Sudden Strike Series

Sudden Strike


Description


Sudden Strike is a Strategy game, developed by Fireglow and published by Strategy First, which was released in 2001.
Release Date: January 23, 2001

The Ranking
76.22% Overall Rank: 3701
PC Rank: 975
2001 Games Rank: 245
2001 PC Rank: 72

Graphics & Sound: The engine in Sudden Strikeis surprisingly nice. Even though it's a two-dimensional tile-basedengine, it scales beautifully to higher resolutions. The environmentsare generally quite lush and busy, with buildings and trees and all thethings that you'd expect to see in a game set during World War II. Andthe best part? You can blow it all up. Watching entire cities getdecimated as you carpet bomb the enemy (or get carpet bombed yourself)is impressive, and it certainly lends something to the solidarity ofthe game. The sound, on the other hand, is a rather mixed bag. Allof the weapons fire is nice, but the voice acting is frighteninglyspotty -- watch out for changing accents -- and the music, when it'sthere, is rather unimpressive. It's not necessarily annoying, but you certainly won't be impressed by the sounds in Sudden Strike. And a warning -- beware the MTV-style intro movie.

Gameplay: Sudden Striketries to, er, strike a balance between recreating the way battles wentin World War II and actual gameplay. The end result, unfortunately, isbasically a standard real-time strategy game with lots and lots (and lots) of units. While mildly entertaining, it's nothing that hasn't been pretty much done before. In Sudden Strike'scampaign games, you'll find yourself picking one of three sides -- theAllies, the Germans, and the Russians. Each side has different units,of course, although there is certainly quite a bit of duplication oftypes. Prepare to be overwhelmed the first time you herd your troops;the number of different infantry alone is boggling. It's quite cool tobe able to control that many different types of units, and adds to the'historical quality' of the game. Unfortunately, the gameplayitself is strictly real-time strategy fare. Yes, the maps are reallybig. Yes, the units are based on history. But in the end, the game isnothing more than most other RTS games wrapped up in a World War IIshell. Why can I take tanks out with a small group of infantry? That'sa real-time strategy convention, not something that happens in thisworld. Things like this start to pull you out of the experience, as youwatch your battalions get decimated by troops that should haveabsolutely no chance against you. The game isn't helped by a few niggling problems. At its default speed, the game plays very slowly,and even at its maximum speed, the game feels sluggish. This may behistorically accurate, but it makes for some of the world's most boringunit rushes. And since you don't actually produce units in the game --it's strictly strategic warfare, a la Ground Control -- you'llbe doing a lot of rushes. For all of the unit complexity in the game,and all the micromanagement possible, some of the oldest strategiesstill seem to work the best. The game also supportsmultiplayer. You can use raw TCP/IP, or play over Gamespy Arcade (whichis included with the game). There are usually quite a few multiplayergames going on at one time, and jumping into one is usually quitefulfilling. Prepare to get your butt kicked the first few times, though-- those across the Pond have been practicing with this game for awhile, and it shows.

Difficulty: Part of the difficulty of Sudden Strikecomes from the ambiguous mission goals that you're given. It's oftennot entirely clear just what you have to do in a given scenario, whichmakes for some frustrating experiences. Another issue arises with theunit pathfinding algorithm, which will drive you up the wall until youget used to the methods that it uses. In multiplayer, of course, thedifficulty of the game entirely depends on the ability of youropponents.

Game Mechanics: The controls in Sudden Strikeare pretty much the same controls we've been using for ages in realtime strategy games. Left-click to select, right-click to execute anorder. It's nothing you won't pick up almost immediately. The gamemechanics are solidly real-time strategy, often eschewing large amountsof realism to keep the core mechanics simple. While this isunderstandable, it's often difficult to swallow in a game like thisthat is set in a historical timeframe. I completely understand the needto not be perfectly historically accurate, but a somewhat morerealistic portrayal of unit-to-unit combat would be nice. It's not that Sudden Strikeis a bad game -- it's not. There's plenty to do, and the bonus discwith added missions is quite nice. But the game fails to really doanything that we haven't seen somewhere before. The massive numbers ofunits that can be in a battle are nice, but the way that those battlesare executed is strictly standard. If you're hankering for a new RTSwith some World War II trappings, then Sudden Strike may be for you, but the plodding pace and often uninspired gameplay may turn off all but the hardcore.

Sudden Forever

The Ranking

74.33%

Overall Rank: 4312 PC Rank: 1130 2001 Games Rank: 290 2001 PC Rank: 86 Score based on 7 reviews

Description


Sudden Strike Forever is a Strategy game, developed by Fireglow and published by cdv Software, which was released in 2001.

Sudden Strike II



The Ranking

73.05%

Overall Rank: 4756 PC Rank: 1228 2002 Games Rank: 404 2002 PC Rank: 97 Score based on 22 reviews

Description


InSudden Strike II, the world is your battlefield. You are on the frontline--in the center of real-time strategic battles during WWII. As thecommander of German, Russian, British, American, and finally Japanesetroops (which are new to Sudden Strike II), you must fight on water, onland, and in the air to meet your objectives in more than 40 missions.This time, you'll have access to a wider variety of units, includingtanks, jeeps, and motorcycles.

Sudden Strike 3: Arms for Victory


The Ranking

67.89%

Overall Rank: 6383 PC Rank: 1603 2008 Games Rank: 562 2008 PC Rank: 110 Score based on 9 reviews

Description


Thegame focuses on real events of the World War II. There are fourcampaigns; two of them are on the Pacific islands, and two of them inEurope. The player is able to play for the American or Japanese armiesin the Pacific, and for the Allies or Germans in Europe. This is thefirst RTS engine to render accurate vast marine and land battlefields(maps contain more than 150 "virtual" square kilometers). The gameintroduces tight team play between all arms of the fighting forces:Naval battles supported by aviations - There are short- and long-rangebomber, torpedo bombers, attack bombers, fighters, and transports.Groups of ships with carriers are a powerful force capable of not onlyto conduct operations at sea, but also to support the large groundoperations (supported by carrier-based aircrafts and large-caliberon-ship guns). Submarines and aviation hunting enemy's transport shipscaravans - Using different types of submarines in special operations,one can make sudden strikes on transports and battle ships ofopponents; if the strike succeeds, the enemy will lose part of thereinforcement, and will lose opportunity to have significant navy.Radar systems allow players to more successfully defend of air andnaval attacks of opponents.



Sudden Strike 3: Arms for Victory Review




It has some lingering problems, but bigger battles and a more impressive scope make this latest Sudden Strike the best yet.


The Good

• Bombastic battles so big they can leave you shell-shocked
  
• Terrain heights and other features add tactical considerations to battlefields
  
• Great selection of historically accurate vehicles and troops.
  

The Bad

• Huge, chaotic battlefields are in desperate need of a better control system
  
• Terrible pathfinding
  
• Multiplayer modes support only direct IP connections.
  

For a game franchise nudging the two million mark in total sales,Sudden Strike doesn't get a whole lot of respect. But the latestaddition to the family might just turn things around, thanks to newepic-scale battles and an intensity unmatched by its predecessors.Sudden Strike 3: Arms for Victory remains a long way from tacticallyminded World War II real-time strategy perfection, and it needs someserious battlefield refinements before entering the big leagues, butthis is still the best game in the history of the series.
Beach landings are dramatic, intense, and spectacularly chaotic. True to life, sure, but more than a bit frustrating.
Scale is what really differentiates Arms for Victory from the firsttwo games in the series and their expansion packs. Whereas the WWIIbattlefields re-created in the earlier games could be conquered in nomore than a couple of hours, the scenarios here are absolutely massive.You still don't have to worry about any base-building, given thatgameplay is a straight-up tactical blitz of ordering around troops andtanks as well as calling in artillery fire and bombing runs. But eachof the campaign missions and the one-off custom scenarios depicthundreds of square miles of terrain occupied by hundreds if notthousands of troops, tanks, trucks, and artillery, making for lengthy,amazingly intense battles that can take full evenings of play tofinish.Battles now consist of multiple stages that take you from theinitial moments of an assault through numerous objectives, such astaking out German artillery on D-Day, helping the British at Sicily,and helping the Russians steal from German supply depots beforedemolishing a train yard. Terrain features are also realisticallymodeled. Instead of blitzing from one end of a map to the other, younow have to take into account geographical complications. Maps aregorgeous, with intricately modeled trees, muddy turf, murky swamps, andso forth, but the real impact is on tactical considerations. Enemiescan hold the high ground on hills, necessitating a tough decision onwhether to head up with a frontal assault or try to go around them.Artillery buried in a forest can force you to consider an armor attackor one of those precious, limited air strikes (which may not even be asensible option if the enemy still has AA guns in operation). Andswamps can stop an advance dead in its tracks; the muck bogs down tanksand heavy vehicles so much that you have to send troops across theterrain on foot.This is a much more complex, strategically demanding game thanprevious Sudden Strikes. Unlike in earlier games in the series, whichleaned on straightforward tank rushes against insane levels of enemyopposition, here the battlefield seems more level. Whereas before itseemed like the game was cheating by throwing spectacular numbers ofenemies at you, now you seem to have a fair shot of winning againstreasonable numbers of bad guys, at least as long as you think ahead.Long-term planning is a must on every map because you need to take intoaccount troop strength and terrain obstacles before committing anytroops to battle. Otherwise you can easily wind up sacrificing so manytroops while storming beachfront fortifications that later missionobjectives become impossible to pull off. It's the same deal withcalling in artillery and air-strike support. Sure, you can take a"rubble doesn't cause trouble" approach in the beginning and make enemypositions look like the surface of the moon. But this will inevitablyleave you empty-handed later on, when you desperately need a timelybombardment to take a hill or some other heavily defendedfortification.Unfortunately, the control system and basic game engine haven'tkept pace with the expanded scope of the action in Arms for Victory.The minimalistic control scheme just isn't always up to handling troopcomplements this numerous spread across such huge maps. There are noformation commands for troops, no way to order them to hit the dirt, noway to even have them run or walk depending on the circumstances.Likewise, you can't separate them according to classes such as machinegunner, officer, medic, and so forth without individually selectingeach soldier. So even though there is a tremendous range of troop,vehicle, and artillery types in the game, you can't fully takeadvantage of their specialties. All you can do is give general attackcommands such as assault, attack ground, and scatter. Pathfinding ispretty much atrocious, too. Unless you keep units together by holdingdown the Ctrl key when issuing movement orders, troops frequently takethe long way around to objectives and wind up getting ripped to shredsby enemy fire.General lack of cohesion isn't helped much by the many battlesthat begin in the chaos of all-out assaults, such as beach landings. Inthese situations, about all you can do is band-select troops after theyrun off of the landing craft and throw them at dug-in enemy trenchesand pillboxes, hoping for the best. Expect to do a lot ofexperimentation with various approaches before figuring out thesmartest way to approach these maps. Real WWII battles probably reallywere this chaotic, but at times such a sense of realism leads to morefrustration than anything else. Most battles eventually slow down andlet you issue more measured troop orders, refuel vehicles, load upartillery, heal soldiers with medics, and so forth. But even then, itoften seems as if you're stuck with too many troops spread over toolarge an area.
Managing this many troops on such huge battlefields is tough but worthwhile in the end.
Many missions deal with stock WWII battles that you've no doubtfought many, many times before, with only the two Iwo Jima onesoffering a dash of newness. Terrain graphics are generally sharp andattractive, as noted above, but troop animations are choppy andreminiscent of goose-stepping stick figures. Major tearing is alsocommon whenever you scroll the map. Audio effects offer up fantastic,atmospheric battle sounds, although the use of canned unitacknowledgements that have no basis in battlefield reality ruins a lotof this effect. Hearing "It's a trap!" over and over again is awfullyannoying. Finally, multiplayer is supported only via direct IPconnections, so you can't go online and find cannon fodder viamatchmaking servers.Some aspects of Sudden Strike 3: Arms for Victory will no doubtturn players right off. There are some potentially serious issues herewith chaos and controls. But at the same time, you get a good trade-offcourtesy of huge, realistic battlefields that hammer home the epicscale of major WWII engagements in a way that isn't often shown in RTSgames. That's a real plus, and this bonus makes wading through thefrustrating moments worthwhile.

Sudden Strike: Resource War


The Ranking

63.00%

Overall Rank: n/a PC Rank: n/a 2004 Games Rank: n/a 2004 PC Rank: n/a Score based on 1 review

Description


ResourceWar is the third game in the Sudden Strike wargaming series. As thecommander of German, British, or American troops, you must fight onwater, on land, and in the air. Cut the enemy's fuel supply, capturetheir buildings, and gain allies by using a variety of differentcommands. The game features four different difficulty levels andmultiplayer mode. The editor lets you generate your own maps andmissions to keep the action going.

Payah sikit game ni. lain dari game strategi biasa. Banyak sangat micro management. nak attack terus menerus tak boleh. kene tengok supply level. kene agak2 berapa jauh kita boleh mara sebelum kene berenti dan resupply.

wah, lebih kepada real world game nih!

atreyudevil wrote:wah, lebih kepada real world game nih!

Senang cakap 20% tactical, 80% logistic.