As I said I was hoping to try some games I’ve bought throughout various sales on steam and other places. This game is one of the games I haven’t really had time to play.
Wargame: European Escalation is set in the 1970s, based ina “what if” scenario where war breaks out in Europe. I’ve only played a few missions so far but I feels I know enough about the game to at least give a first impression.
I’ve been looking at this game for quite some time, since I’m a fan of “authentic” RTS games. I play “Men of war” from time to time, and love the total war series.
Game play
I’ve only played single player so far so I can’t talk about multi player at all, but I can imagine it can be quite a mess if you’re not used to it. The game is kind of slow paced, but it focuses a lot of on strategy with an emphasis on recon. Scouting an enemy is important in any RTS but in this game you’ll have to do it right from the start. Many of your units are pretty much helpless without a recon unit spotting for them. I realized this quickly on the second mission when my entire farce was wiped out by artillery. You’ll get hints as new concepts are introduced but I still think the game has a pretty steep learning curved compared to some other RTS games. At the start, you’ll just have a few unit types available to you but as you progress, more units are made available. The missions so far are pretty much capture and hold different sectors of the map, while keeping your units supplied and repaired. Some sectors are also reinforcement zones, giving you the ability to bring reinforcements to the map. Reinforcements costs money that you make by holding sectors.. Well, you get the idea. For each mission you get “command stars” that you can use to unlock new units and equipment. Depending on how well you do on a mission (how many objectives you complete) you’ll get extra command stars. Losses also carry over from one mission to another, experience and losses also carry over from one mission to the next, so you want to keep your experienced units alive.
Even though the game, overall moves on at a fairly relaxed pace, it can be pretty intense at times, and you can quickly loose a lot of units if you don’t pay attention.
Graphics
Except for some glitches I think the graphics are really nice for a game like this. Iyou can zone in to get a close up of one of your units, or view the entire map from a satelite perspective.
Audio
The audio is the most disappointing part in this game. I think some of the weapons sounds are terrible while most are decent. The music is ok, but nothing amasing.
Interface
The interface seem to be pretty good, you get things explained early on, as you need them. There’s a lot of information available . There are some things I’m missing, for example, I haven’t found a hotkey to jump to the last warning when a unit is under attack.
Conclusion
If you like games like Men of war, you may like this, even though the games are quite different. I haven’t played R.U.S.E but this is from the same developer and the games seem pretty similar. Overall it’s a good modern combat RTS.
