Blitzkrieg may seem like a difficult game to start playing. It's another European 2D real-time strategy game set in World War II, like the Sudden Strike series. It isn't particularly flashy, and it doesn't have any especially innovative features or revolutionary concepts. It's also rather unpolished. But while the game may not make a very remarkable first impression, it does have some strong gameplay elements that give it some real substance and help make it deserving of your attention.
Blitzkrieg features a good variety of units.
Blitzkrieg is a fast-paced and fairly strategic game that focuses on ground combat. Rather than constructing a base and a bunch of units, you'll simply be given an army for each mission and set out to complete your objectives. In some cases, you'll be given forces that make the missions rather challenging, though in others, you'll end up with an army that lets you accomplish your mission fairly easily. The game is actually based on historical World War II battles, and in some cases, this means that some missions are rather boring. However, the game has a wealth of other gameplay options, so the game as a whole does have some depth to it.
In the actual game, you have a great variety of units at your disposal, including many kinds of artillery, tanks, trucks, and infantry. You'll often be surprised at what you can do with them: Infantry can throw grenades to destroy tanks, if they get close enough; engineers can build trenches, bridges, and tank blocks and plant or disarm mines; artillery can be ordered fire automatically at specified points that are so far away as to be out of view; trucks can ferry troops; and troops can enter buildings. You can also steal unmanned enemy artillery. All these options help make the actual unit vs. unit combat interesting and strategic.
The game also offers plenty of other strategic elements. Though Blitzkrieg focuses on ground combat, you can call in different kinds of air support, including bombing runs and paratrooper drops. You can also transport slow-moving troops in trucks and in tanks. You have to keep track of your troops' ammo supply, though. Each unit has primary and secondary ammunition, and once you run out, you must get more from either a supply warehouse or a remote supply station, where you must order truck crews to resupply your armies. However, the game has some noticeable pathfinding problems in these tight areas--vehicles can go in reverse, but they often waste time needlessly repositioning. The concept of supply definitely adds more strategic depth to the game, but the actual process of supplying your army can be cumbersome.
