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| Marks, set, ...go! | Very precise and easy to follow briefing system. |
From the looks of the campaign maps, Western, Russian, German and French, there’s plenty of hardware to fling at your opponent. Unfortunately I couldn’t really get much of a feel for this game, due to the missing tutorial section. With no knowledge whatsoever of game mechanics I leapt straight into the action, commanding a Nazi outpost. From the mission’s introduction which comes with a rather smart looking and actually useful briefing, I soon learnt I needed to fend off a Soviet attack, pinch a tank and then launch my own full counter assault.
On the battlefield, my time at first was taken up by admiring the graphics. The trees, tanks and troops were certainly colourful and pleasing to the eye. Soon enough my appreciation was interrupted by the communist assault. Troops spread out and engaged the enemy and tanks were frantically firing left and right. As I had no tutorial to work with and this being a mission quite well into the German campaign, total chaos ensued. Instead I just resulted to a good tried and tested method of selecting everything and concentrating fire on each enemy at a time. The Soviets were soon dispatched, mainly as I had rather nasty looking flamethrowers which I didn’t even know I had!
The sounds and looks from the menu are entertaining enough, and it’s quite rare to find a game with a damn nifty looking menu. Tanks are not nature’s best friend here, trees and fences stand little chance against the stampede of war. In the beginning this could be a potentially crafty tactic, blazing through a forest and striking hard as it makes units not so easy to spot, especially the troops. Soon my outpost was left with a barren field encircling the camp, no more sneaky red ambushes now.
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| All is much too quiet around here. | Wait, that's not a tree ...it's a commie! |
I did happen to notice a depot building at the outpost can repair damaged vehicles and tanks; a handy feature indeed after a rather vicious assault is sprung. Troops can be healed by medics and the headquarters building, or at least I think they can. It can be hard to find your men sometimes as they can get lost amongst your vehicles. While playing I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Command & Conquer series a little for the fast skirmish battles, which certainly do credit to the title Rush for Berlin.
Virtual resources are both loved and loathed; time is all that matters for this game however. Want a new light tank? Click away, but be careful as each type of unit will vary in construction time. A cheap and quick ragtag squad could land you a few decisive victories, but grander investments could land you the ultimate advantage if you can last that long. This style can open up whole new stratagems, it’s also quite refreshing to see that you can replace fallen units as so many titles in the past (no pun intended) denied you this. I hold much distaste for strategy games that have a limited, irreplaceable force thrown at your command. Give me my horde of tank manufacturing lines any day!
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| In your face nature! | A moments silence please, for our exploded comrade. |
There are still a lot of labels and aesthetics missing from this game, seeing how it’s a preview version this can be understandable. This game could make an adequate contribution to the WWII strategy club but much beyond that is still uncertain right now, unless the few unique features that have been thrown into the mix really catch on. Still it’s a worth while project to keep an eye on and hopefully it’ll make a nice splash for the developer Stormregion, who are already responsible for the Panzers® franchise.
