Hearts of Iron 2 Preview

There are a couple of different types of strategy games out there on the market. You of course have your action based RTS style titles, like Warhammer 40,000 which have more of an emphasis on battle and fighting, then you have the more detailed and long games which focus on fighting but a lot of politics as well. Hearts of Iron 2 is a new title in the works by Paradox Entertainment, and it definitely is looking to fit in with the latter of the two mentioned above.

The Hearts of Iron 2 beta that I got to sit down and play had a couple of different scenarios to choose from which took place during World War II. There were offensives in 1936, 1939, 1941, and 1944. Each of them allowed you to select a country to play with, like the U.S. and Britain or Germany or Japan (and will have 70 overall in the completed version), and off you go to a somewhat RISK style map to begin your ultimate conquest during the second World War. So far, the game contains these four grand scenarios and 15 battle scenarios (to play if you’re not wanting the grand scale thing), and there was a lot of research done to provide accurate info and scenarios for units and technology.

The map is divided out into states and countries, each of which containing it’s own information which can be helpful in building strategy. See, Hearts of Iron 2 is not one of those “sit down and play for 30 minutes” strategy titles. It is extremely detailed and there are a ton of options to learn and figure out. While there is fighting involved, as well as victory or defeat, many other areas will have to be monitored along the way as well. On the main map, you will have to track technology (including selecting teams and projects as well as implementation), production (orders, resources, trade, convoys), diplomacy (domestic and foreign, government, dissident and partisans), statistics, and of course all of the elements of war, like whether or not to call in an air strike during a snowstorm which could be a failed attempt. As you can probably see, this probably is not going to be for the casual gamer.

Everything in the game thankfully is presented in a point and click basis, so you don’t have to worry about learning a ton of keyboard commands (although there are hot keys and some to be used in game). Still, the biggest issue with Hearts of Iron as mentioned above is that there is a ton of stuff here that you will have to keep an eye on and learn, and there will probably be attempts made that will end up in disaster simply due to the fact that something didn’t balance out that you did against something else. Still, if you enjoyed the original or are looking for a detailed strategy game to pick up and try out, you may want to keep your eye out for Hearts of Iron 2.