MAKING HISTORY: The Calm & the Storm Preview

Did you ever wonder what would have happened had the United States never been drawn into WW2 by Japan? Did you ever wonder what would have happened had Germany focused more on their European front lines instead of attempting to overcome Russia? Did you ever wonder how far the Iron curtain could have spread?

Well here is your chance.

Making History, from Muzzylane Software Inc, provides a turn based strategy game with all of the makings to hook avid strategists. The game takes place in the 1940’s during an extremely tense era that was about to have the Second World War. You control one of eight nations and get to decide if you hop into the war for good, or simply hop into the war for yourself.

As the leader of the nation, you are able to choose your allies both from a military standpoint and from an economic one. You are able to set up treaties and trades, strengthen your economic positioning by researching your lands and upgrading them accordingly. You have complete control of what your cities manufacture and how much of it needs to be produced. You are also able to conduct research which can boost your output from factories and other key sources of income.

The economy is not that important if you do not have a military to support your borders. You are able to create army units of land, sea and air by the masses (a specific number per turn) and position them all around your lands. In Making History, you need to be careful where you leave your troops because it could take them a significant amount of turns to get back to the front lines. When in battles, you are able to support the fighting with air support from the sea (if the city is near water) and by air with bombing runs.

The learning curve:

When you first start the game, you are offered a tutorial to learn the basics of how to control your nation… They were not kidding about basics. The tutorial is about 25 minutes long and by the end of it when you begin a campaign with your nation you can become lost. There are so many aspects of the game to learn that the tutorial leaves you a bit on the shaky side to start… For those strategists that would rather learn the game for themselves this is not such a bad thing. For those gamers that just want to go straight into the fight and not worry about things such as research, weapon development, alliances and border protection, they may find themselves being overcome and defeated quickly.

Although Making History isn’t a terribly exciting game visually, mentally you’ll find yourself hooked in waiting to see what nation attacks where in their next turn. You will find countries allying with one another that you never would have thought could happen and you may find yourself in unfamiliar waters with whom to trust.

Making History is a solid strategy that you will either love to play out every scenario (both economically and by military) or play it through and not think much of it. This is where the game divides the true strategists from the fake ones.

So all of you gamers out there who wish to take over the world, do you really think you are ready to maintain order in your nation? This is a good test.