Divided Ground: Middle East Conflict (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.0 stars Good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 6.2 (3.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Tom Chick
• Reviewed on: 08/13/2001
• Released on: 08/01/2001
• Originally published on GameSpot: Divided Ground: Middle East Conflict (PC) Review

Middle East Conflict 1948-1973 is a wargame that stands out for both its originality and its relevance. It is the latest entry in a genre that has focused almost exclusively on a few high-profile wars, and it has a sense of immediacy typically missing from wargames. Unfortunately, this doesn't quite sustain what is otherwise a relatively limp adaptation of TalonSoft's wargaming engine.

Most wargames visit World War II or the American Civil War. But Divided Ground centers on the brief flurries of combat between Israel and its Arab neighbors. These battles have made guest appearances in other games (there were a few scenarios in TalonSoft's 1998 Operational Art of War), but until now, they've never had a starring role in their own game. This is partly because the Arab-Israeli conflict is small potatoes compared with the usual fare in wargames. But while these may be relatively minor chapters in the history of warfare, the tensions that fueled them are still in effect. In fact, with the situation in Israel being what it is, Divided Ground has an unsettling real-world significance you don't get when you're replaying Pickett's charge at Gettysburg or the 1944 Omaha Beach landing.

When Israel announced its statehood in 1948, it fought back local Arabs to carve out a slice of territory in Palestine. In 1956, the Israelis crossed the Suez Canal and seized the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. In 1967, Israel initiated the Six Day War when it launched a brilliantly executed preemptive strike against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, which were plotting their own attacks. And finally, in 1973, the same three Arab nations were joined by Iraq for a surprise attack against Israel during the religious holiday of Yom Kippur. The attack was handily repulsed, and the war was over in three weeks.

Divided Ground is a collection of scenarios from these four instances of the Arab-Israeli conflict. You can play the scenarios singly or as part of a campaign of linked scenarios in which casualties carry over from battle to battle. You can play as either side in a campaign covering Jordan and Israel fighting on the West Bank in 1967 or in a campaign covering Syria and Israel fighting over the Golan Heights in 1973. The maps tend to be in the 10km-by-10km range, and the battles represent an hour or two of fighting, divided into six-minute turns. The scenarios are played on a tactical scale, with each unit's strength points representing individual vehicles or squads of soldiers. Each unit uses action points to move, fire, and return opportunity fire during the opponent's turn.

Divided Ground uses the same engine from TalonSoft's East Front, West Front, and Rising Sun games, collectively called the Campaign Series. But unlike the fairly extensive updates we've seen in each of those successive titles, there's very little that's new in Divided Ground. This is particularly disappointing--after all, Rising Sun had brought to life the unique aspects of ground combat in the Pacific Theater of World War II. There were new rules for night combat, entrenched positions, and the almost indomitable spirit of Japanese infantry. But Divided Ground has only a few new features that amount to small twists.

For instance, some of the later scenarios successfully convey a sense that the face of war is changing. Historically, tank battles have revolved around ballistics factors such as armor penetration and range. But with increasingly lethal weaponry, modern warfare has shifted to a game of detection. If you can see it, it's dead. Divided Ground introduces the early days of this shift with antitank guided missiles (ATGMs) such as the TOW and AT-3 Sagger. With these tank killers, armor is suddenly frail, and range isn't as important a factor as line of sight.

Similarly, some of the later scenarios portray the introduction of helicopters. However, these aren't the deadly gunships that prowl today's battlefields. Early on, helicopters were mainly airborne troop transports that afforded infantry unprecedented mobility. With helicopters, you can quickly waltz right over an otherwise invulnerable line of defenders. New antiair units are provided to trump the helicopters.

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