I am a huge R.T.S. guy. This game has got to take the cake as far as realism goes. As a matter of fact, I only found one thing about it I didn’t like, but as I played it, I realized it wouldn’t be as real if that problem was addressed.

Ok, the graphics are about the best you can go if you want total realism. On TV when they show the cop chases with the helicopter view, if you made the helicopter a little higher up in the sky, it would look no different. The explosions are just about the coolest thing I have ever seen. As far as I can tell, they don’t use the same explosion for everything like almost all R.T.S.’. The explosions are distinguishable among the different units. What I like about that is that when the enemy is bombing the hell out of you with howitzers, you can tell it is howitzer’s, and not guys hiding in the bushes with grenades.

Oh yes… the units. The box says there are over one hundred unique units. I would say that is probably accurate… no ****. Whether is be the three or four different artillery guns, which includes the two anti-aircraft guns(which work just like regular field guns, except they can nail the drop ships flying over dumping enemy reinforcements behind your lines and capping the guys manning your guns). Not to mention the different types of long-range artillery guns. There is nothing I love better than sending a scout jeep, waiting for it to get attacked, bringing it back to get repaired, and shelling the hell out of the spot where he got attacked. Then sending the same scout the same spot, and seeing nothing but blast marks, bodies, and destroyed machinery. Ahhhh. The Russians have an interesting vehicle at their command, a type of mobile missile launcher, I don’t know the name of it exactly, but that is also a great long range capable weapon. The great thing about it is that it fires about six rockets at the area obliterating everything around that spot. Just imagine the look on my face when they gave me four of them on one mission. Heh…heh..heh….heh. Make sure you have plenty of supply trucks though or you’ll find yourself sending them into combat as target practice. Don’t forget about infantry. Riflemen, sub-machine gunners, heavy machine gunners, snipers, officers, mortar men, tank hunters(bazooka guys…heh heh), swordsmen(yes, the Japanese have swordsmen), engineers, and tank crew are all at your disposal, and I haven’t even gotten through the first campaign yet. Did I mention the riflemen can lay mines, and sweep for them too? Or that they can launch grenades at tanks, when all of yours are smoldering piles of ash?

The other thing I absolutely love about this game is the realism it offers. I have already talked about the explosions, which kick ass, but they leave blast marks throughout the mission. The scene of the battle after the actual battle, is stunning. The burning tank remains(with and without fire), dead bodies(with and without blood), and blast marks(with and without broken armor around it) are left on the battlefield until the mission is over. Except for the tanks, after so many minutes, they disappear and leave this nasty, oh my god that must have hurt type of blast mark on the ground. You can destroy trees, bushes, fences, houses, barns, farms, animals, civilians, bridges(which you can repair if you get the enemy to stop shelling your supply trucks), towers, bunkers, tank obstacles, infantry obstacles, and railroads. There are probably more, but I haven’t gotten that curious yet to actually try and blow the other stuff up…okay I have, but I have leave something for you people at home to find out for yourself.

Another thing I admire about SS, is the real damage it takes to kill a unit. I am not talking about real-time, I mean real damage. Most R.T.S.’ give your units little health bars that slowly wind down as the units take damage. While Sudden Strike does have health gauges, they are pretty useless, except for tanks which you can repair. Now you can heal infantry, but the only time you need to worry about them is if it is in the red, but when in gets in the red their health dwindles down by itself. Plus your hospital truck takes forever to get to them so death is inevitable. Nine times out of ten they won’t get in the red, because if an infantry man takes a hit, he will die. There is no twenty percent damage hits like other games of the genre, if they get hit, they will die. Naturally, a tank need a grenade or another tank shell to take it out, seeing how bullets can’t kill them, but you get what I am talking about.

What I was saying earlier about the things I didn’t like about the game, but later appreciated was that you can’t make a building and pump units out of it, and sometimes your units don’t do what you asked them to. I mean, those things are great, but in a real war you can’t build a barracks and dish out guys. And the units don’t follow your orders because sometimes they are unable to, or are just dumb. And that is the truth.