Stormregion's 2001 real-time strategy title S.W.I.N.E. featured pigs and rabbits engaged in a fictional war that drew parallels to World War II events. The company's latest game, Codename: Panzers, visits World War II for real. It features many of the original gameplay elements found in S.W.I.N.E., including graphics that are every bit as state-of-the-art today as S.W.I.N.E.'s were for its time. Furthermore, Codename: Panzers adds numerous other well-thought-out features and enhancements, it provides plenty of interesting units and destructible environments to play around with, and it contains a ton of content, including three big campaigns, all of which result in an excellent, all-around real-time strategy game. There may be plenty of higher profile real-time strategy games available at this time, but Codename: Panzers is good enough to be just as deserving of your attention.

The campaigns focus on a commander who actually has some personality.

The game's three single-player campaigns occur at different times during World War II. The German campaign follows the invasion of Poland, France, and the Soviet Union; the Russian campaign deals with the Soviets pushing back the German invaders; and the Allied campaign takes place during D-Day and beyond. Each side follows the commander of its respective army, which adds a real human touch to the proceedings. Every mission begins with the commander writing in his journal. These journal entries don't really have any impact on or relevance to the upcoming missions or gameplay, but they're a nice addition that gives your commander (and the game) some personality.

The 30 single-player missions in Codename: Panzers are varied both in their objectives and format. You're always moving from one part of the war to another, so the missions and environments don't get repetitive. You'll find yourself tasked with eliminating enemy forces, capturing towns, defending locations, and protecting convoys, among many other responsibilities. Some missions will have multiple objectives as well as secondary objectives. Unlike in many real-time strategy games, though, the secondary objectives in Codename: Panzers are actually worth pursuing. If you successfully complete a secondary objective, you'll be rewarded with extra prestige points--these are very important because they're used to purchase units for your army in between missions.

Codename: Panzers doesn't bog you down with base-building mechanics. After you purchase units, you deploy your army at the start of the mission. You occasionally have some support abilities, such as recon planes and dive bombers, and once in while you receive some reinforcements--but, otherwise, what you deploy is exactly what you'll have to work with. Since you have limited units, you need to be careful with your battlefield tactics, especially in the latter missions, which will truly test your mettle. To make matters more interesting, your vehicles even have limited ammunition. You can deploy repair and ammunition trucks, although these have a limited supply as well. However, the missions are balanced well so you shouldn't ever be faced with repair or ammunition shortages if you proceed with caution. In general, the way in which Codename: Panzers puts the emphasis on complex unit tactics works extremely well.

Your army will consist of many types of units.

There are three classes of units in your army: infantry, vehicles, and stationary guns. There's a surprising variety of units in these categories, which means you can field an army that suits your style. Infantry includes everything from riflemen to flamethrowers. Vehicles include tanks and half-tracks, and the gun category has antitank, artillery, and antiaircraft guns. Since your army can only have a maximum of 25 units deployed, you're going to want to deploy a diverse force. There are various tactics and combinations you can use, all of which can get the job done if used correctly.

Some units will become useless as you gain prestige, though. Once you have more than enough prestige, you might as well have the better and more expensive tanks than the cheaper and weaker ones. And once you hit your unit limit in the latter missions in a campaign, you will want to pick up self-propelled artillery rather than the stationary artillery. You need infantry to man the stationary guns, and possibly even a truck to tow the guns because they're slow to move across the map--so three units is wasteful when you can have everything in one self-propelled unit. This is unfortunate, because your endgame army is probably going to be very vehicle-centric--however, some of the best experiences that Codename: Panzers has to offer are when you get to employ combined arms from all three categories. It's here when the complexity of the game engine, as well as the visual detail in the game, truly shines.