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The game itself also runs a bit slower of a pace. War is hell…hell that could use a cup of coffee. In this moment, despite clunky console controls, I was reminded why I loved RTS games. My tank now acting as a barrier, I ended up splitting my team into separate groups to flank the enemy while repairing my downed tank. The map had a heavily urban structure with small streets, and I ended up losing one of my tanks in the middle of said street. There was one mission in particular where my typical approach of grabbing all my units and moving them forward didn’t work. I hardly even touched the personal abilities of my units, because it was unnecessary. This ultimately led to what is my single biggest complaint for the vast majority of Sudden Strike 4, there wasn’t a single mission that I couldn’t beat by simply gathering my army in place, and then sweeping them across the objectives systematically. Upon entering my first mission in the game, I realized that without the base building mechanics, that meant that the game would never toss me any challenges I couldn’t complete with the units at hand (because that would be terrible game design). However, the game doesn’t actually do this particularly well. This comes in the form of terrain bonuses and cover bonuses, as well as limited ammunition for units. Unlike other modern RTS games, Sudden Strike 4 discards the usual base building and resource managing mechanics in lieu of utilizing personal abilities and treating your army with care. This is especially evident when you realize there is no slider available to speed up how fast the cursor goes across the map. While this team clearly tried their best, not being able to click around the map or even pinpoint small groups of soldiers is frustrating. However, the awful truth is this RTS with a controller is simply clunky. To me, that meant I would get a unique experience using a controller, rather than my typical mouse and keyboard. However, Sudden Strike 4 tells the tale of WW2 as an RTS.Īs someone who enjoys RTS games (And by enjoys RTS I mean I’ve put more hours into Starcraft and Age of Empires than any one man should), I was looking forward to playing this on a console. Stories from this era are typically told in the fashion of an FPS. It was, after all, a horrific war, which makes for a great setting in fiction. World War II is a common era for Video Games.
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