"World War I: Western Front" is not a real-time strategy game for perfectionists. World War I was a notorious war of attrition that claimed the lives of 40 million civilians and soldiers. Therefore, sending soldiers to the whistle would result in dozens of soldiers being gunned down in the hellish muck of no-man's-land.

This makes the game something of an outlier compared to its more bloodless brethren. Veteran players of "Company of Heroes" rejoice without the sweat of a seasoned counterfrank, and in "Starcraft" there are few joys comparable to defeating a mutalisk. But in "The Great War," every victory comes with a brutal death, and the horrors of 1914 glow so white hot that, frankly, you might hesitate to stay there for long.

The Great War: Western Front, as the name implies, is set in the fortress that tore through Belgium and France in the 1910s. Players are greeted by a grand tabletop-like tactics board during the campaign and command regiments of Allied or Central Powers along the front lines. The in-between hours are spent allocating research points, enhancing munitions, and building new facilities (medical facilities, makeshift pubs, etc.) that may alleviate some of the horrors of mechanized warfare.

But commanders can only beat around the bush for so long. Eventually, there comes a time when they have to put their troops into action behind enemy lines for little gain and disastrous carnage. This is where the Western Front turns into a sad, all-out war-style dirge, the battlefield dotted with dugout trenches and makeshift bottlenecks, ripe for rounding up hostile troops. Successful engagement requires sturdy columns of heavy artillery that can stifle advances and demoralize. Most important, however, is the full mobilization of the European war machine. The Western Front does not deal with squads or special operations. Instead, it will fight until the tide of humanity crushes the opponent's earthworks and he finally surrenders.

All of this viscera leaves one hell of an impression: compared to games that evoke the spirit of 1914 ("Battlefield 1," "Isonzo," "Beyond The Wire"), "Western Front" makes abundant and awkward decisions that leave us armchair It takes an active role in discouraging our generals. Victory in World War I is achieved by capturing and holding a series of control points, and the easiest way to check the conditions is to fire a mortar shell to temporarily paralyze an artillery nest and then send a few waves of soldiers hurtling through wide open, uncovered mud and snow. Dozens of soldiers would be wiped out before they reached their objective, and those who did reach it would have to clear out the enemy command post one sandbag at a time. As a strategist, I often wonder if I am doing a good job on the Western Front. It is true that several acres of land are now raised under the Union flag, but behind me are piles of cowering corpses.

As the Western Front technology tree advances, more means of combat become available and the action on the field is mildly augmented. Utilizing the rudimentary air force of the time, AI-controlled bombers and interceptors can be dispatched to conquer the gray skies. As the war deepens, more advanced bombardment awaits on the horizon. I particularly like the punishing, rolling bombardment that slowly erodes enemy positions, leaving a long trail of smoke that obscures the advance of my troops. Armored divisions are also quite powerful, as tanks can effectively punch holes in the most well-placed reinforcements.

Despite these fun elements, "Western Front" is a surprisingly dull game. Shells are fired, battalions charge, and you hope the enemy does not outflank or outmaneuver you. In fact, I would say that most of the decisions in this game come down to pure timing issues. If you make the mistake of timing your bombs to explode, and if the enemy lines are not under control when your troops show up, you can't afford to be wiped out. No strategy game will want to punish your blunders as much as this one.

This problem would not have been so great if Western Front's controls were a little more faithful. The soldiers' movements are Napoleonic and tedious, and despite the relative clarity of the objectives, they often get stuck in odd places due to the vagueness of mouse clicks. For example, if there were already a maximum of two battalions that could be accommodated in the trenches we had overrun, my other companies would occasionally linger outside their safe haven, ready to be knocked off the ground by a load of gunpowder. Yes, one could say it was due to my inefficiency as an administrator. It might have been quicker to direct them to another trench, but the sheer number of units on the screen and the nature of the narrow trenches of World War I, always mixed on the same site, made it difficult to capture the individual corps that needed direction.

However, there are instances where the chain of command breaks down for reasons completely unrelated to my authority. These intricate, serpentine trenches are confusing for me and for the software. I asked my troops to attack soldiers on the other side of the network, only to watch them pass each other like ships passing in the middle of the night. While "Western Front" has a historical flavor, the sheer scale of the war sometimes evokes classic video game nonsense from the source code.

The aesthetic embellishments of "Western Front" are not tainted by an overarching cinematic narrative. You choose what year to begin the campaign and which side to take, which obviously determines when certain necessities in the timeline will emerge, such as when American troops will join the line of fire. But don't expect tedious cutscenes and character moments. After a turn, some archival events may be inserted, such as draft shortages, plummeting morale, etc., but they are limited to headlines and a few numerical corrections that color the action. Most of the time, you will be staring at the border region, repeatedly squabbling over the same few meters of territory. The actual Western Front hardly moved during the war. History repeats itself.

I think that is the biggest problem eating away at The Great War. For all its pomp and circumstance - limbs bouncing off mortar rounds, macro to micro scheming, gratuitous lamentation of the subject matter - there's not much to do here. In other games, World War I is more palatable and perhaps more enjoyable than recorded. Consider the trilogy of Isonzo, Verdun, and Tannenberg, which, death notwithstanding, enthusiastically presents a spectacular view of the conflict. The Western Front, on the other hand, is far more conservative in its storytelling freedom. It captures the bleakest, most uncompromising trench warfare - in other words, the most soul-crushing World War I. Victory, or even a few conquest points, can only be obtained through massive human sacrifice. It is hard to imagine anyone walking away from a session feeling particularly proud of what the PCs have accomplished.

In this sense, "The Great Western Front" is an excellent teaching tool. It shows the wide variety of technological innovations at the turn of the century and how they effortlessly reduced European warriors to a fine beige-pink pulp. But given the wealth of options available to scratch my strategist's itch, I am drawn to the cryptic intrigue of "Crusader Kings" and the multifaceted clashes of "Age of Empires". These games pose many interesting questions and can provoke with myriad unconventional solutions. But on the Western Front, there is only one acceptable answer: a ferocious and ruthless advance. That is World War I.