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Introduction
It’s here, yet another WW2 game, Blitzkrieg.
It seems that now is the perfect time
to practice the very
successful strategy used by the Germans in WW2. The producers
(Nival) claim to have made a game with realistic and
historically correct armor values for the
units.
This means that a Tigertank will be very hard to beat. Yay!. A
chance for history to be repeat itself.
OK, time to start up to the game and see what
lies within. The introduction
movie looks sweet and lucky for us (the
gamers) there’s more to come. The menus are not state of the art, but they
allow us to get where we need to be. So, lets kick those Germans out
again by starting the Allied campaign. Things
begin with
another great movie, which bring us to the story
better known as the first chapter. Each campaign consists of a number
of chapters with its own overall historical mission.
Before playing
this mission you can play random missions that give you an
upgrade. This upgrade comes in the form of either a tank, a piece of artillery
or an anti-air or anti-tank gun. At
first you start with three tanks and three guns but this can
be expanded until you have six tanks and six guns. Throughout
the missions,
each
core unit can get more experienced,
thus improving their
overall skill. |
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Since the setting is WW2 and realism is very important in
Blitzkrieg, you start every mission with a set number of
tanks, infantry squads, artillery and other equipment. This
can vary for each mission but many times it consists of your
own manageable army. This manageable army includes the tanks
and guns as described above.
Infantry is brought into the game in squads.
These squads have
one officer with binoculars and something like ten or twelve
other men. These can be riflemen, machine-gunners,
submachine-gunners, anti-tanks guys with bazookas or anti-tank
rifles. Furthermore there’s the snipers, mortar and
machinegun crews in separate units. Unfortunately
flamethrowers are missing.
Another interesting feature of the game is
a unit database that contains every unit in the game and gives background
information about that unit. This is a very
nice addition if you’re interested in WW2
and/or the units involved.
Gameplay
In order to really enjoy and understand the gameplay, its
necessary to realize that the game uses realistic armor
values. This means that tanks are weaker on the sides and
rear in
comparison to the front. These values can
change to the benefit of the enemy AI when you’re playing on
hard and will be in your benefit when playing on easy.
The normal
setting simply means that neither
side will benefit. Still the enemy has better tanks in
most missions and you really have to use flanking and other
creative moves to try and conquer
those tanks. It needs a lot of practice and many times the
enemy simply kicks your butt.
Typically you will find yourself dwindling in frustration, but
when you finally come through you will share added
satisfaction.
This sounds as if the game is entirely about the tanks, which is
true in a way, however on the other hand
false. Infantry still plays a big role, although a
few squads of infantry can be annihilated by two or three
tanks. It is all about how you use those squads
to confront tanks
in the open field environment. Meeting in
open fields can be deadly, but when it comes to forests and
villages, infantry can easily take on tanks. The achievements
of a squad is also very dependant on the formation you decide
to move them in. Being in standard
or marching formation infantry is very vulnerable, but when
put in defensive or aggressive formation the men will seek and
use cover to their advantage.
Artillery is very useful and often is needed to start
shelling a village or enemy position before moving the
infantry and tanks in. However, as soon as you fire your
artillery the enemy will pinpoint your
location and begin countering your
artillery fire. Note* You also have the
ability to do the same to your enemy*. This is displayed on the radar map
and forces you to use your artillery wisely.
Other useful units are the trucks and engineers. Regular
trucks that tow your guns into the field can also be used to re-supply your ammunition and infantry squads. Yes that’s right
you can bring squads that survived the fighting back to full
strength again after they have suffered losses. The engineers
can build trenches, barbed wire, anti-tank obstacles, bridges,
repair your tanks and remove and lay mines.
And last but never least is the air force. Planes are available
in almost every mission and often the support consists of
recon planes, bombers, paradrops, fighters and ground fighters.
Many times the air force can help out in clearing villages,
ambushes and finding enemy artillery. The fighters are very
useful as well as they give you the possibility to counter
enemy recon, bomber and attack planes. Anti-air guns are
devastating though, so you must be sure that it's safe to
send your planes in.
When adding it all together Blitzkrieg offers interesting
battles and many possibilities for
attacking your opponent.
Apart from the sometimes frustrating defeats you suffer, the
game is very entertaining. The few multiplayer games that I
played were enjoyable, but good tactics are
essential for
success. Attacking head on is not an option as it will lead to
definite destruction of your force. And with the replay option
found in Blitzkrieg,
you have the
opportunity to learn from each game you
play online.
Graphics
Yes, time to talk about the graphics. I
can tell you that they
look very good. The terrain and units apart from infantry are
3D, but the buildings and infantry are
rendered in 2D, which is a nice
combination.
Let's begin with the terrain. Since 3D
rendering was used, the landscaped
can be speckled with mountainous terrain adding depth and
variety to each map. It reminded me of Total Annihilation which had a terrain
with such hills, although
they were not
laid in a 3D environment. For RTS games these 3D hills
work out really well and seeing the units move through and
over them is something to enjoy.
Trees, bushes, trenches, hills, towns, etc.
look very
neat and real. Even better is the fact that everything on the
terrain is destructible apart from the terrain itself. And
when you order your artillery to start their barrage on an
enemy-occupied town or forest it
is very entertaining to watch
the destruction taking place. Trees blow up with leaves
flying all over the place, houses catch fire and start smoking
and start falling apart. Too bad that the fire doesn’t affect
the buildings and didn't warrant more destructive
power.
Now the units, they look amazing and represent the units that
were in WW2. I can tell you that the German Tiger tank really
looks like the beast it was. When I first encountered a Tiger
with my crappy British armor in the desert, it scared the shit
out of me. Trying to destroy a Tiger
with the British forces took all my tanks and in the end
artillery had to finish the beast.
Now you might think that because the infantry isn’t 3D it
might not look as good, but it seems that because the infantry
is a unit that will be on screen with many at the same time
its more efficient to have them in 2D. Still they look pretty
good and when paying attention to their fighting, it
is obvious
that they were thrown in with very
high detail.
In this way I could go on about the graphics, but everything
in the game looks great. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention
though is the planes, they fly in a very realistic way and
look very cool when turning.
Sound
Again Nival claims to created realistic
sounds. The sounds are fine, but not the big bangs and
booms you might expect from tanks in this
time period. At first I
was a bit disappointed when I fired my tanks and the only
thing I heard was “pooof” instead of “BOOM”,
but it’s not
something that is really lacking about the game.
The sounds are
fine when you get used to them and explosions are still loud
enough to make my subwoofer happy. Machineguns and rifles
sound quite alright and artillery units still give a big bang.
Tanks also fire up their engine when ordered to move and the
environment has loads of sounds that all add to the
atmosphere.
The voices are ok, sometimes a bit weird, but not in an
irritating way. Overall these are good for the gaming
experience.
Now there’s the music, Nival chose a classical approach and
its not bad although I can understand why some people would
turn it off after a few missions. Sometimes it did burst into
a triumph-like musical piece and many times that happened after
some good action in which I inflicted quite a big blow to the
enemy. I liked that.
Lifetime
One other thing that has to be mentioned is the fact that
Blitzkrieg is easy to mod. If you don’t like the ranges or
sounds you can easily add new ones or change the in game
variables such that you like it better. When checking the
forums about Blitzkrieg you can already grab a few
modifications for download.
Together with a map editor added to the package this will
ensure many new possible environments and maps to play on.
In conclusion
I’m addicted to Blitzkrieg, the gameplay, the graphics and the
realism of WW2 all add to a great experience in WW2 combat. So
if you’re interested in WW2, Blitzkrieg is the game for you. If
you like RTS games and are not really interested in WW2 I
still recommend Blitzkrieg as it’s a tactical and very
strategic game that gives a nice challenge.
Finally the score:
Graphics - 4.5/5
Sound - 3/5
Gameplay - 4.5/5
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Overall - 4/5
The gameplay is very good, it kept
me hooked. The total package
contains enough missions and maps to keep on
playing for a while and with mods and new maps definitely
coming in the future,
Blitzkrieg will be able to entertain for
a long time. But some features would have made the game even
better: co-op
missions against the computer (skirmish)
and a quick battle option in which you can easily
start a random mission after giving the number and types of
units to fight with.
Arnie Rating:
4 out of 5 Planets
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