Close Combat: The Longest Day

[TheFjordFox]

Hello again!

So, I've stated this previously, but; I am a seasoned veteran of the CC franchise, and have about 25 years of experience with them. Picked up my first CC game in the 90s, when I got a hold of the CC2 demo off a CD from a gaming magazine. Was amazed then, and love the games still! Currently I'm on a mission to play through all CC games with both factions in the grand campaigns of the respective games. I will be putting them all up on youtube, in due time. It's just something I've wanted to do for a while, and at some point I decided "you know what? I'm just gonna do it!" - and so here we are! Prior to this playthrough, I have also finished with both sides in Cross of Iron and Last Stand Arnhem. More to come in the future!

However!

Here's the links to the first episodes in each playthrough: (I'll add the German one later when I've finished with the Allies.)



Hope some of y'all can get something out of it. Have a good one!

 

[TheFjordFox]

And here's the German playthrough;



Gotta tell ya, this one hits different, and a lot of the flaws of the game make themselves known with frustrating regularity.

Either way - I realize posting about each game separately might be a bit "meh", so in future, when I continue my endeavour, I will make one post where I put all my CC stuff, rather than one per game.

Oh, also, I would have edited the initial post instead of bumping, but too much time has passed, so it's not an option :/

 

[Luka-boy]

Your upload rate is insane. I decided to play on my second monitor while doing other things only your campaigns involving the side that lost the operations historically (playing as the underdog is usually more exciting) and after a month I still have twenty episodes to watch before being done with LSA/Allies. Then I'll watch the TLD/Axis one and who knows how many games you will have finished by the time I'm done with that one.

And here I thought I was crazy when I played all CC games over one Summer, but you sir, devour these games with such gusto I wonder if you're just so passionate about them, have an impressive work ethic or both. Either way I'm glad to finally see someone play all the games, both sides too, and upload them online even if it's just for better preservation of this series' legacy.

 

[L'ennui]

It's a shame this series remains more or less stagnant even with the latest game. CC2 and CC3 were some of my favorite games as a kid, and I learned a bunch of WW2 history from reading the manuals. Nowadays it seems that Combat Mission, Graviteam Tactics and the more action-y Men of War/Call to Arms series are where it's at.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Nothing worth mentioning happened since CC2.

CC3 was allright but not very polished. CC4 was an abomination. With CC5 they tried to get a bit closer to former greatness but the shittiness never left the countless sequels and development team switches. it's what the term "flogging a dead horse" is in a nutshell, people have tried tp revive the corpse of CC2 for 25 years now and it moves a bit but it just doesn't want to jump through hoops anymore.

 

[TheFjordFox]

Your upload rate is insane. I decided to play on my second monitor while doing other things only your campaigns involving the side that lost the operations historically (playing as the underdog is usually more exciting) and after a month I still have twenty episodes to watch before being done with LSA/Allies. Then I'll watch the TLD/Axis one and who knows how many games you will have finished by the time I'm done with that one.

And here I thought I was crazy when I played all CC games over one Summer, but you sir, devour these games with such gusto I wonder if you're just so passionate about them, have an impressive work ethic or both. Either way I'm glad to finally see someone play all the games, both sides too, and upload them online even if it's just for better preservation of this series' legacy.

Hehe, yeah, if I want to be done with playing through all the games by the end of the year, which I do, I have to step on it a bit I think, there are so many CC games, and remakes of them as well

I'm happy to "play alongside you", tho, I think quite a few people are watching these episodes as a background thing while playing the games themselves, which is pretty much how I envisioned they'd be best watched

I probably don't have a very impressive work ethic, it's more the passion for the games I think - although playing as for instance the Germans in TLD, which it seems the devs didn't intend for you to do, is kinda crushing that passion a bit. I'm noticing a sever amount of flaws very frequently :/ For instance - US Rangers need to climb a cliff to attack at Pointe Du Hoc. However, seemingly the devs forgot to tell the AI how to do this, so every time I'm fighting that battles, all they do is lick sun down at the beach :/

I'm happy there is some appreciation for what I am trying to do tho, as the whole idea to do this spawned from a lack of content for certain sides of certain CC games. I looked at some other TLD playthroughs, and there were requests in the comments to do a playthrough with the Germans etc, but most of them are focused on the Allies. Which play better, as the devs have shown them more love, but like yourself, I find the underdog position is often the most interesting and challenging one to fight from in games such as these! Well. I'm not saying my playthroughs are of epic quality or anything, but at least I have decades of experience with the games, and know how to remove the microphone humming that plagues most other LPs of CC games out there :p

It's a shame this series remains more or less stagnant even with the latest game. CC2 and CC3 were some of my favorite games as a kid, and I learned a bunch of WW2 history from reading the manuals. Nowadays it seems that Combat Mission, Graviteam Tactics and the more action-y Men of War/Call to Arms series are where it's at.

Yeah, it is a bit more of the same. With some seriously needed improvements that honestly I can't imagine would take that long to implement still lacking. In decades the AI has not been improved, which is horrendous. I read some reviews on TLD, and they kept saying the AI is great and offers a good challenge... these people must not have played much CC before then, and certainly not tried playing with the Germans! - Deploy far enough back, the allies won't even move off the beaches even tho you let them land unopposed!



Either way! Good luck on your playthrough Luka! Hope you'll have a good time, and not run into too many of the BS shortcomings one can encounter in these games :p