It's the same formula, but the same formula applies. The developers have concocted 25 "new" scenarios. While the start allows us to experience the exotic with the Japanese and the Finns, we quickly find ourselves facing the Wehrmacht.
The designers encountered the same problem as with the major Axis campaigns: the player wins but loses! Thus, by progressing from "triumph" to "triumph," after Minsk, you'll find yourself in Smolensk, then in Moscow (after a short "Murmansk" scenario). The campaign tree is fixed, and perhaps this is where a bit of freshness could be found. Why not end up in front of Warsaw after a triumph at Minsk?
This branching structure offers few strategic choices, only after Kharkov and Berlin. It's all very rigid.
The game system
The system is well-oiled, no signs of aging yet, the graphics still hold up, despite some difficulties in reading the predicted fight figures.
At the standard difficulty level (Colonel), the game proves too easy; the Russian tanks are overpowered and quickly, with an army of KV1s, nothing can resist you.
This brings us to the problem of a simulation that was initially focused on… the Axis. In reality, the discovery of Soviet heavy tanks was a very unpleasant surprise for the Germans; they thought the Pz IV was a heavy tank, whereas for the Russians, it was a medium tank.
The unit modeling meant that Russian tanks were rare but very sturdy, and at the start of the campaign, the challenge for the German player was to manage them by destroying them or ignoring them to focus on capturing objectives.
In Soviet Corps, you mass-produce Russian tanks, and the German hordes crash against them before unleashing the Russian steamroller. It's a shame to lose one of the series' major draws: the ability to model a large number of units.
The artificial intelligence, for its part, shows some weaknesses by not analyzing the overall situation, and the ability to use units out of context (trains, for example) should not be possible. Some evacuation hexes become unplayable; you can cross them but not stop (the unit is removed from the game).
System requirements:
OS: Windows XP +
Processor: Pentium 4 or equivalent
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: 64MB Video Card
Storage: 500 MB available space
- Language: Multi
- Size: 1.37 GB
This article was updated on April 4, 2016
