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Author: scharfschutze

Type: PC Game

Released: 2003

Designer: Nival Interactive

Publisher: CDV Entertainment AG

Genre: Real-time strategy/tactics

December, 1944. The snow falls thick and heavy around your little patch of Belgian soil, grounding air support and limiting visibility to a minimum. It's perfect weather for an ambush. Your infantry are hiding in their slit trenches, while two 76-mm anti-tank guns sit on a little ridge, poised for a knockout. As if on queue, the first German tank, a Panzer IV, trundles into view with infantry close behind. One 76 nails him straight on, blowing the turret into the air. The infantry, trying to figure out who knocked out their tank, are cut down in swaths by your men in the trenches. But the next wave is more problematic - three Panthers and a King Tiger, all of which are immune to a frontal attack from your guns. Right on schedule, the two Calliope rocket launchers you positioned to the rear zero in and open up, spewing a total of 120 4.5-in rockets on the hapless German tanks. As the dust settles, you can make out even more German tanks approaching. You have only one choice: commit your armour reserves. It's going to be a very long day.

Like the name implies, Blitzkrieg is set in the ever-popular Second World War period. Designed by the Russian company Nival Interactive, this game lets you assume command of a single company of tanks and artillery from one of three nations - Germany, the USSR, or the Western Allies (Britain, France, and the US) - and lead them through the entire Second World War. Depending on the campaign you've chosen, you can begin your career on the plains of Poland, in the fjords of Norway, or deep in the Finnish winter; if you survive, you can lead your men across the deserts of North Africa, the fields of Belgium and France, or the vast plains of Russia, all the way to the final conflicts - the Battle of the Bulge and the fall of Berlin.

Numerous game elements distinguish Blitzkrieg from any other tactical game, including the very similar Sudden Strike series. For starters, personnel management takes TOP priority. If you keep your "core" units - that is, units that are under your direct command and remain with you throughout the campaign - alive and well, they will gain experience and become even better at their chosen occupations, either armoured or artillery. That isn't to say that infantry aren't part of Blitzkrieg; they are a vital component of the game (if a little short-changed compared to other games), but they aren't "your" men. You command them, of course, but they don't stay with you or gain experience. You can also upgrade your core units to bigger and/or better weapons. For example, the German campaign starts you with two Panzer II light tanks, a PSW 222 armoured car, and three 105-mm light howitzers; I ended my first campaign with two Panthers, a King Tiger, a Brummbar assault gun, a Hetzer tank destroyer, an Elefant "super-tank", three 150-mm howitzers, a 210-mm rocket launcher, a 170-mm heavy howitzer, and a Wirbelwind anti-aircraft tank.

That leads me to the second concept of this game, that of rank. You start the game as a Major in command of three artillery and three armoured units. Each subsequent rank gives you three extra units (either armoured or artillery), and the highest rank I achieved was Colonel, two ranks higher than Major. At the end of each mission, you are graded on several categories; to gain rank, you must perform well in both the scripted "story" missions and in the randomly generated sub-missions. Each "chapter" - the Battle of France, Operation Barbarossa, etc. - has one "story" mission that must be completed to progress further. In addition, each chapter has three mission "types" that can occur repeatedly and on randomly-generated maps. Completing as many sub-missions as possible has many advantages. You gain rank quicker (in fact, there's really no way to get promoted more than once without doing multiple sub-missions), but you also earn experimental units that, although they may become generally available later in the campaign, can often give you a decisive edge NOW. Of course, the sub-missions do get a little repetitive if you play too many of them, but that's the price you pay for variety.

Each mission goes far beyond the basic "move here, blow this up, shoot this, etc." formula. Firstly, you have access to air support in almost every mission. Air support takes five forms: reconnaissance, fighters, bombers, ground attack planes, and paratrooper transports. Recon aircraft reveal areas of the map along their orbit, allowing you to zero artillery fire in on enemy units; bombers drop long strips of high explosive, devastating everything in its path; ground attack aircraft both machine-gun and dive-bomb enemy units on an individual level; and paratrooper transports drop anywhere from one to three squads of paratroopers onto a target zone. Fighters can engage any other aircraft (including fighters) and shoot them down, allowing you to fight without being constantly strafed and bombed to pieces. Anti-aircraft guns also allow you to ward off enemy aircraft, and takes two forms: light AA guns are automatic weapons capable of destroying low-level aircraft (attack aircraft when dive-bombing or reconnaissance aircraft); heavy AA guns are large, shell-firing weapons that can hit any aircraft, but only fire one shot at a time. Once you move deeper into a campaign, you'll also have access to self-propelled anti-aircraft guns; although these things have to stop to engage aircraft, they are far more able to keep up with your tanks and cover an advance. Heavy AA guns also make great tank-busters; light AA guns and SP AA guns both rip through infantry like a hot knife through butter.

Secondly, your engineering trucks can build barbed wire, trenches, anti-tank obstacles and minefields in real-time, allowing you to, given enough time and engineering trucks, fortify a region beyond belief. Even without engineering trucks, you can fortify a region by garrisoning your infantry inside the buildings scattered across the level, and both tanks and artillery can assume a "hull-down" posture that makes them much harder to hit. To top it off, your infantry can assume several postures while on the move (crawling, rushing without taking cover, marching to move faster when not under fire), and all units can be ordered to "ambush"; when under this order, your units will not fire until they are detected, often allowing them to get the first shot off in an engagement.

Finally, the game takes into account the constant need to balance the demands of multiple units on your supply chain. Tanks, after all, have only a finite number of shells, and artillery can eat through their supply in a single heavy barrage. It is the job of your supply trucks to keep these weapons fully loaded, and it is the job of your engineering trucks to make running repairs on vehicles that have taken damage in combat. Also, supply trucks can fully crew any artillery weapon - including enemy weapons - and provide reinforcements to squads who have been decimated in combat. A player who neglects these capabilities will find his or her forces pared to the bone in no time.

One of Blitzkrieg's best qualities is the mod-ability of the game's engine. Within two weeks of purchasing the game, I was able to download no less than six mods for the game, giving it the capability to portray the Spanish Civil War, the Korean War, and everything in between. The game's setup makes installing these mods relatively foolproof - always a plus when trying to install something. The only way for something related to a mod NOT to work is if it's in the wrong folder. If so, it doesn't crash the game or anything; the mod simply doesn't show up in the "Load Mod" menu.