Hearts of Iron

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing fun
Review: This is a sui generis grand strategic World War II simulation. You can play any country (including Uruguay and Liberia!) and start at 3 different points. You are the absolute ruler of your country and allocate resources and production, direct research efforts, build armies, navies and planes as well as direct your military in battle. The AI is generally good, but not excellent. The naval game is severely flawed (aircraft carriers are totally useless in this game) but the land and air games work well. As with EUII, patches are frequent and the company is responsive to the gaming community.

Rating:
Summary: Very good, but could of been a bit better
Review: This game could have been one of the best ever ww2 strategy games. It is very realistic in all most everything. The "bad" part about this game is that there isnt a lot of tech support. There are patches but they still have many bugs to fix, i.e. lan multi is sometimes screwy. overall, a better then your average game.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely incredible
Review: This is without a doubt the most detailed wargame that I have ever played (the list is long and distinguished). It is everything that one could ask for from a strategic WWI simulator. ....

Yes, there are some frustrating elements of the game that folks mention, such as the ongoing popup screens, but for the most part they are all configurable behaviors. For example, the ability to hide different types of popup screens.

I highly recommend this.

Rating:
Summary: Hearts of Iron--Still lacks essence.
Review: I've been waiting for an all out strategy game of WWII for some time and Hearts of Iron is pretty close. This game is deep--in that you can research your technology, manage convoy routes, select or remove historical leaders and manage your income to support industry, technology, and to help supply your troops. Now there are a few downsides to this game. One is its graphics of equipment, such as tanks, ships, and aircraft, and although each piece of equipment is named for what it is such as Hood, Bizmarck, Tiger (tank), or Spitfire, it is displeasing to those who want to be able to actually see accurate detail of the equipment they're using. Another is the historical flag of Germany and though many might find it offensive it was part of history----This is just a game. If anything the producers should have used a red flag with a black cross. The only other thing I could find wrong with this game was its billboards. During the game these billboards keep poping up informing you of situations happening with your armies, this can get very irritating in that you always have to stop just to delete everyone of them and it's non stop! With these faults in mind it is a good strategy game of WWII.

Rating:
Summary: Deep but Difficult
Review: Hearts of Iron gave me mixed feelings. On one hand the game is incredibly deep. You can choose to conduct research from a massive list of interdependent technologies. You can choose to be any nation in the world during the various eras represented in the game. You can stockpile resources for the coming war. You can manage supply lines to keep your forces on the move. You allocate generals who gain skill and rank. It certainly has a great amount of depth.

On the other hand, the game is difficult. Managing the resources needed to keep your industries working is not for the light-hearted. When your resources run out, your production, supply, and research efforts will be hampered. Also there are alot of technologies that are requirements for others, and finding the path to your research goal will take more than a single click. Beginners may find these aspects difficult, resulting in a steeper learning curve for the game.

While some people shy away from the deep but difficult games, there are others who are drawn to them for the very same reason. If you are up to this challenge and don't mind the slow pace of a detailed strategic simulation, you will likely enjoy Hearts of Iron.

Rating:
Summary: A long time coming....
Review: I have been waiting for a full theater WW2 game. This is the best (and only) one I have ever played. The detail is amazing. Individual units are named, historical commanders and politicians. Any country on the globe can be played or influenced to join any of the three factions.

What is also really great is the chance to rewrite history. You can opt to have FDR lose the election to Landon, you can give into the Japanese and not place an embargo on them. You can steer your research into flying bombs, jet fighters, and atomic weapons.

This game is basically Axis&Allies on steriods. Although the AI can be kinda wierd sometimes. But aside from that its a great game.

Rating:
Summary: so few owe so many an apology...
Review: This game is cumbersome and sluggish. The only reason I didn't give it 1 star is because I havn't spent weeks trying to figure it all out. For people who loved Axis and Allies but wanted more, sit back and keep on dreaming. This game does not deliver.

Rating:
Summary: Methinks some of the reviewers haven't checked for patches..
Review: I was on the fence about this game, and finally took the plunge. I went to Strategy First and noticed that there were four North American patches (quite involved ones at that). Applied them all, and this is a very enjoyable game. A word of warning, though. The learning curve is steep, so you have to stay with it. It's a complex game, but WW2 was a complex time. Many of the games up to HOI only looked at one aspect of this era.

I wonder if some of the reviewers bothered to apply any of the patches. If you look at the bugs that are being fixed in each patch, it is clear that Paradox is trying to address the game's shortcomings, and they do so beautifully.

Rating:
Summary: Next generation game
Review: Having played this game constantly since it's release I've seen it go from innovative concept with many problems to a ground breaking and truly engrossing game experience. While the game was arguably released to early by Strategy First, the developers (Paradox) is maintaining a steady flow of patches that is eliminating bugs, improving the AI and adding new features at a rate that is nothing short of amazing. This is also helped by the highly active community around the game which is providing bug reports, coming up with ideas for new features and creating user mods ranging from historical events to new AI files or entire scenarios.

Anybody who has (like me) played strategy games for 20 years and is very familiar with the usual hexes, stacking rules and "I-Go, U-Go" turn format might be sceptical of the sweeping changes that HOI brings to the genre. You will very quickly get used to the variable speed (you can pause while giving orders) of the game and soon appreciate how much this brings to the game, by giving a sense of realism and continuity that positively sucks you into the game. This is especially important in multiplayer games where you can really get caught up ("what, 5 in the morning already"!) in the game.

There are some aspects of this game that add incredible depth. The tech tree is the most obvious example, it is very educational and allows you to explore every aspect of tech during the war with 14 categories with many levels of theoretical research in each, followed by many applied techs in each theoretical level. The game also has an event system that covers incidents such as the Anschluss, the Nanking Massacre and the creation of Vichy France. This system is completely open to player input so you can create your own events or install events written by other members in the community.

Overall the game is stable, truly enjoyable in single player and amazing in multi player. A definite buy!

Rating:
Summary: Solo Disaster
Review: Been playing EU and EU II since they came out. Spent a couple of weeks playing this game, then paused, tried again with the latest patch.

As well as the broken features, inaccurate and misleading manual, omitted features and random crashes, the biggest problem with this game is that it fools you into thinking it's competative.

The AI randomly controls it's units with no plan, and might be more effective if it didn't move them at all. There is no challenge at all to this game, except to see if imposing different restrictions on yourself makes it any tougher.

Aside from that, this game is not even as complex as some have said. Yes there is micromanagement hell, yes you have a lot of options to chose on the tech tree, and yes you must manage production, diplomacy and combat. However, the number of decisions you must make are limited and the problems which faced strategic commanders are entirely missing.

For an extreme example, I invaded Australia from Germany, never had to worry about supplies, or the Australians for that matter who were abscent from their own country. As the USA island hopping in the Pacific is a waste of time, just invade Japan in 1941, 1000's of miles from home, no problems.

Naval combat doesn't work, air combat is filled with bugs, and if you try to play multiplayer you will be lucky to get through 15 minutes without a crash. To top it off, air combat causes multiplayer games to crash, so what exactly is the point.

The unfinished problems and bugs I could live with, Paradox was pretty good at patching their EU series, but the game itself is so flawed by poor design decisions and a non-existant AI that I doubt they have the capacity to fix it.

If this isn't bad enough, when you try to play the game the interface will cause you more problems than the AI; Production and Expense sliders move randomly when you try to lock them, each unit needs to be deployed singularly - a chore when you create 20 transports for instance. When you use timed attacks on an enemy province, that timing order is retained, so if you try and move a unit 100's of miles away it will plot it's movement to coincide with the original attack, that is of course when the Combat Timing Box appears which seems to be random.

The game is an epic; an epic waste of time by the developer, and anyone who plays it expecting an improvement from the EU games.