Released too soon
So what is so good about this game? Well, like its predecessors, it provides you with the opportunity to immerse yourself in commanding the armed forces, directing diplomatic efforts, conducting trade, and guiding the technological development and the destiny of a nation during the WW2 era. HOI3 is a major evolutionary step forward in the series because of its ability to have the AI take over different aspects of running a country, including conducting military operations in designated military theaters. This permits the player to focus on those aspects of the game s/he is most interested in, dramatically reduces micromanagement, and makes it much easier to manage countries with far flunged territories and forces. For example, while playing Italy, I had the AI handle an invasion of Yugoslavia and manage the strategic redeployment of several corps from Ethiopia to Libya while I focused on invading France.
Now for the bad. Well, there are lots and lots of problems with this game, some minor, some annoying, and some just incomprehensible. There is just no excuse for some of the sloppiness found in this game, especially when you consider that the developer already had a great game, HOI2, to work off of. At last count I identified over 100 problems / issues with HOI3. I won't list them all, be here is a representation (some minor, some major):
1. The high frequency of very implausible outcomes like Japan always joining the Allies unless you play either Japan or Germany, or Mexico invading France.
2. Terrible maps. The have poor use of color, and it's difficult to find relevant information. HOI2 maps were so much better. Obviously this aspect really detracts from the overall game experience since a player is almost always dealing with maps in a game like this.
3. Mispellings everywhere...in English, Italian, Spanish, you name it. Quite amateurish. The game-based introductory tutorial was obviously written by someone for whom English definitely is not their first language.
4. The game runs incredibly slow, even on fast machines. Very frustrating.
5. The unit icons are bland and make it difficult to distinguish between levels of organization. At high zoom levels (which are impractical for conducting combat operations) you can actually see sprites but they look terrible and fail to provide adequate information. HOI2 did a much better job with unit counters, animations and other unit representations.
6. HOI3 gets a special prize for the worst introductory sequence for any game in recent memory. Honestly, I haven't seen such a terrible introduction in a computer game since the mid-1980s. I am not joking. It looks like it was some sort of afterthought. You basically are shown a few amateurish WW2 themed paintings, and that's it. When I first saw it, I thought my game was missing some files. HOI2 had a great opening sequence. What happened? What's wrong with these people?
7. The combat and interface sounds are identical to the crappy ones in HOI2. WTF? Who is making the decisions at Paradox? A crack crazed chimp listening to techno?
8. Over time the AI ceases to move certain units involved in combat or strategic movement operations. These units appear to become inexplicably frozen in position and this phenomena impacts more and more units as time progresses.
Well, I could go on and on but I need my beauty sleep. Anyhow, on a positive note, I will say that once the problems are ironed out in this game -and I am confident they will be- it will probably be pretty awesome.