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Achtung Panzer: Operation Star

B

Bletchley_Geek

Guest
Hi,

I checked this title last night through Gamersgate and I'd like to share with you the review I wrote for the game

I had been waiting for some time the release of this game in the "West" (it was released at least one year ago in Russia) and after a couple of quick playthroughs I've got mixed feelings. This is a pretty sophisticated title which is flawed by the lack of proper documentation.

The graphics are outstanding. You really get the feeling of being fighting for the Rodina on the steppes to the south of Kharkov. They got a really good rendition of the land: elevation, vegetation, roads and other elements are modeled with care and great detail. Vehicles really strike to me as particularly well done. Infantry moves like people, although some animations seem to be taken out from some Soviet propaganda film, with soldiers throwing their weapons to the sky when hit by a mortar fragment. The graphics engine is really one of the best I've seen on a tactical wargame. For instance, soldiers graphics become billboards when you're far from them, smoothly transitioning to a lush 3D model when you close on them.

However graphics in a wargame, in my opinion, should cater more to transmit faithful information to the player about what's going on than to get from us an "Oh, shiny!". In this department I find this to be lacking. When you look at the action really close you can see your infantry - especially when defending - doing weird stuff, such as wandering like zombies in the middle of an intense firefight.

The User Interface it's very good, though it suffers from some weird translation - what does exactly mean the order "Hidden Move"? - and a quite whimsical choice of hotkeys, which can be remapped to our liking. Although I've still to master it, I've found it has all kinds of tools for focusing the attention of the player on important events happening on the battlefield. It allows you, for instance, to decide whether the game gets paused when a friendly unit spots an enemy unit, takes losses, etc. One can also get the UI to focus on the unit in question and other options I'm not sure what they're doing because of the translation.

The campaign being portrayed is a really interesting battle - if relatively obscure - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Star which has been seldom visited in wargaming in general. It also comes with a Quick Battle system, which allows to select the battle place - restricted to the locations modeled with excruciating attention to detail - and to buy the opposing forces. Besides that, it apparently comes - haven't checked it yet - with a fully featured Operation editor. So, in theory, one could make campaigns covering a good proportion of the many battles fought in the Eastern Front during November 1942 and March 1943.

Regarding the simulation I've got mixed feelings. The infantry combat model looks good, but I'm not really sure until I get to observe more battles that it's in the same league as the recently released Combat Mission Normandy. TacAI seems to be quite good, though, and there are plenty of parameters that can be controlled from the UI - such as formation - which allow to nuance the generic commands available (Move, Attack, Defend, Recon, etc.).

Where I find Operation Star really lacking is in the documentation department. There's an ingame tutorial - called "Training Mode" - which is quite inflexible. To make an analogy, it's a bit like someone pulling your ear to make you pay attention to the many - perhaps overwhelming - options available, and the order in which the tutorial "pulls your ear" feels a bit random. There's NO manual explaining with some depth formations, unit orders, etc. and other stuff that would be nice to know about.

I'd certainly recommend this game to people heavily into computer wargaming at the tactical level interested in the Nazi-Soviet struggle, who don't shy away from Real Time gameplay (though pausable and as I said before, you can link pause with events), lack of multiplayer and absence of any real documentation.

If you got the €'s to spend, I think it's worth it (though your frustration threshold should be set to "Nightmare" level).
 
Having tried to play their previous WW2 offering I can understand and fully agree with the nightmare analogy.
 
In my opinion these games are closer to CM than to ToW.

I think the AP series are good solid games provided one can figure out how to actually play them.
 
In my opinion these games are closer to CM than to ToW.

Actually, more than CM, they're closer to later Close Combat titles (operational level modeled in the game, very nice maps, hands-off in many respects regarding tactics, etc.).

daisy said:
I think the AP series are good solid games provided one can figure out how to actually play them.

Precisely. It can be really, really frustrating. I have to check the English speaking forums, to see if someone has been kind enough to start making a "proper" tutorial.
 
Hey guy. It's a really fun game!

They just released a good update for APOS.
Change log:

1) Adjusted the process of moving vehicles in the woods.
2) The algorithm what handles appear squads and units is changed.
3) Changes in some skymaps.
4) Added dependence of fatigue of the soldiers moved on the ground what taking into account a soils and weather conditions.
5) Changed some units sprites in tactical battle.
6) Reduced rate of fire for T-70M tank gun.
7) Added models and textures of summer soldiers (for future micro-addons).
8) Added models and textures of the landscape for the summer season (for future micro-addons).
9) Adjusted staffing for some units in a quick battle.
10) Changed the composition of forces in operations.
11) Adjusted settings for towed guns.
12) Added improved texture set for winter soldiers of the Red Army and Wermacht.
13) Fixed initial placement algorithm for soldiers in the one square.
14) Fixed bug with setting up the shield for gun leFH.18.
15) Fixed bugs in Sdkfz250 APCs and ZIS-3 gun.
16) Added armor flaps opening on the commander's cupola for tanks: KV-1C KV-8S, Pz-IIIL/N/fl, Pz-IVG.
17) Fixed a bug with the creation of a new project in the operation's editor.

One of the developers released the links here:
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3462923/Achtung_Panzer_Operation_Star_.html#Post3462923
 
Hey guy. It's a really fun game!

They just released a good update for APOS.
Change log:

Got those through Gamersgate :) It's good to see it's getting support from the devs, and they really need to improve some stuff with the AI (I think).
 
Got those through Gamersgate :) It's good to see it's getting support from the devs, and they really need to improve some stuff with the AI (I think).

I was going to post the Gamergate site, but I think the links to the updates are only seen by
registered members.

Fun game!
 
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