

This is where all the magic happens, so you are going to be here for a very long time.įor the most part, there are several limitations that prevent you from venturing outside the bounds of historical accuracy. Terrain means everything, so use it to your advantage. In the first part of the Tactical Phase, you will be given an opportunity to deploy your units. Once you move, and your forces move into contention with the opposition, you will begin the Tactical Phase. Do not get surrounded, or you will be cut off. Of course, your ability to repair and reinforce depends on clear lines of access to your platoons. You will be able to see the statistics of each platoon and provide reinforcement and repair them. From here, you will move your forces towards key points and objectives in order to gain Victory Points. The Operation Phase is guided by a 2D map covering large portions of territory, giving you an overall view of your armies and the territory you control.

Once you enter a game, you begin with the first of two phases. Part of me thought that this was a bit of hubris, claiming to be longer to look more challenging.

ACHTUNG PANZER OPERATION STAR PC GAMEPLAY MANUAL
They warn you ahead of time in the player manual that a full turn can actually take around four hours. Even the hover-over descriptions took a while to display their information. I was better suited learning through failure and at least clicking things to see what they would do faster than it could be covered by the pop-up. There is no quick play to hop into, and the tutorial is best described as a slowly-moving slide show of pop-ups. They claim right off of the bat that there is a Quick Start to get you going. This is actually one of the more intensive games I have played in a decade. This alone was enough to secure the feeling of immersion I needed to hang in there through the very long gameplay.Īchtung Panzer: Kharkov 1943 is in no way a game for the light-hearted or casual strategy gamer. What was very cool was their use of radio clips and sound bites from the era. Then they had a very modern and almost electric-sounding transitional music that took me away from the feel and immersion of the game just because it was out of character. You know, that dark Band of Brothers-like sound with heavy, curt brass. You have the traditional dark compositions that I would expect to hear from a WWII war game. There is a weird gathering of sounds and music here. I was glad to see they did not lean towards that direction.

A game that concentrates heavily on strategic elements can get away with not having a huge amount of detail sometimes. Once you are able to see the individual units and the more real time aspect of the game, I was impressed to see the level of detail in each model. I was afraid that I was going to see very little of these models because it takes so long to get into a style of gameplay where you can actually see the individual units and manipulate them across the battlefield. I was visually lured into this game by seeing the models and marketing screenshots of the tanks. Kharkov was in contention many times between Germany and Russia during WWII. Achtung Panzer: Kharkov 1943 is a multiphase strategy game, with elements of both real-time and turn-based movements, about the Russian town of Kharkov. I like to think that I ride the thinnest line between being the player that loves the demands of historical simulation and just wanting something a little more quickly-paced and, let's face it, simpler gameplay. There have been great games based on the largest events of human history that have transcended this pigeon-holed ideology, but mostly it remains a small dedicated gamer that enjoys them to their core. For many, it is this structure of gameplay and demand for patience that drive away the lighter-hearted gamers. Players interested in this genre of games usually have a penchant for strategy and are interested in the historical value that a simulation provides. Historical simulation games have traditionally been a fairly niche market.
