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| Reviewer | Platform | Publisher | Developer | Players | Screenshots |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matt Bailey | PC | Paradox Interactive | Paradox Interactive | 1-32 (LAN, Online) | Here |
| Requirements | Buy from Amazon.co.uk | ||||
| 800MHz Processor, 128MB RAM, 1GB HDD Space, 4MB Video Card | Click here to buy Hearts of Iron II. | ||||
Strategy games come in a whole range of varieties these days; from your simple real-time strategy, to your turn-based strategy, to the action-RPG-strategy, to this, Hearts of Iron II, an intense World War II-based real-time political-economic strategy game.
First and foremost, Hearts of Iron II isn't for all. I've said this a few times in the past when relating to sports titles (after all, if you hate watching, playing or even thinking about basketball, how are you going to like ESPN NBA?), but I've never meant it more so than I do now. For HoI2 you really do have to like the idea of getting into a very deep and rather hard game, with gameplay spanning multiple periods of hours, and no flashy graphics to keep your eyes interested.
Being set in World War II, the obvious goal is win the war, through a combination of war and diplomacy. In order to carry this out you can either go through the main campaign - starting in 1936, 1939, 1941 or 1944 - or take part in one of the many battle-orientated scenarios, from the Invasion of Poland to D-Day. Interestingly, unlike most World War II titles, you aren't limited to playing as the main powers; instead you can choose to play the game from the prospective of countries such as Saudi Arabia or Brazil, making this a truly global war.
Being such an in-depth game it wasn't surprising to see a 90-odd page manual included with the review code, but don't let that put you off. Though casual gamers will likely find it hard to settle into this title, it isn't entirely for the die-hards. Yes, as I said before, this really does have to be your cup of tea to enjoy it, but you don't need to read the whole manual or have trained on previous strategy titles (including the previous Hearts of Iron game) in order to be able to make sense of it and enjoy it, thanks to a range of helpful and detailed tutorial sessions included in the game.
As you already know, this isn't the first outing for Paradox's series; the previous title also features an amazing level of depth and addictiveness, but was troubled by some problems that were amplified by the long periods of time that Hearts of Iron games consist of. Thankfully these have been almost entirely resolved in Hearts of Iron 2, allowing you to get on and enjoy the game the way its meant to be played. Firstly there is a redesigned interface, which will prove essentially helpful to newcomers, but should also help veterans get even more engaged in the experience. A new political system is present to make things more interesting as time progresses, and changes to the diplomacy and production systems now allow to avoid some of the micromanagement that dogged the original title. Combat plays an important part in war, so it's good to see improvements to the combat system too. The way technology pans out is now much easier to manage thanks to the fact that you can choose your end-product rather than having to select each step, and the process is given further realism by including real companies who you can assign to the research and development tasks.
Multiplayer has made a return, again bringing up to 32 players together online or via LAN, to work cooperatively or competitively. The biggest problem will be finding the time to play out a multiplayer game which could quite easily last hours.
Unfortunately there is one interesting problem still interfering with the game; the way the games pan out. The AI is a bit odd at times, and you will sometimes see major world powers fall quite early on in the war, while at other times you'll find yourself unable to complete your game because of the oddly imposed cap of December 30th 1947, which will end the game even if your war hasn't drawn to a conclusion. However, don't let this put you off what is otherwise a rather compelling game.
| Graphics | Clean crisp 2D graphics, but more could have been done to make them more interesting. | 7/10 |
|---|---|---|
| Gameplay | Addictive; will simply eat away your time if you can get over the initial hurdle of getting into the game. The learning curve is steep, but the developers have removed some barriers with a good tutorial mode. | 9/10 |
| Value | There's quite a lot to do; a long campaign mode, plenty of nations, smaller battle-orientated scenarios, and politics to be engaged in. | 8/10 |
| Lifespan | If you get into the game, it could offer you week and weeks of gameplay; sometimes long periods on one game alone. | 10/10 |
| Audio | A good musical score accompanies the game. | 8/10 |
| Overall | Although Paradox have done quite a bit to make the game more open, while at the same time not compromising any of the depth that makes the game so engrossing, the game ultimately still remains mostly for the committed few, but those who consider themselves more than mere casual games and like some war-based strategy that doesn't feature tank-rushing should check this out. | 8/10 |
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