Codename: Panzers

PC review by Philip Morton, published on Thursday 23rd September 2004

Tanks aren’t subtle. They’re not going to slip past you in your sleep, go unnoticed in the street or make a tidy accessory to that dress you bought last week. You can hide behind them like a big brother, but get on the wrong side of them and they’re going to make a real mess of your day. Suitably, Codename: Panzers is just as delicate and restrained as the tracked vehicles it features so prominently. Like the tank, the concept behind it isn’t exactly original and it has its flaws, but what it sets out to do, it does well.

The main campaign can be played through three separate storylines, with 10 missions in each. Playing as a German officer sees you beginning with the 1939 invasion of Poland, while you’ll find yourself defending Russia if you choose a Red Army officer. Thirdly, taking control of the Allies sees you starting just after D-Day and heading inland to capture two bridges deep in occupied France. Each storyline is portrayed neatly through diaries and cutscenes carefully created to guide you from one mission to another. Gone are the days when you can just throw down a ‘mission briefing’ in front of a gamer and get away with it; now you’ve got to have some sort of reasoning behind the madness that’s about to unfold.

Codename: Panzers turns out to be of the strain of real time strategy games that Command & Conquer once dominated, except lacking the base-building mechanics. All you need to do is click on a unit, then click on where you want it to go or what you want it to fight. Simple. You have up to about 16 units under your command, ranging from basic riflemen and plain trucks to specialised tank crews and heavy armour. Troops can enter buildings, man guns and lay mines, while tanks form the main spearhead of your assault and the focus of the fighting. Artillery and bombers provide a dose of indirect firepower, with parachutists and recon planes being brought in at your discretion. The enemy AI difficulty is set fairly high, even from the start, punishing you for storming in Rambo-style and not keeping your forces together. Of course, the key to success is being able to combine all your troops and coordinate them to work as a team; sending out snipers as spotters for artillery, using infantry to cover your tanks and keeping everyone supplied with the ammunition they need.

At the start of each mission you’re given specific objectives such as holding a defensive position of taking another, with smaller, sub objectives added in to provide a little more lifespan for each level. Most of the maps are large enough to allow you to choose one of several routes to attack through, giving you the opportunity to plan ahead and even use two-pronged attacks to disorientate your enemy. All is not as it seems though. As you progress through missions, cut scenes introduce new developments in the battle, with enemy reinforcements being brought in near your objective, recon planes crashing out before they’re of any use and so on. It’s a clever way of adding a little spice to an otherwise predictable formula and gives it a slight edge; you just never know what might happen next.

Panzers does a fine job of producing interesting scenarios in which to fight and adds little twists in here and there, but where it trips up is in its dependency on you, the player. Whereas the computer can react instantly and manage all of its troops with ease, it becomes quite a task to keep track of your army and maintain their attacking momentum. The game gives you control over your troops’ stance for instance, allowing you to lie them prone, get them to crouch or stand up, but this is something that they should have control over themselves. When you’ve got a Tiger bearing down on you with its 88mm gun searching for a target, the last thing you’re going to worry about is whether Aleksander and his buddies are taking cover or not. You should command your army, not baby-sit them.

You’ll come across the slightly dim-witted AI frequently, with some units standing by while others are opening fire on the enemy. Your troops don’t seem to communicate with each other as soldiers would in a real battle and this can become frustrating when you’re trying to take on the harder missions. Commanding a small military force should involve directing their attacks and maneuvering them around enemy positions, but sometimes Panzers‘ demands on you can become a little overwhelming. Seasoned RTS veterans might be used to this sort of thing, but anyone else may just find it a little too hard to manage effectively.

For those who can handle the intensity, there’s plenty to do. Apart from the main campaign which has a decent amount of replay value in itself, there’s both online and offline skirmish modes. Up to eight players can fight against each other or the computer with their army, map and difficulty level of choice. Co-op play is something lacking in many RTS games, so it’s nice to see it making an appearance here; it certainly makes defeating the enemy easier when you can divide your forces in an attack.

While there’s not much new on the gameplay side, but the visuals and sound do impress. The camera can be fully rotated and zoomed into several levels, with the 100 or so units well animated and detailed. The terrain is also plentiful and fully destructible, which makes sending a squad of tanks through a forest or small town quite a sight. Panzers doesn’t seem to suffer from any noticeable slowdown either, which is a welcome sight given the level of graphical finesse on offer. The audio is also well done, with convincing voiceovers for diary entries and a suitably themed musical score. The overall presentation is almost on par with the likes of Medal of Honor, which is something you don’t usually expect with an RTS.

Although it may be flawed, Codename: Panzers does well to gain a foothold in a market already saturated with similar titles. There’s clearly been a lot of effort put into the presentation, authenticity and lifespan of the game, but it falls down in its appeal to newcomers to the genre. A tutorial may be present, but the steep learning curve and tough difficulty level will put many off. For hardened RTS gamers in search of something WW2-themed though, this may be the game you’ve been waiting for. If you can handle the burden that Panzers puts on you, you’ll find a solid and enjoyable game underneath.