Blitzkrieg 3 Review

Game could be given as an example of how not to design a video game. Designer at a wheel had no clue what he was doing. Missions change from borderline impossible to easy from one to another. They are designed so poorly that you do wonder if anyone else, but the designer itself have bothered to complete them, because it is really that nigh-unplayable sometimes.


Campaign is tedious to play. It is over-tuned. Very hard in a wrong way. It requires a precise choices to beat it, often the only way to complete a mission is by repeating it over and over again until you figure out the correct response to a scripted event. There is no player choice making, just a puzzle game in how game designer had beaten this game.

Missions

One mission requires you to sneak into the base. It is very difficult without a sniper and with it is easy, but very tedious. When you complete that tedious section, the main offense starts. AI is sending troops to break enemy lines. However, it sends only a limited amount of troops and you get only a limited amount of troop points. It would be fine if the enemy would not have an instant death laser from the sky which shoots outside line of sight and destroys any unit instantly. Yeah…gameplay with tight unit management, limited resources and heavily entrenched enemy which routinely wipes away your units without line of sight… Designer had no clue what he was doing and made this mission extremely frustrating to complete.

Game objectives

Another issue is that this game loves to bombard you with objectives. They are very poorly done. It tries to tell a story, but it just doesn’t work in RTS. It revolves around going to place X. Investigating place X. You discover enemies, kill them in 30 seconds. Quick, commander is getting away chase down and kill him. It bombards you with new, often optional objectives. It is confusing and annoying.

Bugged missions

Missions themselves are bugged due to AI. It has unlimited resources. It can just spam endless amounts of troops and thus if you get into a death spiral, you can’t get out. He will just outspam you. Sometimes AI just stop functioning and sends just few units against you. Game revolves heavily around knowing scripted events and preparing for them, they are that unfair.

Voice acting

I do not know why, but developers had decided it would be fun to play game in a foreign language. So, it doesn’t matter that your game is in English, you will be listening to German voice acting during campaign. Why? You just have to follow subtitles. It takes away from an immersion. It does not add anything to an experience. It just makes it more tedious and takes away an opportunity to give voice acting to the campaign. It makes game feel a lot cheaper than it actually is.


Boris himself is nothing special. He just sends units to die. AI seems to play better as it can exploit obvious weaknesses in defenses, but plays no better than sending units to die in a straight line. It will try to flank you with cheaper units, but overall it is nothing special to be worthy of advertisment and purchase for. AI is good, but not that good.


Gameplay itself is quite bad. It has a lot of mechanics, but most of them do not work. There is no reason not to purchase most expensive units, group them together and rush your enemies. Biggest, most powerful unit is the best. The only better thing are two such units together. The only better thing than that are three such units together, etc. Game quickly devolves into the lowest common denominator of RTS games and that is just grouping most powerful units and sending them to rush your enemy.

Game has potential interactions, but they just do not work or require too much work and can fail way too easily. For example, an infantry squad costs about as much as a light tank. Infantry can die at random and instantly when caught off guard. It doesn’t have capacity to fight entrenched infantry or tanks. Tanks can do anything they can do, but better. You just mix a spotter car or a tank with your tank fleet and you are golden. Why would anyone purchase infantry? It is just horrible. Games like Company of Heroes balance their units carefully. King Tiger can cost 10 times as much as cheap infantry. Here, it is just twice that with infantry being weaker and tanks more powerful.


Game itself is exceedingly mediocre. It has some truly horrible campaign design. Gameplay design is uninspired and devolves into being as any other bad RTS. Boris AI is good, but nothing spectacular. Game has no real strenghts on its own. There is nothing to see here, it is just a bad to mediocre game which history will forget.

[h1]An example of how not to design a video game[/h1] Game could be given as an example of how not to design a video game. Designer at a wheel had no clue what he was doing. Missions change from borderline impossible to easy from one to another. They are designed so poorly that you do wonder if anyone else, but the designer itself have bothered to complete them, because it is really that nigh-unplayable sometimes. [h1]Campaign[/h1] Campaign is tedious to play. It is over-tuned. Very hard in a wrong way. It requires a precise choices to beat it, often the only way to complete a mission is by repeating it over and over again until you figure out the correct response to a scripted event. There is no player choice making, just a puzzle game in how game designer had beaten this game. [b]Missions[/b] One mission requires you to sneak into the base. It is very difficult without a sniper and with it is easy, but very tedious. When you complete that tedious section, the main offense starts. AI is sending troops to break enemy lines. However, it sends only a limited amount of troops and you get only a limited amount of troop points. It would be fine if the enemy would not have an instant death laser from the sky which shoots outside line of sight and destroys any unit instantly. Yeah…gameplay with tight unit management, limited resources and heavily entrenched enemy which routinely wipes away your units without line of sight… Designer had no clue what he was doing and made this mission extremely frustrating to complete. [b]Game objectives[/b] Another issue is that this game loves to bombard you with objectives. They are very poorly done. It tries to tell a story, but it just doesn’t work in RTS. It revolves around going to place X. Investigating place X. You discover enemies, kill them in 30 seconds. Quick, commander is getting away chase down and kill him. It bombards you with new, often optional objectives. It is confusing and annoying. [b]Bugged missions[/b] Missions themselves are bugged due to AI. It has unlimited resources. It can just spam endless amounts of troops and thus if you get into a death spiral, you can’t get out. He will just outspam you. Sometimes AI just stop functioning and sends just few units against you. Game revolves heavily around knowing scripted events and preparing for them, they are that unfair. [b]Voice acting[/b] I do not know why, but developers had decided it would be fun to play game in a foreign language. So, it doesn’t matter that your game is in English, you will be listening to German voice acting during campaign. Why? You just have to follow subtitles. It takes away from an immersion. It does not add anything to an experience. It just makes it more tedious and takes away an opportunity to give voice acting to the campaign. It makes game feel a lot cheaper than it actually is. [h1]AI[/h1] Boris himself is nothing special. He just sends units to die. AI seems to play better as it can exploit obvious weaknesses in defenses, but plays no better than sending units to die in a straight line. It will try to flank you with cheaper units, but overall it is nothing special to be worthy of advertisment and purchase for. AI is good, but not that good. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] Gameplay itself is quite bad. It has a lot of mechanics, but most of them do not work. There is no reason not to purchase most expensive units, group them together and rush your enemies. Biggest, most powerful unit is the best. The only better thing are two such units together. The only better thing than that are three such units together, etc. Game quickly devolves into the lowest common denominator of RTS games and that is just grouping most powerful units and sending them to rush your enemy. Game has potential interactions, but they just do not work or require too much work and can fail way too easily. For example, an infantry squad costs about as much as a light tank. Infantry can die at random and instantly when caught off guard. It doesn’t have capacity to fight entrenched infantry or tanks. Tanks can do anything they can do, but better. You just mix a spotter car or a tank with your tank fleet and you are golden. Why would anyone purchase infantry? It is just horrible. Games like Company of Heroes balance their units carefully. King Tiger can cost 10 times as much as cheap infantry. Here, it is just twice that with infantry being weaker and tanks more powerful. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] Game itself is exceedingly mediocre. It has some truly horrible campaign design. Gameplay design is uninspired and devolves into being as any other bad RTS. Boris AI is good, but nothing spectacular. Game has no real strenghts on its own. There is nothing to see here, it is just a bad to mediocre game which history will forget.