Blitzkrieg
Developer: Nival Interactive; Publisher: CDV
Preview by Gunner (6 January 2003)
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YET ANOTHER WW2 RTS game? Seems we have seen a lot of these recently and largely they have been pretty disappointing. It was therefore with some scepticism we began investigating Blitzkrieg the current development project of Nival Interactive (makers of Mage Lords and Etherlords). By all accounts from our first look this new game appears to be a WW2 based RTS that is both innovative and uncompromising in how it will handle the period.
They have set themselves a lofty goal of producing a game that is "..realistic and absolutely historically accurate ". Despite this marketing hype it looks if this firm of Russian developers are developing something special. Check out their advertised feature list: -
- Historically accurate battles of World War II in Africa, Siberia and Europe under environmental conditions such as heat, cold, rain and mist
- 3 campaigns with 21 missions
- 3D landscape
- Large operations involving hundreds of Russian and German as well as allied units
- 3D vehicles with realistic armour rating
- More than 150 types of vehicles and machinery
- More than 40 kinds of infantry on every side
- More than 250 types of buildings and objects
- You can choose to play on any side
- Units move realistically
- Extremely huge units such as trains and coastal artillery
- All landscape units are destructible
- Numerous videos from Word War II provide a unique atmosphere
- Multiplayer game via LAN or the Internet
- Random map generator
- Skirmish mode
- Automatic supplies
- Enemy equipment can be conquered and immediately used
- The ability to build bridges, dig trenches, drive jeeps, lay mines, call for air support (fighter, bomber, air scout, paratrooper) - anything goes
- Generate your own missions, maps, textures as well as models and add sounds
A review of this list and a look at the screenshots show how eerily similar this game looks to Sudden Strike (from CDV, who are also publishing Blitzkrieg). The recent Sudden Strike 2 proved to be disappointing for many in the WW2 RTS community with the game play especially drifting away from it's historical routes. Blitzkrieg however looks like it's taken some of the best features of Sudden Strike put them into a 3D environment and added a few more twists. Particularly interesting is the proposed campaign system where there is an overriding mission goal that you can opt to tackle head on or you can undertake sub missions that will get you more or better units prior to undertaking the main mission. Through this method the hardened RTS player can wade in against impossible odds where the relative newbie can spend the time and gather an overwhelming army to complete the mission.
Nival have obviously been viewing the various WW2 game forums around as a couple of the features they have included are the ability to dig trenches and make the more rarer vehicles of the war just that rare! It has always bothered war gamers in some games how SturmTigers seemed more in abundance than Panzer IV's.
By all accounts this will be the WW2 RTS to watch out for in the New Year. Stay tuned for more.
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Check out the Official Site.
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