Hello again Panzer Tactics HD! I see you found those missing text sections excellent! Great well you are all set for your mission to bring WWII strategy to the tablet market good luck and Godspeed soldier. If you missed my preview for this game last month then you won’t know what I mean, safe to say that some un-finalised text sections were all that was missing from an otherwise very finished looking beta. Panzer Tactics HD is a WWII turn based strategy game from Sproing Interactive Media, Austria’s largest game design company. It’s a game in the style of panzer commander and its many admirers and while this game can do little to add to this very tight genre format it has still managed to take it in a new direction, to whit? accessibility.
The original game was a 2007 Nintendo ds title so the desire to evangelize for the strategy genre is a family trait as at the time games like “Advance wars” had done well on the DS but the platform did need a decent WWII hex strategy. Similarly this title hopes to win over the tablet crowd and it’s a good plan because much of the criticism faced by its previous outing was based around the game being too busy for the limitations of the Nintendo’s screen size. The step up to a tablet screen is a perfect fit and allowed room to fully update the games graphics and UI.
So what can you expect from Panzer Tactics HD as a game? Well in purely back of the box terms you get. Three exciting single-player campaigns on the sides of the Germany Army, the Soviet Red Army and the Western Allied Forces, more than 30 nerve-wracking missions, including covert operations behind enemy lines, over 150 different units at sea, on land and in the air. Thrilling tactical battles: Turn-based battles with great depth. More than 30 heroic officers that help motivate your units. Use different terrain, weather and the seasons to your advantage. Challenging battles: Each turn must be carefully considered and can be the deciding factor between victory and defeat.
High replay value: Fight exciting battles in scenarios against the AI. More precisely the game sees you starting as the Axis German army as it conquers Europe during the blitzkrieg and then takes you logically on to play the Russians as they defend against the German onslaught on the eastern front or i guess the western front in their case or just “the front.” Then you get to play the Allies as they retook Europe and pushed the Germans back to Berlin. You start by deploying unit to the board and choosing what extra units you want to buy and deploy with the fame you have previously accrued.
Fame is given as a reward continually as you capture objectives in the game and they can be spent continually to add new units or to heal and resupply units that have been damaged in combat. They can also be used to upgrade a unit slightly or to add officers to your forces who add buffs to your usage of certain types of equipment infantry commanders and tank and fighter aces for instance. Terrain and weather conditions are also important with over cast rainy conditions preventing air missions but also causing movement penalties for other troop types. Now the AI in this game is a bit of an old school sergeant major unforgiving and mildly sadistic it will punish you every time if you forget to have your anti air troops on hand and launching a tank or infantry attack without artillery support will also quickly go wrong.
It’s important that you sell your troops lives as expensively as you can because not only will losing too many core troops hamper you down the line but it will also prevent them from gaining experience levels which improve their ability scores slightly. In fact if you lose too many core units you just lose the battle outright. Clearly the graphics and art assets are upgraded from the Nintendo version and they are fairly charming especially the officer portraits.
Graphical candy is pretty unimportant to the genre so you can expect maps and sprites to be attractive but pretty basic because the gameplay is the thing and you don’t want distractions. The music was a properly epic affair with a slight nod to modern film scores but we all know that with hours and hours of gameplay you are going to toggle the music off after 45 minutes. The user interface is geared toward the tablet as is the price point with the game being significantly cheaper to download from iTunes than from steam but then that’s just a general aspect of those markets, still at under £25.00 it’s not an expensive title so PC gamers may well want to check it out.
For a tablet user that has even the slightest interest in strategy Panzer Tactics HD is a must have. Perfect for commuters and night-watchmen a great alternative to taking a book on holiday. Please check out my preview of this game I have tried to avoid covering the same ground. Overall I have spent far too long playing this game, compared to other games I’ve reviewed and had immense fun doing so. : It’s great strategy fun. : It pushes the genre into new territory: On the downside the interface can be initially confusing for PC users so generally a simple respectable strategy title that’s worth buying for PC and a must have for tablets.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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