Panzer Tactics: taking us back to the hex based 90's strategy games of yore.

I'm a strategy nut when it comes to my PC gaming. I've played Starcraft, C&C, Red alert series and even tried my hand at a few hex based games on Gametap. I went into Panzer tactics with a keen eye for any similarities between this strategy gem and my first strategy game (which revolved around world war two and all wars up to 1999), Steel Panthers.



To start off, you can choose from the any of the big players in the European theater. Germany, Soviet Union (Russia), Allies. While we don't see Japan anywhere in sight on this game, its not supposed to make an appearance, what with the lack of epic Japanese tank battles in world war two.



The German campaign is the easiest. You fight in all the major battles but also in less well-known battles. For example, when did your history professor ever mention Germany's invasion of Norway? So I was thrilled when the game didn't just go into the traditional Poland-France-Soviet union rout. The game developers definitely give you a history lesson or two with these little known battles.



The Soviet Campaign See's you doing what you did in the German campaign. The battles are bigger though and the odds are less favorable for you at first. Fight your way from the battle of Moscow all the way to the battle of Berlin. Again the attention to detail here was great as you get to command KV1's and Katusha rocket launchers. The whole campaign will have you seeing red and spreading the word about the game to your comrades. If they give you strange then suspect em off to Siberia. Enemies of the people just don't understand the sheer awesomeness of blowing up Hitler’s troops in the dead of winter.



The Allied campaign starts you off in Sicily and guides you through a number of missions such as the landings on pearl harbor. To save space the allied campaign has you taking charge of both American and British forces in missions. It’s the hardest campaign to win yet no less satisfying then the last two.



This game has been compared allot to advanced wars. This isn't a bad thing in the least. If you are a fan of the advanced wars series then you'll be both familiar and impressed by this deeper and more realistic look a like.



There are some things that Advanced Wars and Panzer Tactics have in common. Great battle scenes are one of them. Your top screen shows animated showdowns between tanks, artillery and air battles that have detailed 2D units slugging it out in cinematic showdowns for your viewing pleasure. Advanced wars however had a much more turn based system of combat where one side would fire off there shots and then the other side would return fire after taking the hits you dished out. With Panzer tactics, both sides are shooting at one another at roughly the same time and it feels much more realistic.



Details are another area where Panzer Tactics feels like a genuine real time strategy game, rather then having light, medium, heavy units, you get actual names for each of the units. each side has it own armored car, which looks different for each side and carries its historical name. Rather then have a truck, the Germans for example have Opel trucks with detailed pictures appearing next to the unit stats.


Just like Advanced wars you have to re-supply your troops, everything from fuel to ammunition has to be taken into account. If you run out of fuel or ammo then your units won't move, won't shoot but should make good target practice for your opponents troops. Another example of realism for the game would be capturing airfields and moving basing your aircraft there for quick strikes instead of expending boat loads of fuel on what are the SUV's of the game fuel wise to attack your enemy at the other end of the map.



Terrain like tree's, cliffs and even the roads all have an effect on game play. The most fun I had with the Russian campaign was taking advantage of old man winters mutual dislike of the Germans. Little things like cover and visibility play a big roll in deciding who wins the battles that decide who wins the war in Panzer Tactics.



One thing I found slightly odd was how in each mission you absolutely cannot lose five core starting units or you fail the mission. I can understand the developer wanting us to be cautious and smart with our units but anything you lose you can replace (if you have the fame points!), in much the same way you could buy units in Advanced Wars.



Overall I felt the game was a very big drain on hours to get through the missions let alone all the campaigns. The details and realism are a welcome improvement over the only other major strategy game on the DS, Advanced Wars. The time taken to complete the game and the fact you absolutely must have a stylus to protect your hands from an early onset of arthritis however take away from scoring this game a 100%. I'll settle on a 95% rating.



PRO's: realism, cinematic cut scenes, attention to detail. Hex based game play is familiar territory to strategy fans.



CONS: The game feels long and missions by themselves can go on for almost an hour or so each. Trying to play the game without a stylus genuinely hurts the digits. No real reason to fail a player for losing units they can easily replace.

Worst Parents Ever: Xbox 360 prank on child that has 1337 gamers pissed.

There is something wrong in the world when a family decides to make up for thier lack of material possessions by amusing themselves with the sight of a small boy crying his eye's out.

The little boy in the below video is named jonathan and in the video you can clearly see his excitement as he receives an xbox360....or so he thinks. The kids arms drop when he See's the 360 box and its clear he's overjoyed beyond belief. We've all been there, even if it wasn't a present from another individual. Hell, we've bought our consoles, PCs and even just become giddy as we take home something so small as a new graphics card. For me it was my dad giving me an N64 when I was about 12. For you it might have been a gamecub, xbox or that coveted PlayStation 2, the list is endless with electronic gaming joy.

So knowing the sort of joy and excitement this kid has upon ripping off the wrapping to reveal a 360 touches us all as fellow gamers at a deeply emotional level.

What happens as he opens the box however is sure to cause our emotions to take a 180 on the kids 360 situation. The box is opened to reveal...CLOTHES!

We all hope and some even believe the kid has an unboxed 360 waiting for him and that the tears that stream down his face will be replaced with smile as he forgets a tasteless warm up to the real thing, joke. Sadly Engadget, which first reported this lesson in cruel and sadistic parenting, has uncovered that in fact little jonathan received no xbox360 once so ever.

Gamers and Microsoft itself are coming out against the cruel overweight parents who can afford to stuff themselves, buy a camera to capture this cruel and tasteless prank as well as the computer to upload it to youtube. Everyone it seems would like to make up for the cruel and unfit parenting Jonathan has experienced by getting him a 360 for real. If nothing else moves you to find out more about this issue (and believe me when I say I'll update when I hear more about this), its got to be the sounds of the parents laughing at the poor child who's cheeks are stained with freshly shed tears as the waddle off camera.



Source: Engadget

This Day in L337 Gamer: Red Alert 3 details curteousy of PC gamer

This day in L337 gamer review

Well my copy of PC Gamer finally arrived in the mail. The cover sported the epic news that is Red Alert 3 (we’ve known it would), along with unexpected goodies. Now because I did’t lurk throughout the net and instead left it up to the staff of PC Gamer and thus print media to inform me of Red Alert 3 details (how 20th century of me). Like a child on Christmas day I dug in and was thankful to not find a single “sweater from grandma”, type story in the bunch.

So lets get started, The first bit of news is that the greatest Real Time Strategy question of 2008 (aside from weather or not starcraft II is coming out this holiday?), is, when is Red Alert 3 coming out.

ANSWER: Red Alert 3, the epic third installment in the Red Alert Universe will be hitting store shelves for Christmas this year. Guess the Christmas analogy was spot on.

Ok, so now we know all about when to get the game but why ? Whats the plot ? Why should we care ?

1. The plot will be that the allies pushed back the soviets all the way to Moscow and this epic battle lead to epic changing of time. The Soviets in a desperate move decide to go ahead change the time line to get rid of the allies once and for all. They do this by successfully assassinating Albert Einstein. With the greatest scientific mind the allies have at there disposable gone ( along with it the chronosphere and weather control device!), you’d think the soviet invasion that was the basis of the 90’s hit “Red Alert”, would see a very red conclusion, end of story. Or is it?





The Allies and Soviet remain but a new faction arises. That of the Rising Sun. So now three uber powerful faction jostle for world domination.

2. When it comes to Real Time Strategy, Westwood brought us cammand and conquer. Nod and GDI and in doing so jump started my transition into a real time strategy fanatic with command and conquer N64. The new direction Westwood (now owned by EA), took with Red Alert gave us the ability to play war in a more believable world with characters we could understand (Cold war had only been over for a few year when the game was released in 1996), The Soviet’s and the Allies, East vs West made a hell of a lot more sense then sci-fi C&C’s story of tiberium and global military forces fighting a third world army of religious zealots. The cinematic in Red Alert, then Red Alert 2 made us sqeal with delight. Watching Kukov botch an operation and then get dealt with by the man of Steel himself was what made you really feel you were playing a high stakes game with movie like qualities usually reserved for blockbuster hits of old. The Sci-fi aspect of the game, time travel gave us an example of what could happen if you changed events or people (Killing Hitler wouldn’t be all that small but compared to homer’s achievements when he attempted time travel, I could live without mr.mustach around). What really made the game cool though were the use of awesome weapons and tactics like tesla coils, soviet submarines, transporting tanks and apc’s inside th enemy’s base with the chronosphere and of course watching Tanya take down waves of Reds as she lead the fight for the allies. Red Alert and its sequal Red Alert 2 as well as expansion pack, Yuri’s Revenge, gave us a believable story we could enjoy, awesome and unique units (who else has towers that electrocute man and machine as they dare encroach upon your base ? Nobody, that’s who). You should care about Red Alert 3 because it promises to be an epic leap in a storyline that just keep giving with more and more units you never knew you needed in a strategy game but somehow always wanted.
















My personal take on all this: I’m curious as to how they are going to work in Yuri and how Romanov fits in with all this. I mean the allies took Moscow at the end of Red Alert 2 so are they working off a possible outcome in the Yuri’s revenge storyline or has the images of the fomer soviet primer begging for revenge in a prison cell been wiped away like so many of stalins victims. Seriously EA, please clarify how the plotlines match up. When EA claims Yuri is just a brain in a jar lurking around somewhere, that causes me to wonder just what is going on exactly…since you only knew about that if you played and won the soviet campaign in Red Alert 2. I digress.




The new side in all this hubbub is the riseing sun ? Seriously ? I mean I know Red alert was originally just going to be a WW2 version of C&C but damn. Why not have China or some freakishly early brotherhood of Nod (like what was alluded to at the end of the soviet campaign in Red Alert 1!!!). More Question here then answers I’m afraid.

While I suppose Japan could make sense since it was largely independent of the events caused by either Hitler or any of the achievemtns of Einstein…you could say they should’ve received mention earlier.

From what the magazine would enlighten me to (rest assured I’ll be RSSing EA’s site for info on Red Alert 3’s new units.), some of the units will be the following:

ALLIES:

Assualt Destroyer – basically if you’ve played the cybran campaign in supreme commander then the idea of ships sprouting legs and taking the fight out of the water and onto land should be familiar terrirtory. If not, then prepare yourself for one of the greatest surprises in Real Time Strategy unit use. The high sea’s will never be the same.

Mirage Tank – “That’s no moon” to quote obiwan Kenobi. Replace moon with tree or rock and you’ve got a good idea of what this classic Red Alert 2 unit can do. It looks more impressive then its Red Alert 2 debue but the death star like power shooting out of what would appear to be tree’s will have conscripts running for the hills. If they aren’t also mirage tanks.

Cyro Copter- If you ever watched the batman movies (no not the recent one’s with hallucinating gotham residents and men dressed as scare crows!). Then you’ve probably wondered what it would be like to take some of Mr.Freez’s nifty weapons and freeze someone. Weather it be the large friend who can’t wait for a certain game system to come out or your boss that made you work late. Well then throw in a helicopter into your little fantasy and you get the Cyro Copter. Freez enemy units in blocks of ice, leaving them stare in motionless fear as you launch missiles and Grizzly rounds there way.

SOVIETS:

Before going into specifics about four new/old units of the soviet faction, its important to realize one mans forsight. Indeed Colbert, the greatest threat to America is bears, Soviet armored Bears. I repeat, Armored Beares ! (it was either husky or bear, bear won).


Bullfrog transport- replacing the dull looking naval transport in Red Alert 2 with a ship that fires men out of a cannon (a tip of the hat to the brave circus folk if I ever saw one), was a stroke of genius. The thing reminds me of the pipes in super Mario…only with gravity reversed. Did I mention the Bullfrog’s painted teeth and eyes look less like something you’d get off a Bullfrog and more like something off an A-10 tank buster (if you sorta look at it from an angle you could mistake it for the hunch back of crocidles).


Stingray- Playing Red Alert you made use of the Tesla coil to defend your base from armor and men alike (bring back the flame towers!). While Red Alerts Expansion “aftermath”, gave us Tesla troops, they really didn’t become a major tool of soviet players until we saw them redesigned in Juggernaught like armor and tesla shooting arm. Red Alert 2 also gave us a refurbed Tesla tank that was so lightly armoered and speedy that you just wanted to attach the name sparky to it. Well Now Red Alert 3 adds the final element (unless you could get Tesla coils airborn…), of the Tesla arsenal with the Stringray, a naval unit armed with tesla coils. It can (like the prism tanks, tesla coils, tesla tanks and prism towers of Red alert 2), be used in large groups to emit one supercharged death ray of doom. Not shark quit sharks with tesla coils on there heads but I think we’ll survive.

Kirov Airship and Apocalypse tank ( the two old faithfuls of the soviet areenal in red alert 2 make a comeback): Not much can be said about them other then that the kirov looks slightly better then its Red Alert 2 persona and the Apoclapse tank’s redesign looks like someone was locked in a room full of C&C3 material.


EMPIRE OF THE RISEING SUN



Well here is where I sadly have no info to give. The two units listed are the Sea Wing and the Tsunami Tank but again no description is given for either. The whole faction is going to have things you’d expect from anything having to deal with japan. Infantry that look like ninjas, a hacker (stereotypes of uber smart asian working IT abound), and an anime (ANIME!!!), style school girl who might according to pc gamer, “wield weather powers”.

My last issues with the game is that it will not use the C&C3 engine but instead opt for the RNA engine, even though we’re only going to get treated to graphics that are slightly more detailed then C&C3 while still having the impression of being a C&C3 look alike graphics wise (at least it isn’t resembling C&C Generals). Playing co-op with friend on Halo 3 is something I do rather often but I’ve never been able to do the same with an RTS, well Red Alert 3 is finally giving us that chance. If you prefer the solitude of playing by yourself you can still call in an AI ally to help you out. This had me thinking of the special generals available in C&C Generals. If all else fails, use the comp for cannon fodder.



SUDDEN STRIKE 3




My last bit of news is in regards to the never-gets-old, series of world war 2 strategy games. As a young boy I played hex based steel panthers III several times over but didn't find a game I could really connect with the realism of an actual war until I picked up sudden strike from the local walmart all those years ago.




To hear that is going to be getting a third installment this march not only surprised me but had me looking for info online. The Game will be getting an overhaul in graphics, nothing major but now we'll see more detail and hopefully quicker load screens (anyone who played Sudden stirke II knows that the load screen took forever).





I'll be downloading the demo of sudden Strike 3 this weekend and giving a full review as well as some background into my sudden strike history. Before logging off I will say that the game promises to be an enthralling experience for any desktop general since it takes away bases, resource managment (lest you lose all your supply trucks to enemy fire), and replaced them with realistic combat, reinoforcements and strategy.







When you can't pump out tanks and troops with unlimited ammo in endless waves, you start to care just a little more about where you put pvt john doe in the field.
Full reviw coming sunday.
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Yet another setback for the console based RTS: World in Conflict delayed till late 2008

In a move that should surprise no one, the hit PC real time strategy title, WOrld in Conflict has been delayed. The surpriseing factor however is that its been delayed by almost a year (originally supposed to launch November of 2007!). Martin Tremblay, president of worldwide studios, Sierra Entertainment, assures us that the "franchise" is being "reinvented" for consoles (Xbox360 & PS3).



Guess I'll have to settle for skirmishes on C&C 3 and Universe at war.

MASS EFFECT: EA's newest Massive franchise

The fear and genuine uproar I (and many an RPG fan), felt when EA gobbled up Bioware now seems to be genuinly justified. EA has in the past serialized many titles to the point where the offshoots that have little to do with the original game end up killing the whole point of the original game and turning it into a lame title that is recycled and produced to line EA's pockets.

Speaking with a group of industry analysts, EA Games President Frank Gibean said the sci-fi soap opera will be a franchise for the company "for a very long time". Somehow I don't think I'm the only one to equate "very long time", with we'll bleed this motherf*ucker dry and then discard it like some over used whore.

I don't wanna be stareing at Mass Effect 5 in a few years and wondering what happened to this prom queen of a title. Then again Mass effect is supposed to be a trilogy (which is just three titles for all you Halo fans expecting the halo trilogy to go beyond 3 and into 4), and maybe EA's recent efforts at redemption will pay off. Though its a rather big maybe.

As long as we don't get another "Sith Lords", because of the EA takeover, I'll be only mildly discontent as opposed to "take-to-the streets", infuriated. That's assuming EA doesn't adhere to its city-state model of managing Bioware.

Read all of Gibeans comments here

Battlefield & Halo veterans form Tyrant Studio's

Often times we get truely creative people taking there success as part of the larger and going off on there own to found something truely great. This trend in the game industry which began back in the 70's and 80's with designers jumping ship from the then dominant atari to found activision, stands in stark contrast to the wave of mergers and aquistitions everyone is saying is the norm.

Designers who worked on the Halo 3 and the less popular FPS favorite Battlefield have formed Tyrant Studio's and say there decision came after having laid some pre-production plans in advance for a game they are now currently developing.

Not straying from there microsoft/Bungie roots, the company has set up shop in Seattle Washington, yet according to there statements they promise something much more then just the geographical advantage of being next to Bungie and microsoft.

"Features an innovative production model with contributing team members from around the world"

A veritable United Nations of cutting edge game design.

The team is being led by executive producer Hardy LeBel, who was previously a design director at Microsoft and a creative director at Zipper Interactive. Lead Designer Anders Hejdenberg, was a lead designer at Digital Illusions C.E.

The founders are joined by five others who have worked on properties such as Spider-man, Midnight club 2 and Viva Pinata: Party animals.

The current website doesn't feature much beyond an image with human siluhets with the word ESP, which may or may not be the name of there current project.

Of course LeBel is pumped up to no end for his newly formed studio, just read the quotes.

"We're excited to announce the formation of Tyrant and share our vision for the future of game development."

"Our first Project is the result of months of production and planning and with our collected experience, we believe we'll change the way games are made."

Red Alert 3!!!

Upon jumping on Joystiq I spotted a story that had me jumping up and down with glee. EA has finally unveiled Red Alert 3. Details are non-existent but you don't really need them when your talking about one of the landmark sci-fi RTS titles of the 90's and early 2000's.

Basically you have to deal with the events of Einstein going back in time and assassinating Hitler, and the two wars this action produced with the soviets. In Yuri's revenge the storyline saw the allies and soviets teaming up, with soviets losing the war but being your ally or vice versa. So how the world of Command and Conquer red alert has found itself once again engulfed in war will be an interesting tale to tell.

If you feel like reading through a brief wiki page to get up to speed on events (as though you hadn't played the first two.), feel free to click on this link

For the rest of us that learn only through visuals, Lets consult the all encompassing Youtube.







My last thoughts regarding these video's is to see what EA does with Westwood's baby. My hope is they don't bastardize the series like they did with C&C3 or attempt to port the thing to consoles (though we know we'd flock to it like sheep and purchase it). If this releases in 2009 alongside Starcraft 2 then 2009 could well be the best year of Real time strategy gaming we've seen up till now.