Review: The Steel Panthers trilogy was one of the most highly-praised wargame series from Strategic Simulations Inc. Now, Gary Grigsby (the designer of Carrier Strike: South Pacific, Gary Grigsby's Pacific War, Gary Grigsby's War in Russia and many other games), in collaboration with Matrix Games, has remade the Steel Panthers Series with Steel Panthers: World at War (SPWAW). When you first start SPWAW this game might look a bit complicated for you, but you will soon learn how to play it. SPWAW has 9 tutorials. The first one will teach you the basics of the game, while the other 8 tutorials will teach you everything about flanking, artillery, engineers etc. The game covers battles all throughought World War II and has over 50 scenarios and 24 campaigns (including the long World War II campaign). SPWAW also has a campaign generator and powerful editors which enable you to make scenarios and campaigns, assign sounds to units and many other things. This game is very complex - it's a top-down turn-based wargame played on a hexagonal grid, with a large number of units and terrain features allowing a huge number of situations. Almost every unit has a description in the encyclopedia, along with stats (armor, speed, weapons etc.) and some have pictures of them or, in some cases, photos. On the battlefield it's hard to track every soldier or tank you have, but by pressing "N" or by selecting the unit menu everything becomes easy. The A.I. is very important in a game like this (and in any other game, of course), but you can relax because it's very good and it's a pleasure to fight against the computer, even if SPWAW's difficulty is medium to hard. Another excellent aspect of the game is its morale system - each unit has its own morale. When the morale is down the unit retreats (without waiting for you to give the order) or can't fire accurately. You can rally your troops to bring their morale up a little, but it doesn't always work. (TIP: If your units can't move or fire try rallying them; if it works, sometimes you can move again or fire two or three times) Now let me say something about the graphics. The graphics aren't very good (2D, not 3D), but they are good enough for this game. There's also the fog of war. When the enemy is in your units' line of sight, you can see them and they can see you. When your enemy is undercover it's hard to see him unless you can get really close to him or you see the hex from which he fired, making it hard to win the game if you are in the jungle or if there are many trees around. The sound is realistic and enables you to tell the difference between infantry, tanks, trucks and other things when they're moving, aiding you greatly when the battle starts. The music is good, but sometimes I get the feeling that it would fit better in an adventure game like Broken Sword. The game is also great fun in multiplayer. You can play in hotseat mode, by email or via the internet. You must only check to see if you've got the same version as the host (in internet mode) and you're ready to go - if you fancy taking on other AR regulars, check this thread in the forums. All in all, Steel Panthers: World at War is a very good wargame that everybody should download, despite the fact that it's huge. Two thumbs up for Gary Grigsby and Matrix Games ! Member name: Abi79 Negative points: Large download Initially overwhelming Positive points: Realistic sound Detailed unit behaviour 27 Nations Game genre: strategy Rating: 4.6 System requirements: • Windows 98 /Me / 2000 /XP • DirectX 9.0b • Pentium II 400 MHz CPU • 64MB Ram • 16 Bit DirectSound compatible Soundcard • 8MB Video Graphics Card 16Bit Color • 8x CD-Rom • 900 MB Free Hard Drive Space Official game URL: http://www.steelpanthersworldatwar.com/ Download location: http://www.steelpanthersworldatwar.com/downloads.asp Questionable content: none Multiplayer methods: internet, hotseat, play by email