Played Lately: Panzer Corps: Wehrmacht

• I've never been a hardcore strategy gamer. There is a part of me that wants to be one. That's the part that reads the grognardy forums on BGG, listens to Three Moves Ahead, and owns more board games than I will ever play. But I know that once the complexity of any game reaches a certain level, my brain shuts down and I can't do anything more than look at the pretty pictures. So when Panzer General came out in 1994, I was instantly drawn to it. Easy to learn, attractive graphics (for the time), and a lot of fun, it was everything I wanted from a strategy game.


• Time passes, of course, and Panzer General does not stack up to today's graphic and interface expectations. And the fact that I own it on 3.5" disks doesn't help either. When I heard about Panzer Corps: Wehrmacht I was unreasonably excited. Not that I rushed out and bought a copy. Not at first. What if it wasn't as good as the original? What if I spend a bunch of money on it and then just add it to "The Pile"?


• These thoughts kept me away for a full week, but eventually I gave in. It is everything I loved about Panzer General polished for the modern era. It looks great, with a nicely textured map and attractive units. The statistics are easy to understand and easily accessible. The controls have been updated to match current conventions. The opening movie was really interesting and imaginative. And the music and sounds are perfect. The only hitch I had was with the voice over for the tutorial. It sounded like someone who does not speak English as their first language was trying to fake a German accent. Very confusing! But that is the only part of the presentation that was lacking.


• Before I jumped into the main campaign (which I have read is not a pushover), I started with the tutorial campaign. And I call it a campaign for a reason. The silly thing lasts for six scenarios. It took me three play sessions to complete. And I actually had a lot of fun playing it. The tutorial! I really think it was a good choice to go this route. The Poland scenario in PG acted like a tutorial, so it was startling easy to roll to Warsaw in just a few turns.


• So I have been having a great time with Panzer Corps and I haven't even started the grand campaign. I'm looking forward to starting my blitzkrieg any day now.

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© 2011 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.