by Scott - June 21, 2003

Your troops sit in their trenches looking out toward the road ahead. They nervously ready their weapons as AT Tank guns and a few support tanks move up behind them. Suddenly artillery rounds start to pound the position as Stuka dive-bombers come from the sky and start dropping bombs on your position. Then it comes. Tanks, support vehicles, and troops start attacking your position in a frontal assault. They break through your lines, disabling tanks, capturing your AT Tank guns. You organize a retreat from this well-coordinated assault. A classical blitzkrieg. Welcome to CDV's Blitzkrieg, be ready to fight! This is your standard Real-Time Strategy that is much like every other game. You must select your troops, and give them the order to defend, attack, or move their way to win.

Onwards to Battle!

Playing Blitzkrieg is quite involving. Before each theater you are given a briefing, and if you want, you can review your units, which gives a very detailed background. Through the missions you are asked to upgrade your units. This is only done if you are a good commander, as they will not lend expensive equipment if you're only going to return it in pieces.
For the units you will be commanding, where to start? Well lets start with the grunt, the infantry. Generally infantry has been the backbone of every army, and your troops are organized in 'squads'. You don't select a group of soldiers, you select squads and they stick together. This is a great idea as it eases organization. If you want however, you can disband them and control them one on one. You have your usual infantry units, from rifleman, officer, and machine gunner, along with an anti-tank soldier. Unfortunately they don't really work together as a squad, rather they will somewhat seperate and do their own objective of whatever you told them to attempt to do. I say this in the nicest way possible. I sent a squad up to attack a house that had a few enemy units in it. I watched into horror as the squad's officer walked towards the house as if he was trick-or-treating and started shooting his pistol! None of the troops took cover for the advance, but just merely walked into range and just started shooting. Luckily you're given a lot of soldiers.
Next on the list, you have your vehicles. These range from your trusty tanks, to scout cars, to your troop carriers and supplier trucks. There are too many tanks to even cover in this game, but they fall into general catagories of light, medium, and heavy. Your scout cars are just that, infantry support and recon. Your support vehicles, which will build bridges, supply your army with munition, or repair damaged units. Take great care with these trucks as without them, you are seriously disadvantaged.
Then you have your guns. This ranges from mortars to artillery to Anti-Tank and Anti-aircraft. Each of these guns serve their purpose and sometimes other fields of combat. For example, anti-aircraft is excellent against airplanes (sometimes a little too effective) and great against infantry. The tactics you can use with these guns are endless, but there are shortcomings. My only qualms with the guns is that the AT guns do not have their realistic range, and by the time your enemy is in range, you are on the edge of seat screaming at the gun to shoot to protect itself.
Last, the planes. The planes in Blitzkrieg are very well done, and widely ranged. You have your general recon plane, dive bomber, fighter, troop transport, and ground attack. You can't directly control the planes, only giving them their specific mission command. For example, you can only tell a troop plane to drop troopers at X. You cannot give the plane waypoints to move out of the fire of anti-aircraft guns unfortunately.
Sometimes you'll get lucky and the plane will come in from a position that avoids the trouble, but more often than not they don't.
Blitzkrieg accurately gives you the feeling of command, and the frustration. It is quite fun to organize your troops on to truck, hook on the artillery cannon, and move your tanks and support vehicles in a column. However, once the fight has started, it's too easy to lose control of your men. With so many units on screen and so much going on, you must be able to manage your army quickly. In some aspects, the field of combat becomes so big that it becomes more of a hassle to command then having any fun playing this game.
To make this game harder, the weapon ranges are too short. Tanks can generally engage targets far off, but in Blitzkrieg they will move in to dangerous ranges against infantry, giving them a chance to knock a tread off or even destroy your tank.
After playing many of RTS's in my lifetime, this aspect of gameplay put into the WWII theme is very harsh and disappointing.
The AI is a mixed bag as well. Some are so dumb that they will stand there as they are being attacked (both enemy and friendly). On the offensive, the AI is brutal even on the easier settings. Luckily there are quick-save functions just in case you want to better prepare yourself.
Playing the game through the missions seems to be somewhat of a redeemer. You can do side missions that increase the experience of your 'core' units before moving onto the historical mandatory missions. Unforunately the side missions are too easy, as I found out that all I had to do was select my sniper, give him the order to 'sneak' and move him about the map, picking off soldiers, and using his bincoluars to spot the enemy troops and let my artillery rounds pound them. Yes its that simple. My artillery crews were more experienced than my tank crews. And yes, the sniper is that invicible.

Details so nice they hurt

Just one word. Beautiful. Blitzkrieg's graphics are very well done and capture the look of WWII units in war. The vehicles, heavy weapons, and planes are rendered in 3D graphics to give them ultra-realistic look as they fire, take hits, or train their turrent on an enemy position.
Nearly every unit is accurately modelled down to the tread and markings. You'll see bombs fall from the airplanes, engine smokes from the tanks, and the recoil on the guns of artillery and AT guns.
The infantry units are down in sprite form, which keeps the framerate happy as you will have A LOT of troops to manage. The only downside is that they are very small and hard to tell who is what unless you move your mouse over them. Fortunately they are animated quite well as they will march, run, take cover, and die in realistic animation.
The maps are in my opinion some of the best maps in RTS. Every little detail is taken into aspect. There are certain trees for each theater of operations, there are lamposts, water fountains, houses, barns, farms, rolling hills, trickling creeks. And yes, they can all be destroyed (save for the creeks, you'll get nice water effects if a shell lands in them).
This is by far one of the higher points of the game as you will feel yourself getting lost in the art on your screen. And when I say art, I mean explosions, tracers, etc. Yes, explosions are done up pretty nicely and range from mortar, tank round, to outright huge from bombs from bomber planes and artillery rounds. You will most definitely not be let down in this department.

Hear WWII in person

The Germans speak German, sound German, the British speak English and sound British, etc etc etc. The troops acknowledge their orders and shout commands in their native language. This gives the game a realistic feel and pulls you deeper into Blitzkrieg's atmosphere. You'll hear artillery fire their rounds, and their fall, and impact.
Machine guns, rifles, and tank's main guns are all done very well. I suggest turning up your speakers when you play this to get the full benefit of being in a WWII warzone.

But is it fun?

This is a mixed bag but unfortunately it teeters more to the negative side. Blitzkrieg's fun factor comes from its gameplay, which I've mentioned before, isn't all top-notch. Confusing command buttons, AI, and overall hard command control takes the fun out of this game. Getting pounded by artillery because the AI knows you're there without using spotters, or this game's emulation of the invicible sniper gives Blitzkrieg that "looks good, but tastes bad" mentality.

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Playing Blitzkrieg online wasn't that bad. Instead of having a god-like or idiot AI to play against, you are faced with a human opponent. The multiplayer field of Blitzkrieg is enjoyable and saves this game some of my criticism.
The WWII theme also gives it a plus, as it is very fun to see the advancement of weapons from the outbreak of war to the end.

In conclusion

I really wanted to like Blitzkrieg. I really did. But the AI shortcomings and the gameplay just doesn't help. Blitzkrieg would be a great game if you are a die-hard RTS player, or deeply into World War II. However if you are into realism of command and battle, edge away and stick with your Close Combat series or Panzer Generals.