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GameSpot editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 04/06/2007
- Released on: 03/13/2007
- Originally published on GameSpot: Making History: The Calm and the Storm (PC) Review
Making History: The Calm and the Storm is a strategy game that has an interesting history of its own. Originally developed as an edutainment game for history teachers, it has evolved into a full-scale retail product about World War II. This is a turn-based strategy game that looks and feels like a board game, but also features a fair amount of depth and control. With that said, it's not as complex or as deep as Paradox's comprehensive Hearts of Iron series--but for something that's designed to teach the basics of World War II, it doesn't have to be. As it is, Making History is an interesting, though not gripping, game.
You can play as Nazi Germany in Making History, so where do you want to go today? France? Poland? How about Mother Russia?
Making History lets you experiment with different historical outcomes of World War II. You're not constrained to follow historical events as they happened, so you can rewrite history if you want; imagine, for instance, if the United States had stayed neutral throughout the war, or if Germany and France had teamed up to invade the Soviet Union. However, enacting such scenarios probably won't give you any definitive answers if you were looking for them, mainly because the artificial intelligence is all over the place and a bit unpredictable. For instance, in one campaign, both the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany ended up dominating the globe as unlikely alliances were made and broken constantly. Still, it can make for some wild historical scenarios.
You can control any of the major combatants of World War II in Making History, and the varying start points offer different sorts of challenges. The earliest one has the world coming out of the grips of economic depression, as each nation attempts to reconstitute its economic and technological base and prepare for the coming storm. If you want to skip all the preamble and buildup, you can start at the beginning of the war itself, or even at the midpoint in the war. Your job is to come out on top, through conquest, diplomatic means, or a blend of the two.
The game gives you control over a nation's industry, scientific research, military production, war machine, and more, and you have control over everything, from how much each mine produces to buying and selling goods on the world market. The game requires you to juggle many demands, from generating enough revenue through production and trade to conducting long-term research that can eventually unlock nuclear weapons to jet engine technology. And, of course, you've got to worry about building up a military, all at the same time. It sounds complex, but everything can basically be tied to cities and territories. Your cities produce a variety of things, such as research points, consumer goods, arms, or military units, while your territories can provide resources such as food, coal, oil, and metals.
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