When first playing MicroProse's new World War II simulation 1944: Across The Rhine, it wasn't exactly clear to me what kind of game was meant to be. It puts the player in the position of a tank soldier participating in the final months of WWII, when the Allies were making their advance across Western Europe towards Germany. There are elements of strategy and arcade action, and there's even a touch of role-playing. I was afraid that this was going to be one of those games that tried to be all things for all people and ends up not excelling in any one area. But after getting deeper into the game, I decided MicroProse was trying to give the player a feel for the entire range of combat, not just a narrow aspect of it. So when there was strategy in the battlefield, the player has to deal with strategy in ATR. And when there was action in the real thing, the player can deal with action. The bulk of the game does seem to lie in the realm of strategy, but what it's striving for is a feel for the entire battle experience. When you see the term simulation used in connection with Across The Rhine, it's not a tank simulation but a WAR simulation.
When playing a game there are various levels of command available to the player. The lowest level is to lead a platoon, which is comprised of several men or units. The next level is command of a company, which is made up of several platoons. The highest level of command puts the player in charge of a battalion, which is made up of all the companies. This sounds like any other strategy sim, right? Well, the trouble with defining and explaining this comes in when you actually start playing the game. On one level the player simply gives orders (in real time) to the platoon or company, depending on the level of command, then the battle proceeds (also in real time) according to those orders.
The other level of play is an arcade style, first-person view from a tank. It's a lot like any other tank sim where the player drives the tank around and fires at the bad guys. It's not very smooth, although the graphics are quite good, but on any level of command the player can simply jump into a tank and start driving around. When I was first playing this I found this to be somewhat of a strange option to have, but overall it adds a small sense of realism to the game. Instead of just having units on a map that move, fire, and get destroyed according to a bunch of preset percentages, being able to actively take part in the battle gives ATR a tiny sense of that human element that is sometimes absent from strategy games.
Being able to drive your own tank comes in handy when you're commanding on a platoon level. Since you can't control any of the other units involved in the game, you're left to mind your own tank, which means the game could get pretty boring if you weren't able to have control over something. The tank can be set on automatic, which means the computer moves your tank with the rest of the company until you decide you want to assume control and do your own thing. At this level of play, you don't have any more playing involvement than Armored Fist. You just drive your tank around shooting at the Germans. Strangely, even though you only have control over your own tank at the platoon level, the game still gives you control over artillery, air strikes and air recon support.
ATR lets the player play as either an American or German soldier in several different modes of play. The player can participate in a single historical battle or take part in the entire campaign from right after the D-Day invasion through crossing the Rhine river into Germany. This is where the small role-playing element comes in. ATR requires you to create a character that can be promoted, injured and killed throughout all these battles. Thankfully, the designers gave the player the option of choosing what rank to start out as, since some players will want to deal only with the strategy part of the game (which gets boring when you only have control over a platoon) and forget about the arcade section. But regardless of what level of command the player has, that character rides in one of the vehicles taking part in the action. If that unit is blown up, there's a good chance that the player will be also. So the player isn't controlling the war as much as he's a character in it. If you drives over a mine and die, the game is over even if you're winning the battle.
The biggest problem with ATR is the time spent loading from the hard drive and CD ROM. During installation the player has the option of putting certain files on the hard drive, but transferring all of the files would take up considerable disk space. I put 47 megabytes worth of files onto my hard disk and the game still took forever to load up any battles, and the campaign scenarios took even longer. Playing the game was fine, but waiting through these often considerable pauses while parts of ATR loaded was incredibly frustrating.
On the other hand, one of the biggest strengths of ATR was the total package MicroProse put together. When you want to indulge in certain what-if scenarios, ATR has an easy-to-use battle builder that the player can use to place units, obstacles and other objects onto a battlefield. In addition, the backgrounds of the title and menus are either full-motion video or photographs from WWII. Also, a full historical documentary on this period of the war is included with the nicely done manual. Both the manual and the historical documentary are informative, but both could stand more illustrations and pictures. But as if anticipating that response, ATR also comes packaged with a CD ROM that runs out of Windows which is also a full documentary, featuring full video using a ton of WWII footage along with complete narration, using a ton of footage from WWII. It is a very professional and entertaining CD, covering the part of the war from D-Day to the invasion of Germany, providing a very useful and informative background to the game.
Across The Rhine might not be to everyone's liking. It's a well-done game (except for those awful load times), but the way in which it was designed might turn some people off. I wasn't too fond of the fact that I was an actual character in the game. I just wanted to run the strategic part of the war, but I know that some people will like the role-playing aspect. I also wanted to forget about actually driving the tank myself - if I wanted to do that I'd go buy a tank simulator - but it does have its purpose in some parts of the game. Again, it's not a bad game, it just wasn't to my taste. It was engaging at times, but for the strategy fan there's not enough strategy. For the action fan, the action could have been better. The type of person this will appeal to is the WWII fan, who wants to know what it was like to fight back then. That person will probably get the most out of this game. But if you're looking for a solid strategy game or a tank sim, get something else.
