Games Database
PC
Strategy
| Also for: | Spectrum 48K | ||
| Viewed: | Not known | Genre: | Strategy |
| Media: | CD | Arcade origin: | No |
| Developer: | Black Bean | Soft. Co.: | 1C |
| Publishers: | Black Bean
(IT) |
Released: | 2005
(IT) |
| Ratings: | PEGI 12+ | ||
Summary
Over in Russia they go crazy for Real Time Strategy. Games by Active Gaming and the like are often published by Russian company 1C, and the pick of those games make it to western Europe, often with a Black Bean label on them.
The latest of these is Stalingrad, the work of fledgling developers DTR, who were honoured at the most recent Russian Game Developers Conference, where they received a prize for best debut. The game is built on Nival Interactive’s RTS engine, the same bit of kit used in the famous Blitzkrieg series.
World War II RTS games very often set themselves lofty ambitions, wishing to cover as much history as possible – the whole story of the Western Front conflict, for example. Others give tighter parameters, the battle of Britain perhaps, and set out to recreate in this microcosm a more detailed experience. Stalingrad puts itself firmly in this second camp, concerning itself only with events in and around Stalingrad between July 1942 and January 1943. Considered by many historians to be the turning point of WWII, the battle of Stalingrad was where Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa was finally foiled, where the Wehrmacht wave finally broke and rolled back. There began a chain of events that led inevitably to the fall of Berlin to the Allies in 1945.
DTR want you to see both sides of the story, and the game contains two campaigns. In the first, you must take command of General Paulus’ 6th army and storm the city. The second campaign concerns itself with the Red Army’s bitter, courageous, and often ruthless fight back to liberate the shattered ruins. Together, these campaigns comprise 36 missions and seven extra secret missions, which are promised to reveal little known facts about the conflict. Pitched as not only a game but an ‘interactive encyclopaedia’, Stalingrad aims to reconstruct historical events, using tactical maps and aerial photography from the period. As well as this, the buildings in the game are modelled on glimpses seen in contemporary footage. There are hundreds of units on top of this, and an engine radically altered from its Blitzkrieg second cousin, all in a bloody battle involving more than two million people. Stalingrad looks like a nicely crafted piece.
The latest of these is Stalingrad, the work of fledgling developers DTR, who were honoured at the most recent Russian Game Developers Conference, where they received a prize for best debut. The game is built on Nival Interactive’s RTS engine, the same bit of kit used in the famous Blitzkrieg series.
World War II RTS games very often set themselves lofty ambitions, wishing to cover as much history as possible – the whole story of the Western Front conflict, for example. Others give tighter parameters, the battle of Britain perhaps, and set out to recreate in this microcosm a more detailed experience. Stalingrad puts itself firmly in this second camp, concerning itself only with events in and around Stalingrad between July 1942 and January 1943. Considered by many historians to be the turning point of WWII, the battle of Stalingrad was where Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa was finally foiled, where the Wehrmacht wave finally broke and rolled back. There began a chain of events that led inevitably to the fall of Berlin to the Allies in 1945.
DTR want you to see both sides of the story, and the game contains two campaigns. In the first, you must take command of General Paulus’ 6th army and storm the city. The second campaign concerns itself with the Red Army’s bitter, courageous, and often ruthless fight back to liberate the shattered ruins. Together, these campaigns comprise 36 missions and seven extra secret missions, which are promised to reveal little known facts about the conflict. Pitched as not only a game but an ‘interactive encyclopaedia’, Stalingrad aims to reconstruct historical events, using tactical maps and aerial photography from the period. As well as this, the buildings in the game are modelled on glimpses seen in contemporary footage. There are hundreds of units on top of this, and an engine radically altered from its Blitzkrieg second cousin, all in a bloody battle involving more than two million people. Stalingrad looks like a nicely crafted piece.
Artwork
