Good Name,Good reputation
Story
Along three considerable (still historically accurate) campaigns that propose about 80 challenging missions, the player will be facing the battlegrounds that put to the test the German, Soviet and US military commanders during the WWII. From the heart of Europe to the isles in the Pacific all the major battlefronts will reveal themselves to you in an attempt to demonstrate your qualities as a strategist.
Concept
An in-game encyclopedia presents over 250 realistic modeled military units of the great forces engaged in the war – USA, Great Britain and France, USSR, Germany and Italy as well as Japan. Blitzkrieg is a tactical strategy so it concentrates on troop maneuvering and taking advantage of the grounds. No building construction is involved as all needed extra units are called into battle as reinforcements. Ask for infantry units, engineers, tanks and even air and naval assistance.
The commanders gain experience points for every battle according to the number of enemy units destroyed. Each new level provides additional special abilities for the units, some of them proving to be extremely efficient on the battlefield (such as the Grenade Bundle that increases the damage done by throwing grenades yet also depletes the ammo supply faster).
The game adds even more complexity as it only allows for a certain number of reinforcement calls. While calling these early in the game can provide you with certain superiority over the enemy troops, there will be less forces for the end part of the battle and you never know who’s in the hiding just waiting for an ambush.
Gameplay
The game seems to follow the words that Karl von Clausewitz stated – “The best form of defense is attack.” With this in mind be ready to clear out the great battlefronts of the WWII in an attempt to secure key locations or escort different convoys. Once in a while you’ll also be asked to defend certain locations, yet this is no different as it is also done with the help of military units, the only buildings available being the ones that are already in place – houses, diverse social buildings (such as depots or cathedrals for example, that can provide a good shooting hideout for the infantry) and the occasional fortifications (well… mere light cover such as trenches).
At all time what’s taken into consideration are the armor plating, penetration effectiveness, reload times, angle of shots and unit experience offering a realistic combat modeling. It all sums up to a rather challenging gaming experience. You cannot just bust into the enemy base and hope you can overcome all their defenses based on a full load of tanks. You’ll need to put to work your long range artillery and maybe some air raids could prove useful. Remember that the enemy has pretty much the same potential as your own troops, so make good use of the 21 (yes twenty one) speed levels to calculate everything in advance.
Also remember that you do not have an infinite supply
of ammo for your units so be sure to call in some suppliers as well a some engineers that can take care of the scratches to your tanks. You basically can’t really afford to loose any units, so plan carefully. While it seemed to me that sometimes the computer cheats a little when concealing his infantry troops in the trenches, the overall experience is very well balanced and extremely engaging. I do, however, have to recommend this game only to the real tactical strategy fans as it may seem a little to complex to the rest of the RTS community.
Video
While it’s not exactly cut of the edge graphics, Blitzkrieg pleases the eye with realistic looking environment (fully destructible I might add) and a good amount of unit details. It is all dressed up in 3D clothes (unlike its 2D predecessor) and the game engine allows for some zooming (not too much though). I must admit that the shooting and explosions are well realized along with the overall damaging to the units (once they’ve been blown up, the tanks can be totally destroyed by other tanks that pass over them). The great battlefields – such as the Philippines, Tobruk, Moscow, Stalingrad or Ardennes – are accurately reproduced adding to the overall realistic look.
Sound
Without being extremely impressing, the sound is good, each nation communicating in its own language (objectives are in English so don’t worry). There isn’t a very wide variety of sounds, but at least the short sentences are spoken in the corresponding language. Aside from (I’m not even sure I can call it that, but let’s just say) the voice acting the background music is something of a suspense movies repetitive sounds.
Multiplayer
No strategy game would be complete without a multiplayer option. Blitzkrieg is no exception. The game proposes an online gaming experience in which you can challenge all the best players on the official servers or you can choose to play with your close friends in a LAN. Of course defeating a human opponent is often more satisfying than just defeating the computer so the multiplayer promises an even more thrilling challenge. Unfortunately, there isn’t much variety in the choice of maps that you can play on. On the other hand, the beauty of this game relies on the tactics used on the battlefield and your mastery at forming a balanced force so the small number of maps is not necessarily a great minus.
Conclusion
If you’re thinking this is just another WWII inspired strategy game, you’re wrong. It comes with a complex experience that will delight you with some of the greatest battlefronts the war ever extended to. Which is more, it was specially created for the really passionate tacticians out there, considering every aspect of the players’ actions. Remember that everything is important in the fight: armor plating, reload times, angle of shots, unit experience and especially movement preparations. Do not expect a tank to move out of the way as quickly as you clicked on the ground to designate a new location. It takes time for it to rotate it’s turret to head to that spot. It also takes time to overcome any terrain challenges, so be sure you won’t have to change your mind too often on where you need to place your units. Taking advantage of the long range artillery, a confused or undecided enemy is much of a sitting duck. I really feel like I have to say it again – it’s a highly tactical RTS so give it a try if you’re just curious, but unless you’re really passionate about this aspect don’t expect the game to seem too easy to you. With these being said I bid you “Good luck!”