➤ The return of the Cossacks 🎮

Starting Cossacks 3 we were invaded by a very strong sense of déjà-vu. Some situations seemed really familiar to us, to the point that we went to see the first two Cossacks again to make sure we weren't wrong. But no, Cossacks 3 is exactly the sum of the first two Cossacks, but with the game graphics completely redone and more units on the screen.

In fact, the official description of the game speaks of a remake and not a sequel, which can generate a lot of confusion given the number three placed after the title. Out of curiosity, we went to re-read our old reviews of Cossacks: European Wars and Cossacks II: Napoleonic Wars to discover with some disappointment that many of the concepts expressed then can also be applied to the latest effort of the resurrected GSC Game World. In short, the interface has remained the same, the missions are the same, with the same conformation of the maps and even the tactics are very similar, with a lot of buggy artificial intelligence that makes the same mistakes. The few differences are dictated by the renewal of the graphics engine, now completely 3D, which has imposed some small changes, but in general it is really hard to consider it more than a remastered edition. At this point it is legitimate to ask how to review it, given that the title hides a completely different nature from what one might expect. But before we proceed, let's spend a few words on the gameplay.

We reviewed Cossacks 3, an old title that can thrill

Love for the Cossacks

The Cossacks series was a great success. For the first two chapters, mentioned in the previous paragraph, we are talking about millions of copies sold. In particular the countries of Northern Europe, Germany above all, gave him an excellent welcome. The main reason for its success lay in the choice to focus on greater realism of the battles, with thousands of units involved instead of the usual handful offered by the Westwood school real-time strategists.

Some dynamics were similar to those seen in the various Dune 2, Warcraft 2 and epigones, i.e. there were six resources to collect, buildings to build and improve, troops to hire or train and so on, but everything had a much faster pace. slow, comparable to those of an Age of Empires, while the battles were more uncertain and played on the ability to manage armies and not individual units. To complete one of the advanced missions of a Cossacks it could take hours, given the time required to amass an army and to achieve the various objectives. The management phase itself was not very fast, but it allowed refinements such as the erection of fortifications and a wider exploitation of the territory than the competitors. The individual buildings could be upgraded in various ways, to unlock advanced troops and better equipment, as well as to ensure a more efficient and faster collection of resources by the workers. It must be said that the construction part was concentrated in the initial stages of each map, and then left room for the combat part, which occupied the rest of the time of the mission. In some cases it was necessary to commit to building several cities, but in general the formula "gather resources-build buildings-train generate army" was respected by almost all campaign missions. In short, the fans had their reasons to love the title of GSC Game World!

New engine, old soul

Time re-read the entire previous paragraph and do everything in the present, because Cossacks 3 is exactly what Cossacks 1 and 2 were. As already mentioned, the only substantial difference is the new graphics engine, which allows the training of a greater number of units for bigger battles. In reality, most of the game time is spent observing the battlefield with the widest possible frame, so the general feeling hasn't changed much since then.

Closing the shot is of little use. At first it is done to observe the new three-dimensional models of the units and the details of the buildings, but in the long run one almost forgets that they have this possibility. The battles of the Cossacks have always been designed to be observed from afar, not least because there is no other way to manage such large armies effectively. Selecting individual units does not make much sense, except in very special cases, but fortunately the interface is designed to facilitate mass movements, with the formation of battalions that can be selected quickly, setting keyboard shortcuts, and recalled as needed. An army is made up of many different battalions, each specializing in a certain field. Victory smiles on those who manage to deploy the troops better, trying to maintain an advantage over the opponent as much as possible. Too bad that, as already mentioned, the CPU is not exactly brilliant and often focuses on suicide tactics, which once understood make it easier to deal with, except in the case of clear numerical inferiority. Unfortunately, one of the biggest problems of Cossacks 3 is the interface, which has remained identical to the one seen at the beginning of the last decade. If we can tolerate having maintained certain mechanics, already described, which in truth do not weigh much to fans of the genre, we are less likely to justify the failure to update the access to the various functions, which is all too cumbersome. It was already so at the time, let alone today. In this case one could look at the competition, which has made progress. In short, the impression of modernity given by the new graphics engine is somewhat debased. Note that despite this, Cossacks 3 remains a very playable title, also because the interface can be tamed with a little practice (the tutorial, which lasts an hour, helps a lot). Except that it is old in concept and could represent an insurmountable obstacle for some players.

So much flab!

Don't get us wrong though, because Cossacks 3 really has a lot to offer and will especially appeal to strategy enthusiasts who know little about the series (those who have already played the old chapters will not discover any particular news).

The reason is that they will be faced with hours and hours of excellent strategy, with as many as five complete campaigns, dozens of land and naval units to manage, coming from twelve different nations. There are also dozens of technologies to discover and around 3 buildings to be built. In short, it is really a lot of flab, to which if we add the multiplayer, which allows you to organize battles on procedurally generated maps between up to eight players, it dramatically increases the potential residence time of the game on the hard disk. The important thing is not to be frightened by the defects described above. A final note deserves the support that the developer is giving to buyers. At launch, Cossacks XNUMX had several bugs, some of them very annoying, which earned it a lot of criticism. GSC Game World, however, is updating it very frequently, solving them very quickly. In short, at present it is stable and perfectly playable both offline and online, so don't be scared by some derogatory comments that have not been changed after the patches.

PC System Requirements

Test Setup

Intel Core i7-4770 processor
16 GB of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 video card
Windows 10 operating system

Minimum requirements

Windows XP / 7/8/10 operating system
Intel® Core 2 Duo 1,6 GHz / AMD 3000+ processor
2 GB RAM
NVidia GeForce 8800 / ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO 256Mb / Intel HD3000 video card
DirectX 9.0C
4 GB of hard disk space
1280x768 resolution

Recommended Requirements

Processore Intel Core i5-3470, 3.20GHz or AMD FX-6300, 3.5Ghz
NVidia GeForce 560 / ATI Radeon HD 7900 Series video card
6 GB of hard disk space
1920x1080 resolution

Comment

Digital Delivery Steam Price 19,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

7.0

Readers (6)

7.5

Your vote

We do not feel like penalizing Cossacks 3 excessively, despite some production choices being not very courageous. Of course, a lot more could be done for the interface, aiming to make a full-fledged sequel instead of a simple remake. But thinking in these terms we find it more sensible to modernize a product of the last decade and sell it at a reduced price, than one dating back a few years ago and sell it at full price. Less justifiable are the problems of artificial intelligence, which particularly penalize judgment. Despite this, Cossacks 3 remains a good historical strategy, which you can seriously consider if you love the genre. Don't expect a masterpiece, but neither should the disaster described elsewhere.