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Something sinister happened during the development of Blitzkrieg 2: Fall of the Reich. This stand-alone expansion pack to the well-received Blitzkrieg 2 should have been a slam dunk.  At the very least players should expect more of the same. More of the same deep, yet fairly accessible gameplay that was found in Blitzkrieg 2. And sure enough, Fall of the Reich delivers the bare minimum expected in an expansion pack. That’s not the problem. Read on.

Blitz: The Krieg

As the title might suggest, the two campaigns in Fall of the Reich focus on the Russian and German clash during the tale end of the war. WWII grognards will likely swoon at the prospect of re-enacting some famous Eastern Front battle. The rest of us will just be thankful that there’s nary a D-day mission to be found here.

Blitzkrieg 2 vets will find little has changed in this expansion pack. There’s quite a bit of detail here and on the surface, it’s pretty darned impressive. Your little soldiers have a variety of stances,  engineers can dig trenches, put up road blocks, lay mines. Artillery needs to be positioned with the help of trucks.  Tanks shoot stuff.  If you played Blitzkrieg 2, you should feel right at home.

Rush ‘n Attack

If you’re coming at this game fresh from the farm, get ready for a rude awakening. In fact, if you’re a Blitzkrieg expert, be prepared for the exact same rude awakening. Fall of the Reich is difficult.  No, strike that. Fall of the Reich is a sadistic nightmare of a game. I’m not sure what the deal is here, but the difficulty gap between this and Blitzkrieg 2 is wider than the Grand Canyon.

Even with the game set on easy, there’s not a picnic in sight. Right from the very first mission, you’ll marvel at how fast the enemy artillery finds your troops and blow them to bits. All of them. At once. The game is less about strategy and more about memorizing just how badly the enemy trounced you last time and making sure you try something different.

Reich Between the Eyes

The problem with this trial and error attitude is that it doesn’t give the player any way of recovering from the teensiest of tactical mistakes. Heck, even if you’re a strategic genius, there’s a good chance you’re going to lose anyway because the AI isn’t up to snuff.

Like many RTS games, once you give the order to attack, your units will go about looking for the best way to get the job done.  This is how it works in Fall of the Reich, except that your units often put themselves directly in harms way while trying to execute a command. For example, send your tanks out to attack an enemy tank and they will try to flank him in order to get a shot at a less armored part of the vehicle. However, while they’re busy doing that, this one little enemy tank is blowing them to smithereens. Tanks will also get themselves into positions where they are unable to fire at the enemy.

You can get around these problems by babysitting your units, but the pace of the game doesn’t allow for such a luxury. Things just come at you way too fast. This even happens in the tutorial where mere seconds after explaining your objective, some tank comes in and blows all your units away. At least in the tutorial the game gives you more units for free.

Sh*tzkrieg

Here’s the deal. Hard games are fine. No, really. They are.  But there has to be some element of fairness. Fall of the Reich pretends no such thing. It’s difficult in a mean, nasty way. I’m sure there are some people out there who are up for a challenge like this. Those people are idiots who have no life.  If you really like to be punished this much, I recommend checking out your local S&M bar. You’ll likely find the developers of this game there holding a whip with your name on it.

Article by: Greg Bemis
Video produced by: Rob Manuel