Great Game, one of the first war games I played on my Pentium 64 back in the day. It is still fun.
Excellent game in its day. Bought it and later Panzer General 2. Great to be able to play it again. As a review pointed out no counter attack etc. Neither does chess.
People who slag this game off as a poor tactical game didn't do their research. At the time of this game's release there were plenty of grognard level war games put out by SSI and others. The whole point of Panzer General and the (insert adjective here) General series was to create a faster moving war that could bring in new players and a quicker game. This game does exactly what it was designed to do and does it so well that it inspired direct sequels and host of followup games (Fantasy General, Star General, etc) as well.
When you review things without the context, you are doing gamers and the game a disservice. It was designed for a specific purpose and does it well. It's like reviewing a hammer and downgrading it because it's not a screwdriver.
You know, I'll have to disagree with the other review on here. I have always been a huge fan of the Panzer General franchise, and always will be. I like the ability to jump into historical and theoretical scenarios, following the war in Europe from it's beginnings to it's natural conclusion or if you can do better than the ranking Nazi officials, to move on to bigger and better assaults that the powers that be could have only dreamed of. Yes the combat options are limited, but in the games defense the accuracy of the units and the weapons are astounding. Plus, the hex-based turn system is a rather fair way to conduct the battle, at least for the date of the game.
Panzer General Review:
I am a big fan of the Talonsoft game system that is very similar to Panzer General, and it is hard not to make unfair comparisions. The problem I have with this game is that tactics are limited. If you are on the defensive, it is best not to do anything but wait for the attack. If you are on the offensive, its best to pound everything with artillery or bombers before moving in. There is no counter attack, flanking, anything like that. Units on the offensive get pounded to jelly - even tank destroyers vs. anti aircraft guns.
In my opinion, SSI didn't do too well with this game. Talonsoft created a war strategy game system that is brilliant. I'll stick with them.
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