Desert Rats vs Africa Korps Review

A review by Barnes

First things first, this will only be a short review, i apologise for this but I do however point you to the preview written by Gabriel Strange, this covers a hell of a lot of the details of the game and I don't tend to argue with a lot of his sentiments.

DRvsAK is a RTS game that takes place during WWII in the Africa Battle between Rommel and Montgomery, you take control of both the Axis and the Allies in campaigns that are based on real documented battles during the conflict, the research has really been put into this game, it contains great detail as well as excellent background that really emerses you in the feel of the war. The inclusion of a story tries to get away from the "good guy, bad guy" element of such a campaign and by making the two central characters former friends it really does stop the obvious conclusions being drawn.

Graphically, the game lived up to the quality of the preview, the graphics are far and above what I've come to expect from recent RTS games, they are crisp, well done, detailed and animate in a great way. The ability to distinguish between individual types of foot troops can be vital in this game as resources are few so you really want to maximise your potential without risking your survival and your valuable troops! You also have hero's that will lead your army, these characters are the "generals" of the battlefield they lead your troops and are gnerally stronger, tougher and better equipped than regular foot troops.

Gameplay is strong, there are elements here that really give the game great replay value. Vehicles are not just units, they are what they should be, transport for troops, an empty vehicle is useless to you, you must put your troops into the trucks, jeeps, tanks and other vehicles to man them, only a fully manned vehicle can opperate at full capacity, if your gunner gets shot out of your tank then your driving a very well armoured jeep because without a gunner, your not shooting anyone!

Sound and music are not the best in the world, there's a lot of repetition in the spoken acknowledgement's of your troops as well as death crys of opponents, the background music is alright but not outstanding, it doesn't live up to the quality of soundtrack to something like Total Annihilation but its not that important, its not the focal point of the game!

AI is fairly strong, but doesn't do anything new, they do kind-of charge in and assault at all costs, there's no real tactics to the game. After playing the recent Blitzkrieg I had become to expect a little more from the AI of RTS games but this is not the strongest, however its still a challenge, tactics or no tactics!

Its a good game, worth buying, it brings new ideas to an old franchise, hopefully it might indicate new things and better games and only time will tell. Its a very well put together factually accurate game. As RTS games go, its one of the strongest i've played for a while, so overall it lived up to the promises the preview made.