Codename Panzers: Cold War

Before I received my copy of Codename Panzers: Cold War from Mighty Ape, I had recently completed Dawn Of War 2 and was playing through World In Conflict: Complete Edition. This may have been a mistake as both these games are superior to Cold War perhaps making Cold War seem even worse than it was.

Cold War is a RTS game that experienced players are going to get bored of rather quickly. It doesn't do anything that hasn't been done before and better by other games........... like Dawn Of War 2 and World In Conflict. There is no base building or resource collecting rather you assemble a few squads and vehicles to take into battle and by taking over command points on the map, you can spend points to call in reinforcements.
Once your in game, I suspect that many of you will have to exit the game, go into the graphics settings and turn a few things off. I have a XFX 8800 GTX card which is not the fastest card on the market but it's certainly no slouch so I turned all the bells and whistles on but Cold War was simply unplayable. I couldn't believe how many display options I had to remove or turn down to get this game running relatively smoothly.
Gameplay itself is what we've come to expect from a game of this type, you get bonuses for using cover and capturing command points, you can spend points to upgrade units or 'buy' reinforcements, units have special and unique abilities such as clearing mines, there are primary and optional extra mission(s) to complete etc, day and night cycles, changable weather etc. But as I said earlier, it all adds up into something thats been done before but lacking the polish and sparkle that made Dawn Of War 2 such an incredible game.

To sum up, Cold War feels all too familiar and familiarity breeds contempt. It looks pretty nice if you have a high end PC but I didn't have an awful lot of fun playing it. Maybe I've been spoiled by Dawn Of War 2, but as it stands, Codename Panzers: Cold War was released about a year or more too late.

End of review, I'm going back to finish off World In Conflict.

As a casual gamer I found Panzers perfect for my needs, it was easy to pick up from the beginning, and easy to come back to after not playing for a while. The graphics and effects were brilliant, and the gameplay was the right pace and intensity. I also enjoyed the simple customization of the squads and vehicles.