Sudden Strike 4 - Review

Описание: Sudden Strike 4 is the newest addition to a series that is over 1 and half decades old. And in my humble opinion one of the gold standards when it comes to Real Time Strategy games. Sudden Strike 4 once again puts you as a general in WW2 and the single player has you pick from one of three campaigns. Soviet campaign, Allied, and German. But without further ado, let’s jump right into some of the positives about the game.

Positives
The game is largely unchanged from its predecessors, and that is a good thing, a lot of familiar mechanics are still there but now it has a much more polished look, even though I never really minded the 2d graphics.
And as a another positive, just like its ancestors, this game is not a walk in the park, real strategy needs to be thought out here, which typically falls into a game of visibility and a little bit of positioning, which is very much of the Sudden Strike motto.
My last positive about the game is your ability to really use the full map to it’s potential, if you have some artillery batteries in your army it is completely advised and even encouraged to just rain down fire on enemy positions and just carpet the place without either side really even knowing where the fire is coming from. This is an aspect of Real Time Strategy games that you really do not see, and when you factor in the supply system and making sure your men, tanks, planes, and artillery are fully stocked and can keep fighting, this is just something else that no other RTS game really dares to try and Sudden Strike does it so well.
Negatives
My biggest negative about the game is it’s unimaginative cover system, I find it to be tolerable in the older games due to their 2D graphics but in the wake of games like Men of War and Company Heroes that have very intuitive systems for cover for infantry, Sudden Strike is still woefully lacking behind this. Your infantry troops will really only have one of three options when they engage an enemy and they are: Stand up and shoot at them, get on the ground and shoot at them, or, maybe run into a house IF one is nearby. That is about it, and it can be incredibly frustrating to be very tactical at this game when your infantry has so few options in how they can cover and engage an enemy.
My second and last negative of the game has to do with the aiming, hitboxes, and hitpoints mechanics because, I got really frustrated at that it seemed less like my men or the enemy were really taking aim at each other, and more like the game was making a machine gunner purposely take 8 shots before he hit a guy one time, and that guy lost 25 points of health. For me that really rustled my jimmies and made me losing some of the immersion. When your company is ambushed by a machine gun nest, your men shouldn’t have the time to stand up, access the situation, lay down, have a sandwich, and have them contemplate life as bullets are just arbitrarily flying past them.


Verdict: Sudden Strike 4 could seem like a daunting game for some, the $50 price tag is not the faint of heart and might deter some people new to the Real Time Strategy genre away. However, if you are a red blooded seasoned veteran like myself in this genre, then I would recommend this game, I do not think you will be disappointed. The rating I would give this game is a solid 3.5/5 G’s. However, if you are still wet behind the ears then I would highly recommend picking up the older versions of this game that were just released on Steam, I believe you can pay like $15 for the whole bundle which does include Sudden Strike 2, which in my humble opinion, is the superior game.