Panzer Command: Ostfront Demo

Wargames may not be the most popular niche of video games out there, but they are very appreciated by the fans and they still need to hold up to some pretty high standards. Also, the fans may be in lower numbers, but that only means they can easily make a game fall into obscurity from the get-go and force the developers to comply with their requests.

Panzer Command: Ostfront takes a stab at the genre and it aims to incorporate elements from a variety of different sources, including the Combat Mission franchise and some other similar games. However, the developers did not really pay attention to what was worth importing from these games and brought over some less popular mechanics, which may be the cause for some disgruntled players.

As you can probably tell from the title, the emphasis is put on the battles from the Eastern Front during the second World War, which means that you will visit places like Kursk and take part in the famous Barbarossa campaign conducted by the German forces. There are dozens of other scenarios to try out, as well as a few lengthier campaigns and the possibility to randomly create an endless amount of scenarios using the included generator.

However, the massive amounts of content do not really matter when you cannot play the game properly, since there are a lot of mistakes and inconsistencies in the mechanics. Moreover, the interface can be extremely uncomfortable to use, because it is not very responsive and it takes a long time to sort it out, despite the rather lengthy tutorial included with the game.

Although it is accepted that the graphics are not important in wargames, the bad models kind of ruin the mood when the rest of the gameplay does not rise to the expectations. Hence, while the above statement may be true in most cases, it only works if the game is very engaging and the mechanics function like a charm. Otherwise, you’ve got time to look at the environments and realize that sprites are still a thing, apparently.

Even if Panzer Command: Ostfront may have started with some interesting ideas and the huge amounts of content may be very difficult to resist, you must realize that there are better alternatives out there. Hence, due to the horrible interface and the flawed gameplay mechanics, it becomes very annoying to actually enjoy the game.