No one does a PC strategy/war sim like SSI. Sure, there are other companies out there who can make a realistic simulation, but no one puts it all together like the designers at SSI do. When they do a game, like the newly released Steel Panthers, not only is it fun, but it's realistic without becoming overwhelming, and the graphics are gorgeous. I play a fair amount of war sims that have all of the unit attributes down pat and have all of the historical units represented accurately, but they're often none-too-attractive if not downright ugly, usually looking just like a boardgame using cardboard-playing pieces. But SSI has taken a first-rate gaming engine for Steel Panthers and surrounded it by layers and layers of gorgeous SVGA graphics and great sound effects.
Steel Panthers puts the player in command of various battles throughout the whole span of W.W.II on both the European and Pacific fronts. The combat is conducted on a squad level, commanding individual tanks, artillery and units of infantry. It's a hex-based game which is extremely simple to play - one side moves and fires, then the other side moves and fires. It's easy to learn, but don't think that means it's a shallow game. The name Steel Panthers implies that this is based solely on tank warfare, and while tanks are definitely a part, this sim covers virtually every unit that participated in the actual ground battles.
This is basically a move and shoot turn-based game which has an extremely small learning curve. The strength of Steel Panthers lies in the fact that it's possible to start playing a scenario almost immediately upon loading the game, but there's enough depth to keep learning new things every time you play. There's really nothing new about the game's structure. All of the units have values attributed to things like armor strength, movement ability and firepower, and any movement or combat is based on these values. Each scenario lasts a certain number of turns, and points are awarded to each side for accomplishing things like death, destruction and conquest. But the side with the most points is not necessarily considered the winner. If an army wins a scenario by a margin less than 2 to 1, then neither side will be considered the winner. If one army wins by a margin of ten to one then they're considered victors by a decisive margin, and anything in between is just a marginal victory. So not only do you have to win, you have to win big.
As strong as the game play is, the graphics pretty much steal the show. Never have I played a war sim with graphics like these. The terrain is absolutely beautiful and units are very sharp and detailed. Playing in winter scenarios gets tough at times since your range of movement is shown in light-colored hexes and the ground is white, which makes it tough to distinguish. But other than that, these graphics are incredible. When a tank blows up, it sits there and burns, which is a particularly nice effect after you destroy an enemy column. When a building is blown up it burns as well, and when a large battle takes place, the battlefield is left in smoking, potholed ruins. One thing that I didn't particularly care for in the area of graphics was when an airplane flies in for a strike. The screen is centered on the plane as it flies in and out, but instead of scrolling smoothly, it quickly follows the plane as it pops from hex to hex, and it gets downright confusing to watch.
Steel Panthers is a super game, but it isn't without its flaws. Ironically, the biggest flaw in this game isn't even in the game itself. As is the case with so many games, the manual just isn't up to par. It's a good thing Steel Panthers is so intuitive to use, because the manual rates about a zero on the helpfulness scale. It's not organized well at all, there's no index to help find subjects easily, and they had to append a nine-page readme file on the CD to cover all of the stuff that was either wrong or left out. Thankfully this is the worst feature of Steel Panthers.
There are a plenitude of historical scenarios to play, and a campaign mode is included so you can play a series of battles with the same core group of units, but hard-core gamers are going to love the random and custom map generators. When you get tired of playing the same pre-packaged scenarios, the random map generator quickly whips up a map within a set of parameters that the player sets up. And for those who really get into their wargaming, the map editor lets the player create their own map and battles, so the designers have made sure that the player gets the maximum replayability out of this game.
Steel Panthers is one of those war sims that won't appeal just to fans of W.W.II battles, it'll appeal to anyone who likes a good strategy game. The gameplay and the interface are easy as pie, freeing the player to concentrate on winning the battle. It may not be the most sophisticated game on W.W.II ever devised, but who gives a rip? It provides realistic combat, it's very involving, the graphics are stunning and it's just plain fun, fun, fun. I haven't been addicted to a game like this in a long time.
