First, as always, I would like to thank the people over at Klabater for tossing me this one to review. Working with them is always great.
This review is going to be a little different than usual, I usually try to focus on the things I like about a game and only bring up the negative if I genuinely think they impact the ability to enjoy or play the game. This won’t change here, but there are a few key things I do think people need to know going into this.
Starting out do not do what I did at first, play the tutorials. Even with a wealth of experience to draw from this made things so much harder than they needed to be. From figuring out which buttons did what ( seriously the Y button to give orders? who does that) The game does a good job without it explaining how the game plays out however and why each unit should be used the way it should be.
The hexagonal battle screen works great for showing you where units are and choosing where you want them to be, but here is my first complaint and it is a big one. The writing is so small it seemed almost unreadable at times. I would often be unsure if I was missing important information.
This by no means made the game unplayable, but it definitely had moments of making me not want to. On the flip side having served in the military around artillery I can say from experience this game does artillery pretty well. The sound of it sailing over my infantry into cities to soften up targets for my bombers and later infantry was nothing short of spectacular.
This is important by the way because this is a war you are fighting. WW2 to be exact, and how you manage your troops and how you attack with them matters, and it feels like it. Leave your bombers unprotected and enemy fighters will shoot them down. Let your supply lines get taken out and it isn’t long before you find yourself without fuel. It also goes without saying you have scouts for a reason and you won’t want to find your infantry out in the open with tanks coming at you.
The graphics are also solid for what they are. Nobody plays these games hoping for a graphical masterpiece and you shouldn’t either. They do their job and they do them well. Units look nice, but the towns do leave something to be desired. I do appreciate the detail on the flags for each country. For the most part, however, one town was the same as another for me.
I won’t say this was a bad or a good game. It is a solid 7/10. It has a lot of great ideas and if you enjoy these games you will enjoy this. Most people won’t be into it tho and with the small writing and numbers, I have a hard time wanting to play it for long periods of time. I have certainly seen bigger offenders, but there shouldn’t be any. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
