------------
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In this section, I'll list some notes about various things you should keep in
mind while playing, in no particular order:
I) The 0.22 demo offers no save feature.
- So yeah, if you fail one of the missions, you're just out of luck.
II) Gray compared to red damage.
- When a vehicle takes damage, it will show up on the unit's picture on the
left side of the screen when you select it. Some damage can be repaired with a
repair kit, but some damage is permanent. You'll need a repair kit before you
can fix anything - there's one by the empty truck by the farm in the first
mission, but I've yet to find (or be told about) one in Falaise.
III) Helmets and body armor.
- Body armor is a huge help for your soldiers. If you find some, make sure
you take it and equip it. Helmets are also a very important piece of
equipment. If your helmet gets blown off, make sure you replace it immediately
with a helmet from a downed soldier (sometimes you can pick the same helmet
back up, too).
IV) Double clicking items in your inventory.
- When you're examining another inventory, double clicking an item from your
inventory will move it to the other inventory, and double clicking on an item
in the other inventory will move it to yours. Double clicking on an item that
has a lot more than can fit in one spot in your inventory will fill all of your
available slots with that item (unless there isn't enough of the item to that).
This is helpful for quickly moving items in your inventory. Please note that
the 0.22 demo has a nasty glitch involving partial ammo clusters, though. See
the glitch section for more information.
If you only have a single unit's inventory open, double clicking on ammo will
reload your gun.
V) Equipping things from your inventory.
- To equip helmets, body armor, or weapons from your inventory, simply double
click on the item. You'll be able to tell if it's equiped by the change in
background shading (it'll change to a light blue).
VI) Using landmines.
- In Soldiers: Heroes of World War II, the U key was your "use" command that
let you use matches, mines, et cetera. The Faces of War demo appears to be set
up the same way, but it doesn't actually set the mines for some reason. If you
want to use the landmines in the first mission, you'll need to open the second
gray tab on the right side of a soldier's control panel, then click on the land
mine icon (it'll only be lit up if you have mines in your inventory). Select
where you want the soldier to set the mines, and he'll set them all in a group
near that spot. You'll have to stop him after each one if you want him to
spread them out a little.
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| |
| 0.10) Important Controls |
| |
-------------------------------
===============================================================================
If you never played Soldiers: Heroes of World War II or if it's just been a
long time since you played it, you'll almost certainly wish they would've put a
turorial in the 0.22 demo. Since they didn't, though, I'll list some of the
most important control features in this section.
I) Direct Control.
There are three ways to enter the "Direct Control" feature. The first is by
pressing the End key to turn the feature on, and then pressing it again to turn
it off. The second way (which is the way I recommend you always do it) is by
holding down the Control key for the duration of the time you want to stay in
Direct Control mode. The third method is to click the Direct Control button
when you have a unit selected (it's on the vertical bar on the right side of
the minimap). You'll have to click the icon again to release direct control.
Direct control is useful for making very quick, precise attacks. Units are a
lot more accurate in Direct Control, and you can pick your targets much easier.
Direct Control is also extremely useful for driving vehicles into tight spots,
or escaping quickly from heated battles. It's also wonderful for controlling
the fuses on grenades (commonly known as "cooking").
II) Free Fire, Back Fire, and Hold Fire.
You can set a unit to any one of these three basic commands when the unit is
not being Directly Controlled. To set these, simply click on one of the
corresponding icons on the box on the right side of your command bar (they're
on the left tab, middle row).
Hold Fire means that the unit will absolutely not fire at anything, no matter
what, until you tell it to. This is almost always the safest way to go,
simply because your units are not exactly smart, and can easily get themselves
killed for stupid reasons if they fire at something you didn't want them to
fire at, or if they throw a grenade while standing in front of a wall or
another one of your units.
Back Fire means that your unit will fire back if it is fired upon. This is
fairly safe, but you won't want to use it most of the time. Your units tend to
waste their ammo shooting at things they can't hit, or they return fire with
grenades and kill themselves or your other units.
Free Fire means the unit will fire at anything that gets too close. This is
rarely a good idea for several of the reasons listed above. The only time I
recommend using this is when you need to slaughter a lot of troops at one time.
You can set one or more men to Fire At Will, and then take Direct Control of
another unit. This also works great for setting up a cover line to retreat the
unit you're direct-controlling if it gets into serious trouble.
III) Hotkeys.
Several actions have keys assigned to them so you can perform them quickly
without using your mouse. I'll list the most important ones here, in no
particular order. Note that most of these features can also be opened with
various icons on your display.
E) Exits a vehicle/gun. Depending on what you're exiting, you'll be given a
cursor, and you must then click on where you want your unit(s) to exit to.
+) Reloads your current weapon. This is one of the more valuable hotkeys.
O) Opens the mission objectives list.
F6) This puts your unit in the Melee attack mode when applicable. You can use
a troop to run up to an enemy troop and smack them, causing the enemy to fall
down for a while. Note that this DOES NOT ALWAYS MAKE THE UNIT STAY DOWN.
They will sometimes get back up when you least expect it. On the plus side,
it's quite amusing when you can get a good multi-unit fist fight going inside a
building or something. (Note that you can also use the icon on the top of your
command bar to activate and deactivate this feature.)
X) This examines the target. Use this to have a soldier check a vehicle's
inventory or check the contents of some crates. Very useful, especially for
transfering equipment from one soldier to another.
D) Drops the item you have in your hand. This is used a lot when you're
carrying barrels, boxes, and so on.
I) This will open the selected unit's inventory.
Space) This will make a selected soldier go into the Prone position, which is
useful when you need to sneak around or take cover quickly.
Backspace) This will allow you to adjust the speed of the game. If you've
never played Soldiers: Heroes of World War II, you'll probably have a much
better time playing this on a lower speed setting than the default. (Edit:
Never mind, the game used to be running insanely fast on my laptop, but it must
have just been a glitch. It runs fine at setting #3 now.)
Tab) This will make items and objects on the ground light up in red, so you'll
be able to see them. Hovering over them will also tell you what they are.
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1.00) Walkthrough
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| ------------------------- |
| | | |
| | 1.01) Radar | |
| | | |
| ------------------------- |
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Preparations for the operation "Overlord"
------------------
Primary Objectives May 12, 1944
------------------
1) The engineer should not die.
- If you let him get killed, you'll fail.
2) Remove the guards and accompany the engineer to the radar.
- Once you kill the guards around the radar dish, the engineer will move in on
his own to blow it up.
3) Move on, guys! We are to do away with the guards quickly and silently.
Don't let anybody escape - we don't need guests here.
- This is really just the same thing as the previous objective... make sure
none of the guards get away to the power station, or you'll have a massive
German force to deal with shortly.
4) Remove the guards and accompany the engineer to the transformers.
- This objective seems to be slightly broken if you ask me... I've yet to
find a way to make it be checked off as completed. You can still complete the
mission without it, but you'll be given a "failed" message (though you'll still
be allowed to continue). Dunno. If someone out there knows what my problem
is, by all means, please share.
5) The engineer should be accompanied to the power station. We are to provide
for his safety while he is busy working.
- You'll need to get the engineer into the large building on the farm and
cover him long enough for him to blow the machinery up inside it. If you're
fast and take control of the Flak cannon, this will be fairly easy. If you're
slow and too many reinforcements show up, it'll be much more difficult. Make
sure you get the engineer out of the building after he's finished and get him
close enough to your AI allies to make him tell them he's finished.
6) Reach the coast.
- Once the engineer tells your AI allies that he's finished, they'll tell you
to return to the beach while they cover you. Head back to your original
landing zone and wait in the water for a transport to arrive. If necessary,
pick off the German soldiers that're hanging out on the beach, but make sure
you don't catch the tank's attention.
--------------------
Secondary Objectives
--------------------
1) Investigate into the situation at the farm. We need to know what we have
to deal with here.
- Simply make a soldier get closer and closer to the farm until he comments
about the German forces in the area, then send him back before he gets seen.
To make the rest of the mission slightly easier, approach the farm from the
corner closest to the radar tower, then run in as fast as possible and examine
the truck there before the rest of the German units "appear" in the farm.
You'll find some landmines in there, so run past the transformers and up the
road past the farm. Deploy the mines on the road close to the edge of the map,
and they'll be a huge help when German reinforcements arrive later. (The mines
can be deployed using the landmine icon on the second gray tab on the left side
of a soldier's control panel.)
-----
Units
-----
6 Soldiers (Harry Cooper, Harry Cox, Roger Bailey, Roger Stewart, Lesley
Allen, Chris Robinson)
Harry Cooper is the engineer. You should note that he doesn't start with much
in the way of weapons and items, but don't worry too much about that. You
should be keeping him more or less out of harm's way anyway, so he shouldn't
really need anything.
You'll also have a cluster of AI-controlled soldiers to aid you, though they
can be a little stupid sometimes.
-----------
Walkthrough
-----------
Gather your six men and head up the hill where your AI buddies are waiting.
Select a single troop and send him up towards the lake, then have him slowly
approach the farm from the corner closest to the radar dish. The truck there
has some landmines in it, so quickly run in and examine it. (There's also a
repair kit on the ground near the truck. Take it if you want, but only if you
feel like messing around - it won't really be useful if you're just trying to
"complete" the mission.) Eventually, your soldier will start reporting on the
forces in the area, and when he's done, a lot more German soldiers will
suddenly appear around the farm.
Send the soldier past the transformers before that happens, then follow the
road past the farm all the way to the end of the map. You can deploy the
landmines by using the second gray tab on the right side of the soldier's
control panel. Deploy them on the road, and they'll be a huge help when German
reinforcements start showing up later. (There're more mines just sitting on
the ground near the road in the farm, but getting won't be possible without
alerting the guards. I know it's tempting, but just leave them there.) Send
your soldier back to your other troops when you're done with the minefield.
Your first target will be the small group of Germans by the radar dish. Send
your six men around the Germans so you can approach them from the bushes
between them and the farm, blocking the road and the forest to prevent their
escape. As soon as you fire at one of them, your AI friends will also assault
the dish, so make sure your men are all armed and ready. I suggest you use the
rifle soldier to pick off two or three of them first, then switch to a machine
gunner to finish the rest of them off. The AI guys should be able to handle
the heavy machine gunner in the doorway, so don't worry about him. If any of
the others escape, though, you'll be in all sorts of trouble. Do yourself a
favor and make sure they don't escape.
With the area around the dish free of Germans, your engineer (Harry Cooper)
will approach the dish and detonate it. The explosion will attract the
attention of the German halftrack (and plenty of soldiers) from the farm, so
be prepared to leave the area. Your AI allies will hide in the bushes on the
left side of the road to ambush the Germans, and they'll suggest you do the
same thing on the other side of the road. Whether you do or not is entirely up
to you - the AI guys can easily handle it on their own.
I suggest you assualt the farm with your men from the lake while the AI handles
the ambush. Use one man to take control of the mounted machine gun once you've
taken out the Germans near it, then use it to shred the German guns on the
bottom of the farm. (Try not to slaugher your AI guys - they'll be attacking
from down there.) Use your remaining men to move towards the transformers,
then send the engineer into the building there to make him start his work.
You'll have to cover him for a little while, so keep your eyes on the Flak
cannon and your soldiers near the transformers. Reinforcements will arrive
from the road above the farm and the road on the far side of the map, but your
landmines will help greatly with the ones on this side. The AI should be able
to handle the lower part of the farm, but you should still probably keep an eye
on them just in case. After a while, the engineer will ask you for one more
minute, and shortly after that, he'll detonate the machinery inside the
building. Send him towards the AI group to make him tell them he's finished,
and the Ranger leader will tell you to retreat to the beach while they cover
you.
Gather your men and run back down to your original landing zone. Steer clear
of the Germans near the radar dish, and watch out for the Germans gathered
around the bikes on the beach. Wade into the water and wait for a transport to
arrive. It's a good idea to take out the German soldiers if possible, but try
not to attract the tank's attention. One shot into the transport is all it
takes to completely ruin the mission for you.
Once the transport arrives, your men should automatically move into it if
they're close enough. Once it drives away, the mission will be over.
NOTE: As I mentioned above, the fourth primary objective doesn't seem to work
for me, so I get a "failed" message at the end of the mission. You'll
still complete it, though. If anyone happens to know what I'm doing
wrong there, or if you can confirm that it's glitched, please let me
know.
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| ------------------------- |
| | | |
| | 1.02) Falaise | |
| | | |
| ------------------------- |
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Operation "Tractable"
------------------
Primary Objectives August 17, 1944
------------------
1) Seize the first block.
- The block is surrounded by occupied buildings and ground troops. The AI
controlled allies can handle most of the work themselves, but your rifleman
will make the job much easier (not to mention faster). Use him to pick off the
machine gunners, then use him to pick off the guys in the windows.
2) Destroy Pak-40 cannons.
- With the first block clear, the next objective is to toast the anti-tank
guns before the Sherman arrives. Switch from your rifleman to your bazooka
guy, then tag the lower gun with a rocket from below it. The upper one will
either get taken out by the AI or you can just tag it with another rocket once
it's distracted.
3) Knock the Germans out of the marketplace.
- This is the same basic thing as knocking them out of the first block, only
this time you'll have the help of some heavier AI firepower. You can also
occupy the Pak-40s is either of them is still operational. Watch out for the
German that comes out of the manhole... sneaky little jackass.
4) Fight back the German counterattack.
- With the Pak-40s neutralized and the marketplace under control, a Sherman
tank will arrive to assist you. Unfortunately, it's tread will break almost
instantly, so you won't be able to move it. You'll still be able to control it
though, so use its machine gun and high explosive shells to toast the hoard of
German soldiers that tries to push you back out of the marketplace. Use it to
stop the train guns, too.
5) Destroy the "Tigers".
- With the counterattack thwarted, Canadian reinforcements will arrive and
attack the two entrenched Tigers. The AI will still be wreaking havoc on the
Germans in the city, so take your bazooka guy and approach the Tigers from
behind while they're distracted. A lucky rocket to the back should disable
each one, but sometimes it takes more than one.
--------------------
Secondary Objectives
--------------------
1) Destroy the anti-aircraft gun "Wirbelwind."
- This is the vehicle on the bottom of the town, to the left of your original
starting position. It's covered fairly well with an anti-tank gun and some
sandbag nests, so reaching it can be a tad difficult. What's even worse is
that your bazooka rockets tend to just bounce right off of it without hurting
it. Get close enough to toss a heavy grenade into the top, though, and it
won't be wirbeling for very long. Whatever that means. >_>
-----
Units
-----
6 Soldiers (Ricky Taylor, Jerry Reed, Donald Martin, Jose Turner, Ralph
Sanchez, Jonathan Barnes)
You'll also get "control" of a Sherman and its crew halfway through the
mission, but it won't be able to move.
There's also a heavy AI-controlled presence for this mission, including tanks
and hoards of infantry.
-----------
Walkthrough
-----------
Begin by making all of your infantry hold their fire, especially the bazooka
guy and the rifleman. (Don't want them wasting their ammo on idiotic targets,
especially since bazooka rockets rarely hit anything when a computer fires
them.) Use your rifleman to pick off machine gunners, then advance into the
middle of the block like your AI-controlled allies are probably doing by now.
Continue picking off machine gunners and people in windows with your rifleman,
and the block will soon be yours. The next target is the pair of anti-tank
guns on the street to the left. Switch from your rifleman to your bazooka guy,
then approach the guns from the block you just cleared. Wait until your AI
buddies have one of the guns distracted, then tag it with a bazooka round. Tag
the other one in the same manor, then switch your bazooka guy for your rifleman
again.
Enter the marketplace and start picking off stationary Germans again. Be
especially careful of the anti-tank gun above and slightly to the left of the
marketplace (it's inside a building). Keep your eyes on the manhole in the
middle of the marketplace, too - an especially sneaky German will try to attack
you from there at some point.
With the marketplace secure, a Sherman tank will arrive to aid you. Its track
quickly breaks, unfortunately, and it won't be able to move. Quickly take
control of it and use it's machine gun and explosive shells to beat back the
German counterattack from the left. A vehicle will come down the tracks in the
street, so be ready to pick it off with a shell or two. Once the counterattack
is defeated, grab one of your men that has a heavy grenade (or several).
See the weird machine gun vehicle on the bottom of the town, just below the
marketplace? That's the Wirbelwind, and you'll need to toss a grenade into the
top to take it out. It's very well defended, so you'll have to move fast. If
necessary, use another one of your guys to run through first as a distraction.
Once it's destroyed, find your bazooka guy.
By now the Canadians are probably dominating the far side of the city, but they
can sometimes have a little trouble with the entrenched Tigers. Your allied
AI units should have the remaining Germans in the city fairly well distracted,
so carefully maneuver your bazooka guy behind each Tiger and hit it in the
back with a rocket (or several if the first one doesn't do it). Once both
Tigers are rendered inopperable, the mission's over.
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| ------------------------------- |
| | 2.00) Glitches | |
| ------------------------------- |
=============================================================================
Every game has a few glitches or things that could use tweaking, right? This
demo is no different. I'm going to list things that I think are broken or in
need of adjustment here. If you have something you feel should be added,
please let me know.
=================
Transfering Items
=================
Faces of War's squad-based element is supposed to boast a feature that allows
your squad leader to distribute supplies among the squad members, but I get the
feeling it might be a tad broken in the demo. Yes, he'll sometimes distribute
items to other members, but it also seems like some things simply disappear in
the transfer process.
I noticed this most often when trying to transfer ammo from one person to
another by double-clicking on it. Usually, whatever you double-click on goes
from one inventory to the other, but if you click on some ammo when you already
have a partially-filled spot of that ammo in your inventory, the difference
between the two seems to just vanish. This can easily be avoided by making
sure you transfer full groups first and so forth, but it's still damn annoying.
Is this a glitch, or am I missing something? Please feel free to share your
thoughts with me.
====================
Highlighting Corpses
====================
The developers were nice enough to include a feature that makes fallen soldiers
glow on the ground for us so we can see them earlier, but unfortunately, you
don't seem to be able to examine them while the feature is turned on. That's
quite annoying, but not that big of a deal.
Is that a glitch, or am I missing something again? Please feel free to share
your thoughts about this one with me as well.
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| -------------------------- |
| | 3.00) End | |
| -------------------------- |
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3.01) Version History
===============================================================================
---------------
July 25th, 2006
---------------
- Posted the first version of the guide, which included the controls, general
notes, walkthroughs for both missions, and a few glitches.
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3.02) Closing
===============================================================================
As always, any comments are more than welcome. If you need more specific help,
feel free to contact me on The Brink, and I'll see if I can't hook you up with
a quick screenshot or something to help out.
http://thebrink.us/boards
Or if you're not fond of message boards, please feel free to email at
[email protected] or try me on AIM (Deuce ex Defcon). Enjoy the demo, and
thanks for taking a look at the guide.
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DEUCE EX DEFCON
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