People of a certain age (if you remember DOS, you qualify – ed) have been waiting for a spiritual sequel to Panzer General for a long time. A light historical wargame with simple gameplay stuck to a serious tactical model. Your best bet could be the upcoming Panzer Tactics from Sproing and 10tacle Studios. Nintendo’s DS could be the old wargame platform of the future.
Panzer Tactics will have three historical campaigns, each more difficult than the last. First you take the German Army and beat up on the Poles and French. Then you take the Soviet Army and beat back the Nazi invasion. Finally you lead the Allied forces in the liberation of Europe, from the taking of Italy to the defeat of Hitler. Since this is a DS, don’t expect all the maps to look geographically correct. Still, each campaign keeps the basic terrain in mind, from the frozen rivers of Russia to the limited landing zones of Italy.
Sproing has included a wide range of weaponry and troop types – 150 different units in the final version. Success in one campaign scenario means you can spend “fame points” on upgrades or more starting troops in the next one. Your Wehrmacht grunts can be replaced by Pioneers or Stormtroopers or you can augment your puny air cover with a P-47 or two (planes are very expensive, though.) There’s really no way of telling when a scenario begins what you will need, though, so do some scouting first.
At this point, the sprites can be difficult to distinguish from each other, forcing you to rely on the information screen more than you would like. Is that a fighter or a dive bomber? Tank or mobile artillery? Grunt or paratrooper? There are tiny visual cues that clue you in to what you are doing, but it’s too easy to drag your planes into combat, not realizing that what you thought was a nearby artillery piece is actually a flak cannon. Thankfully, you are given the odds of success before most combat, ambushes, support fire and interceptions excepted. So if things look a little wrong before you click the attack button, you can cancel the order and go to plan B.
The preview version had six scenarios, two from each of the campaigns, plus tutorials in the finer points of mid-century warfare. Each scenario provided unique tactical problems based on the limitations of available weaponry or the time limits imposed on completion. The faster you succeed in your primary objectives, the greater the rewards, but it might be worth your time to go for the secondary objectives so you can arrive in Trondheim with a bigger hammer.
Sproing will have multiplayer enabled for the release, with ten maps specifically designed for person-to-person combat. Up to four people can engage in warfare, including a hotseat mode for you and your DS-less friends. For those of you interested in that sort of thing, online rankings will compare you against the best Panzer Tactics generals in the world. Someone somewhere will conquer Poland in five turns, soon you can find them.
The game is right around the corner—Panzer Tactics invades homes on October 30.
