Over the past couple of years the market for solid console-based RTS games has remained somewhat stagnant. Not entirely dead enough to be read its last rites, but worryingly comatose enough to be placed on life support. Even the highly anticipated revamp of Halo Wars (creatively names Halo Wars 2) did little to encourage renewed interest in the genre. Hungarian wonder kids at Kite Games are planning to change this woeful situation with the unveiling of their new project Sudden Strike 4.
We use the term new sparingly of course as Sudden Strike is anything but new. Coming 9 years after the release of Sudden Strike 3: Arms For Victory (the first game in the series to feature 3D graphics) Sudden Strike 4 is the most recent outing for an RTS series that has garnered both critical and commercial success on the PC. Kite Games are gambling that they can introduce a new breed of gamers to the series by porting it over to the PS4. And, despite our early reservations about playing RTS games on anything other than the PC, they have succeeded.
As gamers who grew up on Age of Empires and Command and Conquer, the PC had always been considered the only place you can get an RTS fix that hasn’t been dumbed down for spray and pray gamers. The controls needed to be precise and intuitive. The UI had to be immediately accessible and yet unobtrusive. The game play had to flow like a stream. And Sudden Strike 4 ticks all of those boxes in fine style.
Despite the obvious limitations of the D-Pad controller, Kite Games have managed to port over an incredibly immersive and challenging PC title to the PS4 and made the result both fun and engaging. At its heart Sudden Strike 4 is an old school RTS game that does exactly what we expected. Set in the WWII context, it tasks you with playing 3 campaigns – a German, Russian and Allied campaign – each with seven missions. Many of the missions are taken from real events during the second world war, which helps add an edge to the game as you test your skills in circumstances faced by real soldiers.
Unlike most RTS games, there is no base building or resource management. At the start of each mission you get a set number of units to command and that’s your lot. If you lose your entire squadron to an enemy ambush your only option is to hit restart and try a different approach. As with most RTS games, when stripped of all its adornments, we’re playing a high tech version of rock, paper, scissors; If your enemy is manning an anti-tank emplacement, you don’t send in tanks to deal with them, you use your infantry. If you’re facing an onslaught of tanks, you avoid hitting them head on, instead you attack from the rear which is a known weakness of most tanks – especially during WWII. Each unit has its own particular strength and weakness and as you progress, you unlock new units and abilities. Hero units (Commanders) are also introduced to the series which means you get to control units with special abilities. Think Warcraft III and you’ll get the idea. As you complete each mission you’re awarded up to three stars which you can then use to improve your commanders abilities.
Sudden Strike 4 also provides you with very important repair vehicles that can enter the field and help restore your tanks and other vehicles before they’re completely written off. The pacing of the original Sudden Strike games has always been slow and considered and we’re pleased to report that Sudden Strike 4 continues this fine tradition. This is a game about strategy and planning and the speed of the game reflects this. The learning curve is modest and the game only gets tougher the further you proceed. In effect this means that if you fail a mission , the chances are it’s something you did wrong and something you can fix if you try it again. The ability to save as you go along means that you can take your time, plan your approach and make adjustments as you go along. Unlike other RTS games that we’ve played and loved, Sudden Strike 4 isn’t about building as many units as possible and overwhelming the opposition. As we’ve noted earlier, there’s nothing to build. Rather, this is a sophisticated puzzle game that tasks you with finding the enemies weakness or an environmental advantage point and employing it to your best advantage. Excellent.
Graphically, Sudden Strike 4 is a thing of pure beauty on the PS4. Each screen has been lovely and painstakingly created to take full advantage of the processing power of the PS4. Visually we have to say that Sudden Strike 4 is easily one of the best looking games on the PS4.
For anyone remotely interested in the RTS genre, Sudden Strike 4 is an unexpected gift that should be enjoyed and appreciated. For newbies to the series, we can think of no better introduction. Definitely well worth playing. Go buy.
9 out of 10