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[IMG News]

Battlefront.com has announced the release of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy. The first in a "new family" of Combat Mission titles, CM:FI focuses on the Allied struggle to defeat Italy during World War II. The stand alone game gives players the chance to play as the American, Italian, and German forces in three unique campaigns. CM:FI also features a variety of new equipment and vehicles, and is the first Combat Mission game to utilize the features of CMx2 engine Version 2.0.

Fortress Italy is a new "family" of Combat Mission games covering the Allied struggle to knock Italy out of the Second World War. This initial release deals explicitly with the battle for Sicily and sets the groundwork for future additions to simulate the hard fighting in the rugged terrain of "Europe's underbelly" up until the war's end in 1945.

The combat forces immediately available to players include the full range of historically available American, Italian, and German forces which fought in Sicily. In addition to the completely new Italian forces, both the American and German organizations differ significantly from those familiar to Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy players. Some of the highlights are elite formations such as:

• Italian Bersaglieri
  
  
• American Rangers
  
  
• German Herman Göring Division

Of course, the time frame and units involved require equipment new to the Combat Mission series. A full list is available on the new Fortress Italy website, however here are some particularly fun gadgets to play with:

• R-35 Light Tank
  
  
• Semovente 90/53
  
  
• Panzer Mk III
  
  
• Grille
  
  
• M3 GMC Halftrack
  
  
• T30 HMC Halftrack

Players get to dive in and try these forces out in three (!!!) campaigns, one from the perspective of each national force (USA, Germany, Italy), a host of new stand alone battles, and of course the automatically generated QuickBattles. It won't take long for Normandy players to feel how different this time period and setting is from what they are used to. And the Italian forces are very interesting indeed! Squads the size of Platoons, almost no radios at all, few antitank weapons, proportionally few support weapons, and relatively light armored vehicles present even the best CM player with a lot of new challenges.

But wait, we didn't come to the best part yet... Fortress Italy features more than just a new setting and new units. It is also the first Combat Mission game to be upgraded with our CMx2 engine Version 2.0 features! If you haven't heard about the new Upgrade path for Combat Mission, click here for more info. For those who have, here's just a few of the new features you'll experience:

• Moveable Waypoints
  
  
• Target Armor Arc Command
  
  
• Expanded Floating Icon Categories
  
  
• "Fog of War" Floating Icons
  
  
• 2D Editor Map Overlay
  
  
• Auto-Assemble Road/Wall/Hedge Tool
  
  
• Camera Jump to Groups
  
  
• Target Briefly Command
  
  
• New Rendering Shaders
  
  
• Bump and Normal Mapping
  
  
• Improved Framerates
  
  
• Pausable Realtime TCP/IP Mode
  
  
• ...and more!

Available immediately for PC and Mac OS X operating systems for only $55 as digital delivery, mail delivery, or both - exclusively and directly from www.battlefront.com! The mail delivery version includes a 100 page printed and ring-bound Game Reference Manual, the DVD, as well as a metal Tin Case (as long as supplies last) that holds up to 4 discs (for future modules)

Combat Mission: Fortress Italy is available now for $55. Learn more at the links below.

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[DaveyJJ]

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