Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 4.0 stars Excellent
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 8.0 (4.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Brett Todd
• Reviewed on: 04/11/2006
• Released on: 04/07/2006
• Originally published on GameSpot: Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday (PC) Review

Even though wondering "What if?" has always been a popular pastime for armchair generals, Paradox Interactive has stayed away from speculation. Franchises such as Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron feature authenticity so precise that you often feel like you're paging through a textbook. Playing geopolitical sims such as these should earn you credit toward a BA in History due to such a rigid "just the facts, ma'am" design philosophy.

Until now, that is. Doomsday, a stand-alone expansion for World War II uber-simulation Hearts of Iron II, takes Paradox into the world of alternative history for the first time. And it succeeds in a big way, thanks to the seamless transition from a realistic depiction of the conflict between the Allies and the Axis to an imaginative look at how the tense early years of the Cold War could have unfolded. Gameplay feels too familiar to be entirely pleasing, especially if you've spent much of the past year running roughshod over Hitler or slapping around Stalin in the compulsively playable (well, once you ascended past the cliff-like learning curve) original game. But if you're looking for more of the same, this is a winning approach.

There aren't any surprises here. The look and feel of the expansion match the original game right down to the shrill musical score and the lame fixed resolution of 1024x768. Doomsday is a standard expansion with fairly standard accoutrements. It includes a new campaign, along with odds and ends such as updated units, a US/USSR invasion-of-Japan scenario (although it must be said that the Soviets don't seem to help all that much), and a scenario editor. The centerpiece is a revamped grand campaign that lets you set a starting point between 1936 and 1945, and play to January 1, 1954. Choose to start with the Doomsday scenario in October, 1945, and you come onboard as the Allies are forced to defend Western Europe against the swarming Red Army by nuking Moscow. Nothing like getting things going with a bang.

Moving the finish line into the 1950s redresses a problem with Hearts of Iron II. Earlier, campaigns ended abruptly too often. You'd be right in the middle of a big push into France or on the verge of finally deploying the A-bomb, and the game would wrap at the end of 1946 with a dissatisfying tallying of victory points. Wins seemed cheap at times, and losing could be really aggravating, particularly when the calendar, not the enemy, cut off your grand plan for world domination.

Games still end a little brusquely; New Year's Day in 1954 arrives all too soon. But the additional years typically provide enough time to bring the cataclysmic war in Western Europe to a gratifying climax. There isn't quite enough time to wrap things up on a global scale, however. You get a sense of the Cold War's early tension as the race to develop nuclear weapons heats up through the later 1940s and early 1950s, although games usually seem to end before a nation emerges as the clear winner or has at least thoroughly nuked rivals into the Stone Age. Even though an extra few years would have been nice, you don't find yourself thinking "I wonder what would happen six months from now?" nearly as much as before at the end of campaigns.

The additional seven years tacked on to Doomsday are tricked out with enough new units to enhance the feel that you're not quite playing Hearts of Iron II. Much of the advanced military hardware that characterized the Cold War is on offer here, including attack helicopters, nuclear submarines, H-bombs, ICBMs, surface-to-air missiles, advanced rocketry, jet aircraft, and so forth. If you could build it in the real world in the late 1940s and early 1950s, chances are you can research and build it here.

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