Panzer Elite

Rating:
Summary: Panzer Let Down
Review: The Germans have finally broken into the PC wargame market and this is one of their first offerings.

Comparable to Panzer Commander, except with slightly better graphics, the simulation just lost credibility with me when I found out that play seems to use a 'hit point' system to decide when a tank has been knocked out.

In many cases you must shoot tanks repeatedly to knock them out, even from very short range (even with very powerful guns) until their hit points run out and they burn.

This 'hit point' system lends itself well to internet play (which the game features) because participating players have to be hit more than once to be killed (otherwise, most of them would lose immediately---no fun there). However, as a solo simulation, this feature is a dud.

I had to repeatedly shoot the lower hull of an M-4 Sherman from 200 yards five times with a PZ-IV J high velocity 75mm gun for it to brew up (give me a break!)

I think the designers just got greedy and aimed for the internet gaming market and modified the features accordingly at the cost of a real battle simulation.

Another thing which quickly got on my nerves was the robotic and repetitious voices of the crew which seemed to describe their every single action. I guess they could have worked on giving a little more on realism on the voices than the stilted, robotic dialogues here.

My other peeve is the infantry, which looks like moving shooting-gallery target silhouettes.

Nice points?

Yes, one. The game lets you custom design your own keyboard hot keys, so that you can fashion your own controls.

Other than that,I hate to say I liked Panzer Commander better. The only good point is this game runs much smoother with windows XP than Panzer Commander does.