Hearts Of Iron 2

Rating:
Summary: Oh HOI, I loved not wisely but too well
Review:
Ok, first off the caveats: i LOVED hoi1 (the previous version of this game). Though not without its flaws, it was a masterful war game and an intruiging industrial/technology simulation system. That game kept me going for around a whole year or more once the CORE modifications came online.

Naturally I was eager to see what lay in store in HOI2. Having some days off work I played for around a week solid (the wife was away, I swear), and I thought (and think) Paradox did a great job with much of it. Air and sea missions are much more realistic, though still IMO not quite right. Production, trade, and diplomacy are generally excellent. And the new move-is-attack system is in some ways great. Convoys and supply are vastly improved.

And (amazingly for Paradox) the game was pretty bug free and their usual fantastic support had a patch out a couple of days after release as well.

But... after 2-3 weeks of occasional play I am bored.

Maybe it's the passing of a youthful crush and the old passion just isn't there any more. Maybe HOI2 wasn't as experimental as I hoped once we got intimate... but the love is gone, dude.

Gripes and complaints:
1. The tech system; it sucks. Very little variety and the only interesting strategic technology choices (doctrines) are made already if you are a major power. All units are the same, and concentrating on a particular tech sector (i.e. specialization) is severely discouraged due to every tech having an assigned 'year'. I confess I like the fact you can assign tech teams to specific technologies even if it's a bit hokey. But there's no way to use anything to 'speed' important research.
2. Units. Due to the tech system, all units basically feel the same. The old feeling of "I might have crummy infantry, but my tiger IIs will save the day" never happens.
3. Resources. The battle for resources (partly, I admit due to a much better trade system) never really happens as a major power. No incentive to invade the Caucasus for that oil. Oil refinement and resource management technolgies are mostly irrelevant.
4. AI. Ok, ok I know AI is very difficult, and HOI2 does a fair job, but still... it's fairly basic. No different from HOI1 in general.
5. Leaders. Some unrealistic decisions about leaders have been made. All leaders die on their historical date of death. So rommel's death in 1944 happen no matter what. Since the inherent logic of the game is to change the historical events somehow, it breaks the game logic that characters should die the same day they did in real life - because in general the game history will have been entirely different that the real history.

I'd love to give this game 3.5 stars, but I can't. It's better than average, in fact it's pretty unique apart from its predecessor, and especially if you never played HOI1 you'll probably love it. Also the user mod community is extremely strong so expect a very different, and much improved game to emerge soon enough. But i just can't shake the feeling they've taken a lot of the flavor out... but then again I'm just set in my ways and given to moaning about how great things used to be and how everything's gone to the dogs anyway.

My advice: get the game if you know other Paradox games, but wait for the major mods to be out before you do so.


Rating:
Summary: Fantastic - Detailed - Obsessive Game
Review: All sense of reality will disapear while playing this game. Immersive is an understatement. I fell asleep running through scenarios that would allow me to resupply my 12 divisions in Moscow. (I pushed a little far into Russia hoping to force a quick capitulation - mistake #1).
HOI 1 was great this game fixes most of the mistakes and is just as much fun as the first one. I can't wait until the CORE mod is available for this version!

Rating:
Summary: Ha
Review: As you all can see, the guy who is two post below me has no life and thus should not be taken seriously.

It is a very good game. Thank You :)

Rating:
Summary: An iron-laden dud. For the hardcore only...
Review: Before dismissing my negative feedback out of hand, please consider that i've been an avid wargamer for over 25 years. I've played the original Avalon Hill board games, I've played the low-resolution early computer games like SSI's releases, i've played literally THOUSANDS of hours of Civ, Civ 2, Alpha Centauri, Rome:Total War, etc. etc. etc. I've probably played 50-75% of all historical simulation games ever released on PC.

And I can confidently say: Hearts of Iron is a dud.

One could complain about the intermitten "quit to Windows" crashes (even with the 2.11 patch installed)...

One could complain about the very lame tutorial: There's no way to go back any step in the tutorial; the "next" arrow reverses backwards, etc.

One could complain about the poor graphics: units look like blobs of dung on the board; the sprites move in fitfull bursts; the perspective of the units is bizarre at times.

One could complain about the clunky interface: fixed resolution, a tabbed structure reminiscent of web design in 1998.

But what really kills it is that it's not a fun game. Yes, clearly there is a lot of detail here. But detail is not the same as gameplay.

Hearts of Iron is more accurately described as an attempt to create a model of a historical event. As a model, perhaps it's not a bad one. But modeling history and making a game are very different things.

I'm surprised to see such glowing reviews of this product here. Perhaps there are hardcore players who simply love this level of detail, despite all the other shortcomings of this... er... "game" (sic)? But I think for 90% of the folks buying HOI, they'll be both overwhelmed AND bored by the play (if they can even sort out play from the inept tutorial).

When wargame fans wonder why the market for historical games is so small, why sales figures are so low, why interest in this quadrant of gaming is so lacking... we need only look at the reviews on this website. POOR GAMES like Hearts of Iron are lauded by reviewers, even though they stink. Without insisting that playability for historical games be THE salient issue, the wargame market will continue to be small and beset by failures.

Hearts of Iron, while clearly a fantastic research and modeling project, is a terrible game. To call it a "game" is misleading, really.

Rating:
Summary: Strategy? Others only dream to be like HoI
Review: I own hundreds of pc games, and this is the best strategy game for pc that I've seen. If you are a Civilization freak, like Empire Earth, Total War, Harpoon or anything similar - you'll like this. It's based on the old Victory! play by mail game and it gets in-depth in all the right areas. A full game will easily take a week or more. Unfortunately the manual leaves a lot to be desired. No table of contents, a backwards index that isn't helpful, no color coding on the pages for sections, entire areas left out of the manual (radars, for example), and poor explanations will leave you scratching your head.

Pros -

All countries are in there, every little one.
Country specific units/leaders for every country that I've seen
Full naval and air force units
Excellent research trees, varied, large and well thought out

Cons -

Game is timed, ends in 1947 or so.
Dorky unit markers, no variety
Bad manual
Getting allies or even non-agression pacts is nearly impossible

Rating:
Summary: A dumbed down version of HoI
Review: OK, they finally fixed some of the numerous bugs from the original HoI (which is easily the lowest quality commercial software that I have ever seen - and I've seen a lot), migrated some others into HoI2 and introduced some new ones. Anyone considering buying it should take into account that it is a very different game than HoI since Paradox made a concious decision to target a different (and supposedly much bigger) market segment. Surely, there's a big overlap with HoI fan base, but many people who love HoI hate HoI2 and vice versa. Compared with HoI, complexity of HoI2 has been vastly reduced, all major countries now have identical military units with the same combat stats, and the game is sharply focused on ground combat (which can now be reliably won only through sheer numbers) - there's simply nothing else to do for the player (research is almost an afterthought and the player has very little control over air and naval units) with the notable exception of a new trade system.

***TWO NEW PARAGRAPHS***

As I played HoI2 for some time, I discovered that it had even more bugs than I originally thought (even though I downloaded the patch). Combined with some very inconvenient features of the interface, this makes the game almost unplayable unless you can play it in very long sessions. However if you just play an hour now and an hour then, be advised that the state of the game is not saved accurately when you save the game, so every time you reload you have to waste a lot of time just restoring your settings (you literally may need hundreds of mouse clicks just to adjust your industrial capacity allocations - and Paradox could have easily fixed that proplem in just a few minutes by saving these settings accurately rather than rounding them off). Just as about any other Paradox game, HoI2 was clearly not ready for release and I would advise anybody considering the game just to wait for a year or so - there will be several more patches by then and the game will most likely be sold cheaper as well.

Furthermore, when I complained about bugs on their forum, I got banned. OK, if they don't want their product's defects to be mentioned on their own website that's fair enough (although that "customer service" is quite heavy-handed and normally a paying customer expects a very different reaction). But even worse, they now do not allow me to not only post anything, but even READ the forum. This is really mean, considering that the forum contains a lot of FAQs and explanations, while the manual does not explain many important things about the game and in fact both the manual and in-game tips refer the player to the Paradox forum as a source of further information. So I would advise everybody to beware of Paradox.

Rating:
Summary: Well what can i say
Review: some will complain about the graphics, its true the graphis are poor, but the game has never aimed at good graphics, how can it compete in budget with the big guns.
Some will say the sound is weak. I agree i could be worked on but when it works it influences your playing style and you don't get annoyed with it it fits in mostly or you get used to it.
Some will say the the game has a steep learning curve. It does but the game also has near infinite playability. And the learning curve is still fun especially in the scenarios or playing co-op with people online
some say it is the same as hoi, it looks similar yes and while you get used to it it is but the game is much updated and i would have payed 2* as much for this game.
the movement is attack works tremendously making you feel brilliant when you perform a pinser movement and trap the whole enemy army:)

But if you do not like to have to concentrate hard in computer games, or prefer much more graphically adept games this is not for you,( my other favourite game is call of duty united offensive) otherwise why havent you already bought it.

Sorry just thinking the flaw i get annoyed with most is the early campaigns can take hours before the war, which for me is dull,only researching building, trading and influencing other countries, i would have prefered an extra speed setting.


Rating:
Summary: HOI 1 or HOI 2?
Review: The sequel of the best WW2 strategy game to date arrived. Anyone that bought HOI 1 in the past might have realised though that the game was not worth much until excited owners that saw great potential in the game system begun to modify the basic programme. The best attribute of Paradox games is that they could be almost fully customisable by owners and these modifications made by independent communities are in fact shared freely in several websites (e.g. make a quick search for CORE and Stony Road). In fact thanks to those modifications HOI 1 became rapidly a huge success being at the moment the best WW2 simulation to date (this is currently including HOI 2 I am afraid).

Unfortunately from several HOI 1 veterans that already own HOI 2 the general critic is that the pure vanilla game (without customers programme modifications -non Paradox related- which because the game is newly released they do not seriously exist just yet) the game is not worth much and it is easy to see how disappointed they are.

My suggestion to the people that own HOI 1 is to continue using it together with the custom mods (it took more than two years to evolve to where we stand now with the game and I can assure the result is awesome) and wait to buy HOI 2 until the veteran community begin to release the game corrections and modifications (Paradox is also famous for their bugs and terrible graphics although as I said almost everything can be improved with time by the customer community and it will be). This will take minimum 2 to 3 months which means that if you are desperate to get the game you should wait until around April 2005 if we are lucky to have the initial serious attempts. If you have never played HOI in the past I would go for the first version of it which should be at least half the price and together with the free downloadable mods it is better than the current HOI 2. Again I would expect that with time and the help of the HOI community this will be reverted and as an added bonus HOI 2 will also be much cheaper without having to pay the release price.



Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Strategy Game
Review: This will be another wonderful strategy game that doesn't sell as many copies as it deserves.

The bad:

The graphics are lacking, there's no denying that. Being able to change the resolution would be a nice option as well. The sound is functional, a few more chimes for events would be nice. Being able to reconfigure some things on they keyboard would be very helpful as well, I have to disable the F-lock key on my keyboard to use the pause key; if I could move it to something else that would be keen.

The manual is a bit too conversational. The fact that they include a manual is nice, many games just give you PDFs. There were a few things that weren't explained well in the manual, but overall the explanations are reasonably good. Some things, like the formulae for industrial capacity should be put into the manual. It's nice to have in writing the base number of resources required for industrial capacity. There is no table of contents and the index is in page order at the back of book instead of alphabetical order by topic.

A game of "grand strategy" shouldn't come in a grand paper sleeve, a jewel case would be nice.

The good:

The players are allowed to choose any sovereign state at the time of their scenario. You aren't restricted to playing only major powers. For interesting games, try some of the regional powers like Brazil, Italy, or even Spain (extremely complex with the revolution throwing off your plans). Plus, playing these other capable, but extremely limited states helps you improve your efficiency since you cannot merely squander any resources. Every country plays in its own unique way, you cannot merely use a one-size-fits-all strategy.

The political model is very good. Your actions are restricted by the policies of your government, which you can slowly change over time. This means that pre-Pearl Harbor US is an extremely hard country to use well on the global level, because you are limited by very isolationist policies. Essentially, this forces you to play in-character for your choice, although you still have very many ways to play each state.

The units are extremely well made, clearly a lot of research was put into this.

The research trees are very, very good. Excellent variety on the air, land, and see doctrine research trees. Each nation again has it's own options here. The ability to try secret weapons research is a great addition, it's not a guaranteed things which adds some actual choice in the matter to pay for it or not. Plus, again each nation has it's own feel for research due to it's available research capacity and research capabilities. Some nations are extremely powerful in research, some are destined to always be behind a bit.

There are many other good things about this game, leaders, special events, etc. I wish I could list them all, but I'd need much more space.

Overall:

Overall, this is a great strategy game. It won't dazzle you with amazing graphics. You can find nearly all of the information you could wantthere were a few things I'd like that aren't available, at least anywhere I could find. My list of complaints are minor and are mostly concerning things that happen outside the game itself. If you like serious, number-crunching strategy, this is a great game. It takes quite a while to play, but every state in every scenario can be a rewarding challenge which makes the replay value seem quite high to me. Plus, it's a nice light lesson in international relations, history, and strategy. Paradox has put a lot of research and effort into this game and it really, really shows.

Rating:
Summary: Why am I wasting time...
Review: Why am I wasting time writing a review...
when I could be playing Hearts of Iron 2 (HOI2)?
The answer is the one "thumbs-down" review I read. You know which one; I really don't think there can be a second similar review.

To tell you the truth, I am a fan of Paradox games. I like micromanagement; I like the historical aspects of their games and I REALLY like the fact that they have taken the term "modability" to new levels.

HOI2 has all the advantages of the original HOI, very few of the disadvantages and numerous new features.
The new diplomatic options are great: No more, easy & instant tech-exchange with every friendly country. You can exchange blueprints with your allies but you have to research the tech.
You need to influence a nation? With HOI2 it has become much more realistic because you (may) influence its policies towards your own views. You won't take a country "closer to Axis" per-se, but will do it in a subtle way influencing its politics: You will make them more Authoritarian, their ideology more Right-wing and then MAYBE they will come closer to the Axis.
The new production/consumption/trading system is incredible. No matter what country you play you will find yourself trying to achieve that "delicate balance" for countless hours.
Research? Well, I had my doubts on the new simplified research system but they have disappeared ever since the first game of HOI2. The new system gives you much better control over the technological status of your country and your army, without emposing hundreds of "the 40mm or 50mm gun?" useless questions.

And if this is not enough, the new war system is SO good that I found myself wondering "why hasn't someone else had this movement-is-attack idea before?". The new mission system for naval/air units is also extremely helpful and effective.


Things I don't like?
The AI cannot be compared to a human. But since I don't expect my computer to smile at me every time I have the blues, I REALLY don't expect the AI of a €30 game to be any better than it already is.
And it IS better than the original HOI, even with all the updates.
Is it better because it's more scripted?
Do I *really* care???

My major concern is that they still haven't added the timestamp on the saved files, so I really don't know if I should reload SavedGame12 or SavedGame13 after the fall of Stalingrad.

And this must be the biggest shortcoming of this game... "Saved games timestamps". Please don't smile... I am serious!!!


All in all, HOI2 is an EXCELLENT game. I would never give 5 stars to ANY game (except perhaps Simcity4 and the original Civilization), not even to the original HOI. But HOI2 deserves all the stars in our galaxy... and then some.

That's all... I'm off because it's June 1941 and I have a hunch that something's about to happen off the coast of Honolulu.
One final note: If you do buy the game, make sure you: 1.Fight with your spouse/parents 2.Take all your remaining sick-leave from work/school 3.Disconnect the phone (you don't want to fight with your spouse AND your friends)
;-)

------------
[edit]
I am ashamed...
and I apologise to all for this edit.

But I just found out that HOI2 DOES have the timestamp of the saved games!!!
The positioning and font size are a bit awkward though.

So this is my final negative comment on this game:
"The positioning AND font size of the timestamp of the saved games are all WRONG"

There, I said it!