Desert Rats Vs. Afrika Korps

Graphics & Sound:
Graphically, it looks good, all units are fully 3d, and the terrain looks fairly good too. I had a few issues with my video card drivers, and was able to find an unofficial fix on the game's official forum. Sound and music are also both good, although nothing that sticks with me.

Gameplay:
This is largely a RTS (real time strategy) game. However, there's no resource gathering at all. You start with a selection of units and objectives, and have to determine the best way to accomplish those objectives. Each mission has primary, secondary and hidden objectives. The lack of resources means you really have to manage your units well, because you just can't build more when all your tanks are gone. You can repair existing units, or take over abandoneed units with infantry. There are also a few missions where specific actions will trigger reinforcements.

My feelings on the game:
I purchased this game after playing the demo, expecting a nice enjoyable way to waste a few hours at a time. By and large, that's what I got. There's two campaigns, one for the Axis and one for the Allies. The Axis is first, and was very enjoyable. However, after the first mission or two of the Allied campaign, the difficulty ramped up tremendously, and I found myself stuck, unable to go any farther in the game without cheating, even on the easiest difficulty level. The game tries to include a backstory, which links all the characters together, but I found myself ignoring it, as it wasn't all that good.

Pros:

* Nice graphics & sound
* Axis campaign is fun, while not being impossible

Cons:

* Lack of resources may lead to having to micro manage your troops to survive
* Allied missions get very difficult and frustrating
* Overall game back story is fairly "blah"
* Game isn't terribly long (maybe 15 missions or so)

One of the very few games on Afrika Korps. Very good 3d graphics, play, and sound; Nvidia cards need updated drivers, check the game's forum.

This game has some serious litations.

There are no patches for the bugs, and probably never will be. You can see for yourself by doing a Google Search. Among the weirdness---- enemy soldiers shoot at burning hulks of tanks over and over, instead of responding to attack....moving vehicles get "Stuck" and won't go off the map at the checkpoints the game flags for you. You have to replay the entire scenario over again to finally find the exact spot to exit vehicles at checkpoints. There's more, but these were ones that kept happening to me.

It has a little story line, with cut scenes. These played very choppy on my system, and really didn't add anything at all to the game play. Whenever you want to progress, the game takes a LONG time to load from one segment to another. If you don't have the Reccomended specs, you might want to reconsider buying this game..Minimum specs probably won't cut it.

The difficulty is above average for this type of game. If you are not familiar with RTS (Real Time Strategy Games) you are likely to find this frustrating. We aren't just talking challenging, we are talking the designers did not do a good job of balancing things. Some scenarios, even in the Easy setting, are pretty much impossible.

Speaking of scenarios....there are only a few, and once you have gone through them, that is it. You can't create new scenarios. There may now be a Map Editor patch, but it isn't in the game.

Although you can use soldiers, they can't dig in, and they are DECIMATED by the numerous armored vehicles. Aside from Scouts to get information for your armour, soldiers are just useless.

There are aircraft, but they play a fairly limited role, spotting or bombing.

On the plus side, the graphics are, in my opinion, great. I am sure you can find some Screen shots, or even a Demo to try out.

A MAJOR plus is that you can set the game speed at several settings...it can of course be paused, you give commands, then un-pause, and the commands are executed. That is not what I am talking about. This game (unlike any other I have seen) allows you to put the game in several settings of Slow Motion. I loved this aspect.

Bottom line: before you buy, go to the official website, and read the posts by the fans. There are better tank games out there.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 6 reviews  2.3 out of 5 stars