Panzer Tactics DS

December 24,2007 - While many gamers would agree World War II shooters are played out, not many would use that argument with strategy games. Perhaps that was the reasoning behind Atlus Software’s Latest, Panzer Tactics DS. While the multiplayer is busted up to no end, the single player presents somewhat of a twist to go with deep and engaging gameplay.

Panzer Tactics gives you control of the three strongest armies of WWII: the United States, Russia, and Nazi Germany. That’s right, the Nazis (hint: that’s the twist). Did you really expect them to give you control of the French army? Could one actually make a game where you fight as the French and actually win? Probably not. Anyway, making the Nazi element even more interesting is the fact that you start and train as a Nazi. Fighting as the Nazis gives you easier missions, the Soviets provide the medium, and America is considered the hardest difficulty. Each faction lets you reenact different parts of the war and provides for quite a bit of game time. One “great” thing about the Nazis, so to speak, is that the developer doesn’t make you sympathize for them. What they say shows signs of arrogance, symbolizing their evil intents.

While the game isn’t quite the best for newcomers to turn-based strategy games, the gameplay is simple enough to welcome them in regardless. On the touch screen, the map is broken up into hexagons. To move a unit or give another command, simply tap the unit and drag the stylus to the desired destination. You have to tap the “end action” button to confirm, so if you made a mistake all you’ll have to do is tap elsewhere to reset the unit. On the top screen you’ll find lots of information regarding weather, unit strength, terrain details, and so on. You can also bring up the map by double tapping a neutral area and choosing “toggle view.” Tapping a unit will bring up their stats, both friendly and enemy. When your unit is directly next to an enemy’s hexagon (or for larger weaponry and battleships, in close enough range), it will flash red. You can choose to attack or not, but be certain they will attack you when it’s there turn to move about. After you stage an attack, the game will pause any action on your part and play an animated sequence on the top screen. Not much goes on; if you send troops against troops, they will move forward just a bit and there will be sounds of gunfire and one of the soldiers will disappear if you or the enemy loses a unit. If you send planes against planes, they will fly past each other with explosion sounds playing.

There will be plenty of enemy territories to capture or destroy, but they don’t necessarily need to be accomplished. Only the main targets need to be dealt with but dominating elsewhere will give you Fame Points. You can gain more Fame Points for completing missions quickly and losing as little units as possible. In all, there are 10 missions for each army. The first for each won’t take you too long, but as you progress you’ll be matched against enemies for longer times and broader battles.

But that’s where the fun must halt. There’s no mandate saying military games have to have good multiplayer, but it’s a big aspect. Unfortunately Panzer Tactics falls a bit short here. Localized multiplayer can be played through either Hot Seat or DS-to-DS. In Hot Seat, two players must use the same DS. After one player makes their moves, they must then hand off the DS to an unfairly ignorant opponent. You will have no idea of what they just did unless you watch over their shoulder, creeper status. There shouldn’t be any guessing involved with the gameplay. Even worse is the Wi-Fi play. Choosing options works just fine, but you have to hope that somebody else in the world chose the exact same options as you did. Not too many people will be thrilled by being able to say, “Now I play the waiting game,” as they wait quite a while for somebody to join.

Panzer Tactics doesn’t do much to impress in the audio/visual category either. The graphics are bland and there really isn’t too much going on at all for the sound. In between the highly repetitious music, you’ll have an explosion here, some gunfire here. Would have been nice if they at least threw in the sound of death, sadistic as that sounds. At least it would have heightened the excitement.

Overall, Panzer Tactics’ strong single player doesn’t quite outweigh the broken multiplayer and the bland audio/visuals. If you don’t plan to be playing too much multiplayer, then it’s a great game to pick up, even if you’re relatively new to strategy games. But if you’re looking for at least semi-decent multiplayer to go along with good single player, this isn’t quite the game for you.

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