I'd like to give this game the benefit of the doubt. It definitely puts the Real in RTS. It's large scale battles are a plus. It's very realistic, ground units can't drive 300 miles per hour off-road like in some of the more arcade style RTS games. Naval units are well proportioned and the realism of the battleships devastating artillery fire and planes launching from the aircraft carrier and zooming in off the ocean on bombing raids is majestic. The pace of war seems much more reasonable and the accuracy of units is very real, they actually miss, quite a bit actually. Sounds of artillery exploding all around coming form who knows where is very realistic. The graphics are detailed but static, and your zoomed out too far to appreciate some of them. Men look a little goofy. If I had a manual, possibly unit control could improve, but I found it was hard to advance troops without sending them to their demise, hard to successfully engage enemy. Would benefit greatly from infantry platoon control vs infantry unit control to minimize micro management. Also way point movement, and more coordinated attack, units work together instead of roaming to their death. As units move, they fan out too much to be effective, and invite unwanted enemy fire from units that otherwise could have been avoided. Tanks have a hard time getting from point A to point B. End up getting lost and stopping. The control bar is non descriptive, what buttons do what? What do the four bars above the tanks represent? What weapons are the infantry carrying? Who knows? Again manual, or info when mouse is over buttons. Ultimately the learning curve is slow and battles are drawn out (not necessarily bad). So if your very patient and looking for an intensely large scale, strategic, realistic WWII game and like to measure game time in 1/4's of days instead of minutes or hours, this game could be for you with a little fine tuning on the developer's part. I'll look forward to the release version as the game has potential. I'd say if you don't like turn based strategy games, the pace of this will be too slow.
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