Product Reviews

Soldiers: Heroes of World War II is one of those rare games that sit between genres and thus makes it rather hard to give a simple definition. It's part real-time strategy and part tactical-action shooter, with a large element of pseudo-turn-based combat thrown into the mix.

The game lets you play as the main belligerents who fought in the European theatre during WWII - Britain, Germany, Russia and America - and pitches you headlong into a series of fierce battles invariably facing near-impossible odds.

The game kicks off with a series of simple tutorials in boot camp so you can get to grips with the complexities of combat. This is no simple group-and-rush real-time strategy: there's a huge array of weapons and vehicles at your disposal, many of which are unique to a specific nation.

While the developers have to be commended for making the game historically accurate, there's no context-sensitive help. If you don't know what an MP41 is, well, that's tough luck. War buffs might relish the challenge, but most of us will be scratching our heads as we discover the weapon we thought was a fantastic sniper rifle is in fact a Russian anti-tank gun.

This is just the first layer of complexity. On most missions you'll invariably be under-equipped and short of ammunition. Without a handy Guns and Ammo branch of K-Mart nearby, you're going to have to loot dead bodies and ammunition crates. The interface for this is reminiscent of SSI's classic tile-based Soldiers of War, with an RPG-like interface where you fill up with the best weapons you can find, plus ammo, bandages, grenades and the like. While this sounds easy in principle, it can be difficult when a dead enemy has died in undergrowth or next to another interactive object (thankfully, this doesn't happen too often). Spinning the map about for a better look is no big deal if you're away from harm, but when you have most of the Third Reich taking pot-shots at you, you really want to grab the item and run.

You can play the game in one of two ways: a traditional RTS approach, where you select the behaviour of your troops (hold fire, defensive

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fire or fire at will) and just point them where you want them to go; and a more direct method, where you control the individual movements of units using the cursor keys and the direction of weapons via the mouse. In most games, you'll end up using a combination of both. The first setting, while not too taxing, means your boys end up using ammunition like it's going out of fashion. The second is far more preferable, as your own moves will invariably be superior to the AI engine, but trying to micro-manage a platoon of soldiers can be nigh-on impossible.

The whole game environment is fully destructible. Not only can you destroy enemy troops and material, but trees, houses, fences - you name it. The end result of a battle can be quite satisfying in a macabre way, as what was once a sleepy village on the Eastern Front is transformed into a scene from Hell.

Now, we said earlier that the game often has you facing impossible odds. So, as you may already have guessed, most maps are very difficult. This was a deliberate move on the part of the Ukrainian developers: they didn't want a game people could rush through in a few days. Of course, once you discover the method, it becomes blindingly obvious, but there's a large degree of trial and error to overcome some obstacles. On most games this would be infuriating, but in this case it's just compelling. Actually, make that addictive. No matter how many times you die, you just want to give it another go, and that's a rare commodity in a game.

In fact, our only serious gripe is the lack of continuity between each mission. There are no experience points to be gained and you're dished out troops and resources with no possibility for input on your part. There's no customisation and no building your own army. While this is understandable from a game balance perspective, it's still a bit of a missed opportunity.

There's also a conspicuous absence of player-controlled air strikes and artillery. Although it wasn't until the Vietnam War that armies could radio in for aircraft to bomb the living daylights out of enemy forces, there was usually a radio link to some big guns in the rear. Certainly, both the Russians and Germans made full use of massive artillery barrages.

But overall, Heroes of World War II has pushed the envelope of the RTS genre forward by a long way. It has the best graphics we've seen in a WWII strategy game to date, it's historically accurate and, most importantly, it's loads of fun.

Combine all this with the addictive gameplay and you have a real winner. With a little tweaking and the addition of an army-build screen, this could be the best WWII RTS ever; as it stands, it's still a must-buy game.