Reviewed: February 3, 2003
Reviewed by: John Carswell
Publisher
Eidos Interactive
Zuxxez
Developer
In-Images
Released: November 12, 2002
Genre: Strategy
Players: Online
ESRB: Teen
8
8
7
9
8.0
System Requirements
World War II, a perennial favorite among gamers and developers, has found itself staring in yet another game. Eidos Interactive and Zuxxez Entertainment have teamed together to release World War II Panzer Claws, a real time strategy based around historic battles of WWII. Although hardly a new concept, Panzer does enough right to stand out from its horde of competitors.
Panzer Claws features:
- Battle through over 20 historic missions on the battlefields of World War II
- Choose your command over one of three powerful armies - the German Wehrmacht, Soviet Red Army, or the Allied forces
- Infiltrate buildings and commandeer enemy vehicles with your ground troops
- Strategically plan your assault as weather conditions and time-of-day affect landscape appearance
- Create your own theater of war for single player or multiplayer battles with an advanced user-friendly map editor
- Engage others in Internet or LAN multiplayer combat
In campaign mode, you are given to ability to lead Allied, Russian, and German armies through a series of World War II campaigns. Each campaign features unique maps, missions, equipment and an appropriately accented voice to read out your objectives. Since Panzer Claws does not feature base-building out side of the skirmish mode, you'll star each mission with a given number of units and will only receive reinforcements after successfully completing one of your objectives.
Starting out, the immediate thing that grabbed me was that Panzer Claws is not an easy game. Unlike so many Real Time Strategies, Panzer makes sure that your use you full compliment of units to complete a map. Their will be no plowing through enemy territory using only tanks or leveling the battlefield with relentless air strikes. Instead, you'll find each unit has limited capabilities and taking any approach other than carefully scouting the area and matching your offensive force with the enemy's is doomed to fail. Although not quite of the same caliber, there is definitely a Red Alert 2 quality to be found here. As mentioned, you have a set number of units so each one becomes all the more valuable and losing one carelessly makes winning that much more difficult.
One of Panzer's greatest strengths comes from its separation of foot and vehicles units. Oftentimes, unoccupied vehicles will be found in enemy bases and your soldiers can board and control them. Conversely, manned tanks, guns and the like can have their occupants killed by a barrage of gun fire leaving the vehicle or structure free for the taking. Of course, it is rarely so simple as sending droves of foot soldiers out ahead to empty enemy units. Soldiers are great against anti-tank placements but a fixed machine gun will mow them down in a matter of seconds. An armored car can be great against machines guns but anti-tank guns will make short order of them. Tanks can have their occupants sent packing by soldiers but would just as happily roll over them if the tank is not already preoccupied. This helps ensure that you'll use all the units at your disposal wisely rather than performing various blind rushes.
Air raids also add greatly to the mix. Be it reconnaissance, dropping paratroopers, or bombing (shelling also becomes available later in the game), the inclusion of air missions acts as both a great way to clear the path for advancing troops and as a wild card. It is not uncommon to have won a decisive victory over an enemy encampment only to have to scatter your troops due to heavy air raids. In the campaign mode you are provided with a limited number of such strikes while in multiplayer mode you simply have to have to build the appropriate buildings to fund unlimited attacks. To keep balance, there are both fixed-gun and vehicle-based solutions for knocking these planes out of the sky but since they are completely vulnerable to ground attacks, the player would be wise to keep them under heavy guard.
Skirmish / Multiplayer mode is distinctly different from the main game. For one, base-building enters the fray and everything from communication towers to anti-aircraft placements need to be constructed before you can truly conquer the map. To build these structures and fund future production, you'll need to capture mines and factories which will then begin pumping money into your coffers. Overtime, you'll have a sizable base supporting your army and--so long as you play your cards right--the map will be yours.
Since unit production is up to you, you'll be able to raise an army that best fits your playing style and can create endless reinforcements. The result can be large battles of give-and-take that go on indefinitely. To help combat this, recently constructed units must have a path into the map before you can control them. If you manage to capture all of these paths, your opponent will be cut off from their supply of new buildings, tanks, soldiers and so on. Needless to say, a commander without reinforcements is playing on borrowed time.
Somewhat reminiscent of Earth 2150, Panzer Claws pulls off a clean and attractive look that works well with the gameplay and time period. Although individual units are relatively simple, their level of detail is high enough to please the eye from the distances you'll normally view them from. More importantly, the engine allows for a large number of units to be on-screen at once which helps convey a sense near-chaos during larger battles.The environments and structures were all equally as capable. From high resolution textures, plentiful plant life, and decent building models, Panzer Claws' graphics will likely not "wow" you but will never get in the way of the action and are enough to keep any gamer content.
The only real down-points were foot soldiers that looked and moved like fleas and some slow down on my admittedly aging Pentium III and GeForce 2 (although these situations were surprisingly rare).
Nothing particularly spectacular here. Sound effects are naturally very good but the voice acting wanders somewhere between "cliche" and "humorous". The music, while it has its high-points, is for the most part the standard MIDI affair. The audio end of Panzer simply lives happily in the background.
Three campaign modes with multi-tiered missions and unlockable bonus scenarios plus a great skirmish mode should keep any gamer satisfied. Add to this a price tag under $40 and you have a winner.
For a game I knew so little about beforehand, Panzer Claws has become a pleasant surprise. Zuxxez and Eidos has taken a well explored genre and found something fresh and absorbing. With so much to offer and having done it so well, anyone looking for something to tide them over for this year's big RTS releases should at the least do themselves the service of downloading the demo. A great title for at any price.