Steel Panthers 2: Modern Battles

Rating:
Summary: The Mother of all Armor Strategy Games
Review:

Thank you, Saddam, for your "Mother of - " contribution to the English Language. And thank you, Ingram Micro, for keeping me up night after night strategizin' and tacticizin' in battles large and small. This game was a blast and still is a blast, even though it's sorely outdated as far as graphics go. But, gameplay is far more important than prettiness, and that's where this game delivers.

So far, I haven't found a turn-based modern warfare game with the magic of this one. Whether you're playing a skirmish or a tank battle that makes Kursk look like a sorority slapfight, the range of options in this game is awesome. You can be a lieutenant or a 4-star general.

There was a Steel Panthers III, but I never got into it very much. Hopefully they'll crank out a 4 that captures the fun of 2 with better graphics and gameplay.

-- JJ Timmins

Rating:
Summary: The Mother of all Armor Strategy Games
Review:

Thank you, Saddam, for your "Mother of - " contribution to the English Language. And thank you, Ingram Micro, for keeping me up night after night strategizin' and tacticizin' in battles large and small. This game was a blast and still is a blast, even though it's sorely outdated as far as graphics go. But, gameplay is far more important than prettiness, and that's where this game delivers.

So far, I haven't found a turn-based modern warfare game with the magic of this one. Whether you're playing a skirmish or a tank battle that makes Kursk look like a sorority slapfight, the range of options in this game is awesome. You can be a lieutenant or a 4-star general.

There was a Steel Panthers III, but I never got into it very much. Hopefully they'll crank out a 4 that captures the fun of 2 with better graphics and gameplay.

-- JJ Timmins

Rating:
Summary: A good follow-up to Steel Panthers
Review: First of all, if you want a good description of the game, look at the GameSpot Review above.

I originally purchased SPI, and will concentrate on some points that, for me, at better at SPII than its predecessor.

First of all, you got the modern AFVs. In SPI, it was frustrating to fight against the germans, which at the first part of the war (until 1943) were unbeatable. In SPII, the opposite is true. If you have the american troops, YOU are almost unbeatable. This is specially true if you happen to have several Apache on your side. So sometimes it is advisable not to buy all the units you could, to bring the computer some advantadge and contribute to a more interesting battle.

I keep returning to this game (even though it shows its age) because of its flexibility. You want to fight a campaign? - Do it. Sometimes I want to play a little battle, and I can do that and even decide the units for both sides, since you can buy both your units and the computer ones. You can decide the length of turns of the battle, a main point of frustration on SPI where you had to rush to conquer those victory points.

You now have ammo trucks that can reload those empty tanks and helis. It's excellent if you are playing a long scenario. I also loved the possibility of moving the target points for artillery/planes at the end of each turn.

And since you have lots of armies and weapons, with several degrees of technologies, you can play countless what-if battles.

Rating:
Summary: A good follow-up to Steel Panthers
Review: First of all, if you want a good description of the game, look at the GameSpot Review above.

I originally purchased SPI, and will concentrate on some points that, for me, at better at SPII than its predecessor.

First of all, you got the modern AFVs. In SPI, it was frustrating to fight against the germans, which at the first part of the war (until 1943) were unbeatable. In SPII, the opposite is true. If you have the american troops, YOU are almost unbeatable. This is specially true if you happen to have several Apache on your side. So sometimes it is advisable not to buy all the units you could, to bring the computer some advantadge and contribute to a more interesting battle.

I keep returning to this game (even though it shows its age) because of its flexibility. You want to fight a campaign? - Do it. Sometimes I want to play a little battle, and I can do that and even decide the units for both sides, since you can buy both your units and the computer ones. You can decide the length of turns of the battle, a main point of frustration on SPI where you had to rush to conquer those victory points.

You now have ammo trucks that can reload those empty tanks and helis. It's excellent if you are playing a long scenario. I also loved the possibility of moving the target points for artillery/planes at the end of each turn.

And since you have lots of armies and weapons, with several degrees of technologies, you can play countless what-if battles.

Rating:
Summary: The Steel Pather Series Rocks
Review: I don't usually go for soot'em up kinda games. I prefer to think. This game has given me the best of both worlds. From pounding the ground with massive artillery strikes to moving an airmobile battalion, this game give hard core fire power with the need for tactics and strategy.

Rating:
Summary: Steel Panthers 2 -- Modern Battles
Review: Steel Panthers 2 is a fantastic improvement over the original of the series, Steel Panthers. Your expanded capabilities are further enhanced by a patch from SSI which corrects some of the games deficiencies.

My major problem with Steel Panthers 2 is that the AI is not up to par. The AI is not smart, and has no tactical sense on the offense, but is fairly good on defense. The AI substitutes numbers for tactical sense.

There is also an "artillery cheat" built into the game (Gary Grigsby games always have the AI cheat) that will pound your hidden units, find units that have not moved or fired, and will hammer your headquarters unit wherever you put it on the map.

The expansion battlesets from SSI have added several modern European campaigns to go with the basic campaigns, and there is a bulletin board of scenarios for you to try.

Overall, this is my favorite tactical sim. But get the patch from SSI to improve the game.