Hearts of Iron II

"World domination!"

GAMEPLAY: 9/10

What to say. It's fun. Although the game may overwhelm you at first, you can easily get the hang of it after a few hours of sweet gameplay. And for those who need it, there are little tutorials which take you through the basics of the game.

Next up is the country of your choice. Which country will it be? You have about 150 countries to choose from. So, it's your pick. You can even choose another country you just created. Just save the game and quit. Load up the game and select the country you want. This includes your enemies.

There are different scenarios to choose from. They will all offer you a different setting in time and place. Depending on the scenario, you may or may not use a certain country.

Basically all you see is 2D map of the entire world. On this map you see the countries and their colonies as they were in real life back then. (The size, controlled area's,... depends on the year in which you begin.) Every country consists of several provinces which offer you a certain amount of resources such as electricity, oil, manpower, industry,... The only thing that moves are the small animated icons that represent your military units.

Besides the map, you have different menus. There is a menu for technology in which you can develop new technologies. Another menu allows you to produce military units. There is a diplomacy menu which allows you to pursue a country to join your alliance, or you can simply try and coup it. There is a menu that gives you an overview of certain statistics, and a menu in which you can view your progress.

Battle, the essence of the game, is quite interesting. You only get to see animated icons (much like animated GIF files). You can select the armies and give them certain commands such as attack, defend,... But, just normal infantry troops is not enough. You will need to make good use of normal soldiers, paratroops, marines, bomber, fighter planes, tanks,... Pretty much everything you need. This game needs strategy. Example: you won't be able to take a province which has several forts with just plain old artillery. No sir, you need to bomb the place and reduce the organisation, then you send in your paratroopers after which your can send in the rest.
Don't want to bother with that? Fine. Simply nuke the place. That is if you have developed a nuke.

Lost a battle? Want to get rid of a General. It's possible. You want to promote someone? It's possible. You want to get rid of a minister. Yup, again, it's possible.

There is a lot more to the gameplay, but you get the picture.

SOUND: 8/10

There is no real ambient like in other games. Instead, there is a constant theme song playing on the background. I think there are about 6 different songs or so. But they all set the mood.

Other than the music, there are small sounds like the sound of gunfire. These sounds can be heard when you study combats from up close.

Although the music and sounds are great, you will easily get bored with them after a few hours.

GRAPHICS: ?/10

Well err. What to say? It's just a plain old simple 2D map with some menus. But, the graphics aren't bad.

DIFFICULTY: 10/10

There's something for all of us. Yup, that's right. You don't need to be a real General to play this game. The option to choose your difficulty is a bliss the ones who were not blessed with the military insight of a General.

STORY: ?/10

No real story here actually. THe game just tries to follow up some historical events whenever possible. But you are given the choice to follow the events or not.

REPLAYABILITY: 10/10

With several scenarios, and more coming with each new patch, and the ability to play with any of the 150 countries, the replay is nearly endless.

MULTIPLAYER: 8/10

The addition of mutliplayer is great. You can play with several people at once. The only downside of this is that you can only play by entering an ip. So, there are no rooms to join. A neat thing about the multiplayer is that you can actually save the game. Do you want to get a head start of your opponent's, or you want to know where his units are? Then simply load up the saved multiplayer file in the singleplayer mode.

SCORE: 9/10

A very fun and challenging game. I suggest you buy this game and I order you to love it. Besides, who doesn't like taking over the world.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/01/05