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Overview
It’s quite possible that you’ve never heard of this game, but Sudden Strike was a
ground breaker. It brought WW2 in RTS style with a gameplay close to that of Command
and Conquer. The beautiful part of Sudden Strike was the multiplayer mode, because the
annoying aspects of fighting AI were not present in multiplayer games. The most obvious
of was the role of artillery in the game. While the AI in Sudden Strike was capable of
instantly firing artillery at everything it could see, the gamer would use it to barrage
entire towns or areas that are of strategic importance. Quite obviously this lead to
some entertaining and challenging multiplayer games, especially with the add-on for
Sudden Strike, called Sudden Strike Forever.
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Not too long ago the sequel to Sudden
Strike arrived in stores. Expectations for this sequel were very high and many wondered
if Fireglow would be able to improve an already brilliant game. The promised features
were something to look forward to. New features included crews for tanks and vehicles,
pilots, airfields on the map, ships, varying weather conditions and a totally renewed
damage system.
Plot
Sudden Strike 2 is about WW2 and that’s about everything I can tell you about its story.
According to Fireglow it contains more historical missions and campaigns than the first
Sudden Strike. Historical missions are interesting and nice, but simply having the
possibility of playing around with the equipment of WW2 is good enough. However it would
add a lot to the campaigns if there were more of those well known epic battles. For
instance the massive battles of Stalingrad or Kursk, where loads of Russian tanks took
on the Germans and won by numbers only.
Gameplay
The gameplay has undergone enormous changes. It takes a lot of effort to get into the game,
especially from players that are used to the old sudden Strike. But once you get used to it, it’s very enjoyable.
Fireglow obviously tried to create a more realistic game and well, they succeeded. But
to the cost of gameplay, the cost of their fan base? With all the changes to the
gameplay I think Fireglow took it a bit too far. Although they succeeded in making single
player more interesting, multiplayer suffered. First the changes in the gameplay. As I
said, Fireglow tried to make the game more realistic. Here’s an example: I just received
my objective and my forces enter the map. After looking around a little bit and checking
out the environment, I took my first few steps and move a few men along the road, when
all of a sudden they drop dead! At the same time I heard shots being fired. No signs of
where the fire came from, no enemy spotted, nothing. So I try it the hard way and send
in a tank, it slowly drives up the road, passes the dead troops. Nothing happens, no
enemy contact. Then I heard a distant and deep “bhwooom”, “bwhooom.” Moments later my
tank disappeared into a violent mixture of fire, black smoke and the thunder of artillery
shells exploding. While the echo fades away I stared at the remaining wreck, amazed by
the sudden outburst of violence that left just as quickly as it came. Instantly losing
a few men is bad enough, but losing a tank is a tragedy. Time to return the favor!!
Officers receive binoculars which extend your Line of Sight (LOS) far enough to notice
the enemy before it can notice you. So I let those buggers have it. As soon as I spotted
the enemy I opened fire and the enemy dropped like flies. It now becomes clear why I lost
those men so quickly in the beginning. Luckily you can order men to lie down,
increasing their resistance tremendously. But when lying down, they can’t see as far as when standing up,
and moving men can’t see as far as those standing still. Moving a bunch of men without knowing
where the enemy is gets them killed in almost any situation.
Just about the same thing goes for tanks. You can get the commander to look out of the
hatch, which looks pretty sweet. It improves the line of sight, and when in combat, line
of sight is all that counts. Most tanks can deal with each other and the enemy goes down
after a few hits, but some heavy tanks are almost invincible. This might lead to the
situation where one tank can decimate an entire army because there is no weapon to counter
the tank’s heavy armor.
When it comes to single player I can live with this realistic setting, its very satisfying
to chew through enemy forces as if it’s nothing. But the real problem arises in multiplayer.
It boils down to who sees who first. This has nothing
to do with strategy and or tactical warfare. Losing in such games is a real pain. There’s
nothing you can see, nothing you can do to change it and the opposition marches forward
annihilating everything that comes within view. One can imagine that it gets very frustrating
to say the least. Winning on the other hand is good fun of course, but gets boring after a
while when you don’t meet any resistance. So perhaps it’s easier to understand why I think
that Fireglow took it too far. The dynamic gameplay that was so typical of Sudden Strike
Forever was lost in an effort to create a more realistic game.
Still Sudden Strike 2 has something to it that can inspire productions of geniality. The
original campaigns are nice to play but that is about all there is to it. But luckily both
Fireglow and the community delivered tools to extend Sudden Strike 2. One I like to mention
is Stalingrad, or the latest version Spookygrad, which is created by Spooky whom can be found
on the Sudden Strike 2 forum. He created a piece of art that’s worth a review by itself. Plus
the community has created many mods that changed the damage values, such that many flavours of
SS2 are now available.
As far as other changes: The working airfields on the map, ships, trains, crews and unfortunately
the removal of winter and desert schemes. I can be fairly quick about the ships and airfields.
A nice addition, but they don’t add enough to the game to be worth a sequel. Big ships can only
sail in straight lines, making them out just to be some extra artillery and anti-air guns.
Nice, but not worked out very well. The trains are somewhat better, even though they are also
limited to moving in a straight line as well. They are more useful though as trains can come
with artillery and, or anti-air and anti-tank guns attached and most of the time can drive
straight to the front. Crews are a nice addition. It means you can kill the crew of a vehicle
and take it over. This is very useful when it comes to additional supply trucks, normal trucks
or even tanks. But because tanks are so sturdy, taking one over doesn’t happen very often.
Unfortunately Fireglow decided not to include the winter and desert scheme’s that were so cool
in the original. The reason for this is because the development team didn’t use anything from
Sudden Strike and its add-on Forever. They could easily have taken over the graphics from the
original, upgraded them a little and then use them in Sudden Strike 2. The same goes for quite
a few units. Of course the sequel holds many new items, but those two added together would have
resulted in a more varied and interesting game.
Graphics
SS2 is created out of 2D graphics, just as its predecessor. And it proves that 2D graphics can
be as beautiful as 3D graphics. I could describe all the beautiful graphics, but I think the
screenshots say enough. However, there are a few remarkable things though that I should mention.
Fireglow put in a lot of variety in buildings, which makes towns and cities more real. Even
cooler is that you can blow the buildings to pieces! It gets quite entertaining when the action
starts. Incoming artillery fire, burning ammo crates, and collapsing buildings make playing this
game and attacking the enemy a marvelous spectacle to see.
Sound
The same goes for the sound in SS2. The sounds are well crafted, when you’re in the action it
really sounds like war. What’s missing though, is the characteristic sound of incoming artillery
fire, which added to the atmosphere in SS Forever. In SS2 however, you can hear the enemy artillery
fire when you soar over the fog of war. It gets louder when you move closer to where the enemy
artillery is located. It’s dangerous to use your artillery constantly because the enemy can locate
it by using his ears. This is a new feature whereas in Sudden Strike Forever you had to guess the
exact position of the artillery that was ripping your assault to pieces. I think that it’s a good
thing to hear and almost exactly locate it.
The music isn’t great, you might as well turn it off,
or use your own tunes. But music isn’t really needed, the sounds of war are intense enough to listen to.
Fun Factor
Despite the bad things I mentioned about the gameplay in SS2, it’s still a fun game to play. Most
for the awesome experience it gives to the player, the mixture of the graphics with the excellent
war sounds creates an entertaining gaming experience. It’s especially fun when you wipe the floor
with the computer.
The Sudden Strike 2’s replay value is excellent, because the community keeps creating mods,
maps, and tools that keep improving the game. With good maps this game will be fun to play for
a long time to come. Plus well thought out maps will tremendously improve the multiplayer
experience. Many different scenarios and campaigns are there to re-create WW2 and that’s what
the fans keep doing.
Conclusion
The final word on this game is a tough for me. The game has gone through a strange transition
since Sudden Strike Forever. I give Sudden Strike 2, 4 Planets. Multiplayer seems less
interesting at first, while single player improved quite a bit. And Fireglow totally changed a
close to perfect formula, which could have very well been continued. But SS2 is a beautiful
game to play, and anyone that wants to be or wants to remain a Real Time Strategy gamer
shouldn’t go without it. Kudos to Fireglow who made a stable game without any major bugs
that proves to be a nice platform for the community to improve and build on. To see the
evidence, check out the CDV message board for Sudden Strike 2 here:
Sudden Strike 2 forum
Arnie Rating:
4 out of 5 Planets
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Sudden Strike 2 |
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