DeVuego ES_COR

It's hard not to compare this game to those in the Total War series. Fortunately, the comparison is pretty favorable. Though the battles themselves aren't quite as easy to manage, the added strategic elements and highly detailed environments should definitely have Creative Assembly sitting up and taking notice. As I said before, though the game offers up many pleasures, it's not for the faint of heart. The campaign's tedious start is a significant obstacle to gamers who want to "get to the good stuff" without going through the motions of developing a massive resource base and drafting an army from scratch.

I really think this could have been a title to be talking about--a great adventure game. The story was really well done and they had some obvious talent behind the game. However, the oversights involved in not allowing cut-scenes and dialogues to be skipped and allowing many bugs to slip through take this game down a few notches. At the end, all I can talk about with this title is what could have been. It could have been a contender.

ltimately, War Times is a pedestrian real-time strategy game that barely manages to offer up the basic mechanics that define the genre. Add its failure to deliver the spirit we'd expect from the setting and there's very little to separate War Times from dozens of other all-too-predictable real-time strategy games. It feels too much like generic RTS mechanic #3 married to generic RTS setting #4 with little thought put into innovating or even integrating the two.

If you're looking for serious WWII tactical action, it's still hard to beat the Combat Mission series...at least in multiplayer. Still, the format of those games isn't always appealing to the RTS fan. Those players may find games like Blitzkrieg or Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps to be more enjoyable. They'll also find that the Patton campaign in Empires: Dawn of the Modern World offers much more personality and polish.