Panzer General III: Scorched Earth Preview

Gregoriev Yalutorovsk, a three-star tank leader, is on the move. He has tank elements moving steadily south toward Zhadanikha. There are Germans about, but so far nothing. Overhead, contrasted by the cloudy sky on this November 26, 1944 day, a P-47D, La-7 and a YaK-7B are providing aerial support for the mission.

It is dubbed Cherez Duklinskiy Pereval Nosti, the Russian Red Army advancing through Poland in support of Slovak partisans. World War II is the event; Europe is the theatre of operations.

Panzer General III Scorched Earth is the latest offering from SSI, a division of Mattel Interactive. The turn-based war game is a solid mixture of historical data, and nice graphical elements.

Make no mistake, the graphics are a mixed bag in this game. First, think about those movies where you see historical battlefields set up with little model units. The game players re-enact those historical battles by moving the different game pieces on that three-dimensionally rendered map.

This program features a two-dimensional game board that faithfully recreates the elements of Europe at the time of the Second World War. But the terrain is flat, and does not seem to impede the progress of the units. All movement is based on hexagonal elements on the game board, which illuminate to show the extent of the movement. As units move across the board, enemy units are revealed in adjacent “squares.” If you engage an enemy unit, they will be allowed to return fire.

You will see machine gun fire dancing off armored units. Enough damage will cause them to smoke, burst into flames and then blow up. The leader of that particular unit, rather than being listed as dead, is often just identified as missing in action.

Each unit is a three-dimensional animated piece. The planes will dive down, bank and attack units on the ground. Anti-aircraft units will move in trucks, set-up and attack.

There are a total of 20 scenarios that can be played. There is also the Guderian Campaign, which is comprised of 16 scenarios in Poland and the USSR. The Battle Generator will allow you to create your own game with more than 62 maps available for your scenarios.

The program does not offer much in the way of system options, but then there are not a lot of ways to tweak the program. It is very straightforward – not only in the options, but also in the way the game is played. It is very easy to learn the controls, and even easier to lose because you don’t think through the scenarios, but rather rush headlong into the guns and cannons of the enemy.

As mentioned, this is a turn-based game. And most of the scenarios, while not imposing a time limit, do have a turn limit on the actions. In the Cherez Duklinskiy Pereval Nosti scenario, you have 10 turns in which to capture the towns of Rucava, Zhdanikha and Pereyaslav.

Panzer General III Scorched Earth is a slice of history. You can play as either the Nazis or the Russians, but what you will gain is a sense of the strategy behind some of the fierce battles on the Eastern front of the war. This is a product that challenges the cerebral, not the reflexive abilities of the gamer. It is an animated chess match.

For gamers who enjoy mental challenges and history, this is another in a long line of solid SSI products.

This product does support multiplayer gaming either over a LAN or TCP/IP.

Install: Easy. This program only asks for 350 megs of hard drive space. Though the installation process is, in itself, uneventful, it does go smoothly.

Gameplay: 8. This is turn-based gaming, with the map revealing itself slowly as you progress across the terrain.

Graphics: 7.5. This program features a mix of nice animation and a flat game board. Pieces are three-dimensional, but the game board is two-dimensional with flat terrain that doesn’t seem to impede the progress of the game pieces.

Sound: 7. Nothing spectacular, but nicely rendered.

Difficulty: 8.5. The program does not place a time limit on moves and you can undo a turn with a click on the player interface. You have the luxury of thinking out your moves, and planning your strategy. The only urgency is the number of turns handicapping some scenarios.

Concept: 8. Solid World War II historical perspective makes this a nice war game.

Overall: 7.5. This program plays well, has the rich history associated with many SSI games, and though the graphical elements have some good and bad points, is nice to look at.