Panzer General

"Turn Based Crap"

-Visuals 1/10-

How many times, will gamers have to be subjected to this kind of visual nightmare? There is nothing, and I do mean nothing, that has any sort of visual quailty in this title, from the beginning screens, right down to the actual game, it's more like looking at a Risk board, than it is a video game. Now, while this might not be too bad, Panzer General takes a step further and makes it a horrid, and most undesired experience for any turn based strategy game player.

Placing you on a flat board, with hexagonal squares, it's your duty to move your army across the boards, and blow up the Allied forces...well, this doesn't sound too either, but when it comes down to what you're looking at, it seems as though you have little chess pieces, and you're just moving them from square to square, and when battles actually do come about, the only way to tell your armies apart is...well...you can't. Just keep blowing things up until one side wins, it's all that you can do.

As for vehicles and armies, there is nothing in terms of detail to look at or to figure out...they all look the same, except for the statistic screens of what you can buy, and have in your army, other than that...well, you're looking at nothing in particular. It would have been nice in the battle scene's if you were able to see things blowing up, but all you really get to see, is bodies fly everywhere and a scorch mark...

-Sound 1/10-

Forget about it. There isn't anything to listen to, but a steady beat and your armies moving across a battlefield. Where you would hope to hear some wartunes, you are greeted with an annoying beat sound, and it doesn't effect the way that you look at the game in any sense of the word. This is disappointing, when you're waiting on the computer to take it's turn, you get nothing but that stupid, steady, mindless, and annoying beat to listen to...

Sound effects come in the way of tanks rolling, and missles being fired...a couple of airplanes here and there, and that about rounds out the sound. This is what makes games like this, a chore to play, as if you wanted to listen to just that, and nothing else...no orders being called out to your armies, who cares if it's the German army or not...

These two things mesh together in a resounding sense of boredom and annoyance, and tne CD player comes on, as the game goes off, and you play something else with some action.

-Control 1/10-

Why bother? You point and choose the squares that you can move to, and then wait for a battle to ensue...there are no in-battle controls to worry yourself with, and once you're in a fight, you aren't leaving until eitehr you or your enemies are dead. Choosing through the menus for new tanks, armies, or reenforcements is too easy, and there are no modification options for the impliments of war that you have at your disposal...

Boring again...give some order menus to the gamer, and there might be some hope for some good control work..but this is just too little, and too simple for anything serious.

-Gameplay 1/10-

Turn-based strategy games are becoming less and less fun as time goes by, and it starts with this game in particular. Giving you several missions to choose from, your goal is to either defend, or overtake an objective, and wipe out whatever is in your path within a certain amount of moves...this can be insanly difficult to pull off, and can make you pull your hair out if you choose the wrong direction to go in from the start.

Also, you're outnumbered from the get go, and you have no real opportunity to gain any sort of ground until you have re-enforcements at your command...but that doesn't come until later on in the campaign, and by that point, what you started with is either wiped out, or scattered to the four winds by the Allied forces, which have a superior set of weapons and soldiers to work with...talk about strange, this is Germany that you're fighting in, and there aren't any German armies around to re-enforce your troops...

There isn't a two player options here...and it's hard to find anything in Panzer General that remotely comes toward replaying the game several times in the span of 20 years. Actually, if you make it through the game once, then you probably won't play it again...and even if you don't make it through, the game's A.I. is so difficult, that you probably won't play it again anyway...

-Overall 1/10-

This game, in the words of fellow reviewer Dy$e, sucks. And it sucks hard. It places you in control of one of the most fearsome armies in human history, only to have you fail miserably at every turn. This doesn't make for any real fun, and there isn't anything to look at to keep you going.

With games such as this, it takes a good combination of bisuals, audio, control, and gameplay to keep you going...well, Panzer General fails in all aspects, where it's needed the most, it's lacking, and where it isn't warrented, such as the super cheap A.I., the game is superior in making sure that it's covered.

This game isn't a good example of what a strategy game is supposed to be...it isn't a weekend rental for anyone with any kind of concept of what a good strategy game is, and it sure as hell isn't a rental. What is it? An awesome skeet shoot disc when you're out of clay pigeons, and one heck of a beer coaster when you're all out of them at a party.

Bottom line? Avoid this game as if your life depends on it.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 04/06/00, Updated 04/06/00