Stalingrad Demo

Blitzkrieg is probably one of the most well-known real-time strategy series out there, since it emphasizes heavily on realism and historical accuracy, although it takes some liberties as well. Hence, there are plenty of mods and remakes out there, all of which attempt to either fix Blitzkrieg’s mistakes, or add new features that would have made it better.

Stalingrad goes a bit further than that, since it basically uses the same engine as Blitzkrieg and most of the same mechanics, which means that the fans of the original should be quite familiar with it. However, the game pays more attention to history and it successfully manages to fix a few things here and there, all of which make the gameplay a tad more interesting.

As you probably guessed from the title, the entire campaign revolves around the famous battle for the Soviet city, which proved to be one of the most vicious and bloody confrontations of the second World War. However, you get to play as both sides and see the conflict from every perspective, in order to get a better grasp on what truly transpired back then.

You start every scenario with a few units you have to keep alive until the end, which means that you cannot train others and every move counts. Setting up ambushes, entrenching your vehicles and making sure that most of your troops survive are the things you have to keep in mind throughout the missions, because you’ll have a tough time if you don’t pay enough attention.

The isometric graphics engine looks as good now as it did then, not to mention the fact that it supports wide resolutions and a lot of care went into the environments and the maps. However, it can get difficult to click on your units if you increase the resolution too much, given the fact that the models get smaller and smaller.

In the end, if you enjoy tactics and strategy, Stalingrad is everything it promises to be, although it obviously loses points for borrowing most of its innards from Blitzkrieg. Hence, the game might only be attractive to hardcore strategy fans, given the rather high difficulty level and the complex gameplay mechanics.