Cheap Blitzkrieg (Software) (Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows 98) Price

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Customer Reviews of Blitzkrieg

Graphically the game is well-done. The tanks look like their real-live counterparts (the creators of the game visited the Moscow museum and made sure that all the tanks in the game are as big as, colored as, etc as the exhibits there). Infantry ducks and aims when shooting with a rifle. Airplanes dive, strafe and carpet bomb. Everything is beautifully done, and yet the engine is quite light. The game will run well even on older computers.

The gameplay is very, very fun. The game is incredibly realistic without becoming boring. The player is forced to combine all the WW2 weapons by the game itself - without softening the enemy defenses with artillery and airplanes it is hard to mount a succesful offensive. Attacking with tanks only is generally a bad idea since 3-4 well camouflaged AT guns (especially monstrosities like the German Flak88) can stop 10+ tanks easily. Thus the player is forced to combine tanks with infantry (comfortably enough one can make the infantry climb on the top of the tank and thus transport them) since infantry fares quite well against AT guns.
Furthermore there are trenches, which are quite effective at stopping tanks since the infantry inside is reasonably well protected against them. If the tanks try to roll over the trench the infantry usually manages to break their tracks thus rendering them immobile. All this is done very easily in the game because of the intuitive and simple interface.
All the major engines of destruction of WW2 are present in the game - starting from the Panzer 3, Mathilda and BT tanks, going through the Panzer 4, Sherman and T-34 and ending up with the fearsome Pershings, Tigers and IS-2. There are even some tanks not used in the war - the Russian IS-3 (it started for the front in May '45) and the German Super Heavy Maus (which never went beyond a prototype). This is just the tanks - there's also Messerschimdts, Stukas, IL-2s, Yaks, Spitfires, Liberators and what not.

A note on the way damage is calculated. Each unit in the game (though it matters mostly for tanks only) has front, back, sides and top armor. When a gun is fired, if the target is hit the game makes a check whether or not the armor is penetrated. If not the target suffers no damage. This makes the combat very realistic. One can really feel the power of say the Russian IS-2 tank with its 122 mm gun when it wastes a Tiger in one shot. One feels fear when he see the German Elefant going against 5 tanks and wasting them with one shot each without getting more than a few scratches - simply because it's armor is so thick mere 75mm guns can't penetrate it.

A few words on the campaign structure - it consists of 'chapters'. Each chapter has some random missions (at least one must be played) and a historical mission. The random missions are randomly generated missions where you have only your 'core' units available. These core units are tank/artillery crews that can advance in experience as your campaign progresses. You can upgrade them. For example my tank crew, commanded by Sergeant Shoholov started with a meager T-27 light tank in Finland '39 and proudly assaulted Berlin in a brand new IS-2 titan.
The Historical missions are, well, historical missions. One good thing I noticed is that there is pretty much no historical inaccuracy. For example in Poland the German army hardly has any Panzer 4s while in the '42 missions (Kharkov) they have mostly Panzer 4s. Same with the infantry - in the beggining almost all infantrymen are armed with rifles. Towards the end there are SMGs, MGs, AT rifles, Bazookas and what not.

Multiplayer is fun too. There's flag-match and assault. In assault one side defends and the other attacks (no reinforcements available) while in flag-match the side with more flags gets more reinforcements. I tried it, it's fun. Some more maps would be good though.

In conclusion I'll note that the version I played is 1.00. The English language release will be version 1.01. I believe that it comes out somewhere in the middle of May.
This is a very good and stable RTS game, much superior to Command&Conquer generals (for example) which I would recommend to anyone interested in the genre or in WW2 in general.

Great WW2 Tactical Strategy
I was a little nervous about buying Blitzkrieg. In general, I've disliked real-time strategy games like this and I was worried about buying a product supported from Germany. But I couldn't be more pleased. Blitzkrieg in an excellent game.

This is basically a tactical level strategy game. You are given a certain amount of assets and mission objectives and you attempt to carry them out. Usually, this means your "core group" of 3-6 tanks and a battery of artillary. As the war goes on, this core groups becomes more experienced and you can upgrade their hardware, sometimes getting cutting edge weapons as a reward for completing a mission. You also have snipers, foot soldiers and support trucks. And in historical missions, you can have a massive array of tanks, rocket launchers, artillary and troops. And all these assets are rendered with splendid and incredible detail. Facing a Tiger tanks with Shermans? Better sneak around and attack from the back where his armor is weak. You go face to face and he'll kill you without getting a scratch from your popgun cannons. Attacking a trench? Watch out for mines and grenades. Even the artillary pieces have operators who can be killed without damaging the weapon -- which can then be taken over by your own troops.

The thing that makes this game fun is the flexibility. There's not one set way to win a mission. This applies to the computer as well. It frequently adapts to circumstances. If you don't watch carefully, he'll sneak a platoon of soldiers behind your line to savage your artillary and trucks. Your snipers can spy enemy tanks and call in an artillary strike. But if he sniffs your presence, his tanks will roll out and attack. You have to be careful even tooling down a road because he might set a a few soldiers and AT guns on a cliff to deliver a devastating blow to your armor. Or you can set an ambush of your own and lure his armor out into it. If you're getting artillary fire, you can order your artillary to lay a supressing barrage -- only to see him pick up, move to a new location and open fire.

The game is not easy. I've frequently had to restart because I stupidly charged in with armor and no troops and got slaughtered. Or I used my air support to bomb a few tanks instead of holding back and fending off his bombers when they went after my artillary. The Soviet campaign is especially difficult as the German weapons totally outclass you in the beginning of the war that it's almost impossible to win.

There are a few problems. The software is a little twitchy and somtimes likes to drop the frame rate for no reason. And I would really have liked to seen a branching campaign where you could invade England as the Germans or attack the Russians as the Americans.

But overall this is fantastic. The realism is amazing and the gameplay is engrossing.

Decent game but hard to master or learn.
This game is pretty decent. When I first played it, I unistalled the game after playing it for about 10 minutes because it was impossible for me to beat the first few missions. It is very different from other RTS games such as Starcraft, Warcraft, and Age of Empires. Unlike those RTS games this games this game is not simple and it might take a while to get better or get used to the gameplay. I have only played it about a month now so I am still a noob at this game but single player is still pretty fun. The first thing that reminded of me was the Combat Mission games which made me think that Blitzkrieg was more of a TBS game than RTS. It is RTS, however, it is very similar to Combat Mission if you played it before. The units move slowly in groups and the setting is in WWII. Also, the sound is very realistic.

The requirements is one thing that you don't have to worry about. If you have read all my reviews, you know that I own whole mess of PCs. But instead of using my newer PCs, I used the oldest PC that I had for about 4 years which the system specifications are Celeron 900mhz, 256mb ram, GeForce 2 and ran it on 1024x768x32, a medium resolution, without any slowdowns. So, any people can play this game with a dated PC which shouldn't go below Pentium 2 400mhz, 128mb ram, and 16mb video card. It is not the official requirements but my requirements are little higher which will make the game run a little better.

If you are a quick learner or if you have played all types of RTS and TBS games, this game is definitly for you. Also if you are a WWII buff, this game might be also for you. But if you aren't satisfied with my review, then it is safer bet that you try the demo from fileplanet.com, gamershell.com, or filefront.com.