Article Type: Review
Article Date: November 05, 2001
So you think you’re tough? You cruised through the original Sudden Strike campaigns, crushed the single missions with one hand tied behind your back and annihilated the multiplayer opposition without breaking a sweat. So what’s left to do? Well, Sudden Strike Forever (SSF) might just provide enough challenge to keep you interested for a little longer. This is HARD (as in difficult, demanding and tricky), but does it really add to the original Sudden Strike experience? I recently spent some time playing SSF to find out.
Installation and Setup
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The Mission Selection Screen  |
Installation of SSF is very straightforward (you must have the original game installed first though). A new set of icons are added to the desktop to allow you to dive straight into the new game. On starting the game you will see the familiar starting screen, but with a couple of notable additions. First, there is a new button giving access to the four (British, American, German and Russian) new campaigns. Second, a feature much requested by players of the original, a difficulty selection button. Hurrah! The difficulty selection applies to the original single mission and campaigns (which are still accessible) as well as to the new missions. Easy, Medium and Hard settings are available, and the developers claim that the Medium setting is equivalent to the difficulty setting in the original.
New Stuff
There are a few changes to gameplay that apply to all the new missions. These are include the following:
- Laying mines - Instead of just laying mines where they stand, it’s now possible to select infantry, and then click on where you want them to lay mines.
- Unloading Units - One small irritation in the original was that all units had to be unloaded from a vehicle or building at once. Now, clicking on the vehicle or building or unit brings up a row of icons showing all personnel inside. Left clicking on a single unit will cause only that unit to disembark.
- Binoculars - Generals are now equipped with binoculars. Using this function gives a greater field of view in the direct the unit is facing.
- Driving backwards - Tanks can now drive backwards. Useful if withdrawing as you can keep the vehicle’s thickest armor facing towards the enemy.
- Experience - Units close to an officer gain experience points, though this is lost if the officer is killed or moves away. This makes it worthwhile distributing your officers throughout your forces.
- Repairing bridges - It’s no longer necessary to have a supply vehicle actually on a damaged bridge before you can order it to repair. It is now possible to select a supply vehicle, and then right click on the bridge to be repaired.
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| Russian units hold a bridge against a German assault. Note the unloading bar at the top left. |
So, no major changes in gameplay. These minor tweaks remove some irritations and give a little more flexibility compared to the original, but I can’t say that I found that they made huge changes in the way that I played the game. In addition to several new units for each country, there are also some new unit types:
- Light and heavy howitzers - Similar to the howitzers in the original but with respectively less and more power and range. Light howitzers can be dragged by troops, while heavy howitzers can only be moved by truck.
- Heavy and portable mortars - Portable mortars can be carried by troops, making them ideal for infantry versus infantry clashes, while heavy mortars can be move only by truck.
- Medics - Medics are infantry units that can heal other troops in the vicinity.
- Charge carriers - The Germans have units such as the Goliath available to them. These are remotely controlled mobile units that explode when they come close to enemy units or are destroyed.
Again, no really major additions, though I did find that portable mortars and medics allowed new tactics to be used.
The only other addition is in the terrain, where autumn, winter and desert are now depicted. These didn’t seem to affect gameplay to any great extent and are mainly cosmetic changes.
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| German paratroops descend on a wintry Russian village |
Gameplay
The first thing I looked at were the four new campaigns. Each campaign is made up of three missions featuring British in North Africa, Germans in Russia, US forces in Western Europe and Russians in Eastern Europe. I first tried the British Campaign on the Medium difficulty setting.
This begins in usual Sudden Strike fashion with an animated mission briefing featuring a relatively weak British force defending a peninsula in North Africa against determined German assaults. The desert terrain looks pretty good, with many new buildings and features, though some of the structures and units are identical to those in the first game. The British forces include many new units such as the Bren Gun Carrier (a small machine gun armed APC capable of carrying four troops), Matilda and Crusader tanks and 76.2mm anti-tank guns. The supply trucks from the original game have also disappeared, replaced by M4 trailers, though I couldn’t see any functional difference in using this new unit.
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| German troops attack a British held village in the new desert terrain |
I began the first mission by carefully placing my infantry, tanks and AT weapons to repulse the expected German attack. The first minor disappointment became obvious when the Germans attacked. German units in this campaign are field grey, as in the original, not sand coloured Afrika Corps units as I had expected. It’s not a big issue, but it seems a pity to produce new terrain, and not to at least colour units to match. Perhaps I’m just being pedantic.
My second impression came a few minutes later as I watched hordes of grenade carrying German infantry wipe out my carefully placed tanks and infantry. This is difficult. Very difficult. I tried again. Same result. It didn’t seem to matter how I place my units, the sheer numbers of opposing troops and the frequency with which they fling grenades and mortars simply overwhelmed my units. Although I survived the initial assault, I just didn’t have sufficient units left to mount an effective counterattack. As the objectives of the mission are to defend your base AND to destroy all enemy units, this meant I couldn’t finish the mission. I tried again, several times. Without success.
In addition to the sheer number of opposing units (backed up by regular reinforcements) the enemy has large numbers of indirect fire weapons such as portable and heavy mortars and howitzers. Trying to attack results in the decimation of your troops by these weapons long before they can engage enemy units. I tried frontal assaults, flanking, stealth and everything else I could think of, but to no avail. By the time I had replayed the mission a dozen times without making any notable progress, I was extremely frustrated. I tried on the Easy setting. There were slightly fewer enemy units, and they seemed less aggressive, but it was still pretty difficult.
As I played the other campaigns, I found the same thing. There is no gentle learning curve here. These missions start off as difficult as the final missions in the original game, and then get harder.
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| A British held village in North Africa |
Each of the new campaigns involves three missions. I was slightly disappointed to find that each of the missions is played on the same map (so that there are just four new campaign maps), and I would liked to have seen more varied use of the new terrains.
The seven new single missions are based on the new terrains, and are just as hard as the campaign missions.
Overall, gameplay in SSF is pretty much as it was in the original, stressing the need for careful planning and combined arms operations. The main difference here is that even with the variable difficulty settings, ALL the new missions are very challenging, and will take a fair amount of perseverance to complete.
Map Editor
One of the best features of SSF is the addition of a Map Editor that allows the player to create new single and multiplayer missions using the same tools used by the developers. This is a really flexible, detailed tool that allows users to create their own maps (or base missions on existing maps), place enemy and friendly units of all types, define unit behaviors and set objectives and victory conditions. Seven pages of the slim manual that comes with SSF is devoted to using the map editor. It’s not the most intuitive editor I have ever used, but it has great scope and flexibility if you are willing to spend some time with it. For fans of the game, this is a great addition which will extend the playability of the game considerably.
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| US forces under air attack |
Multiplayer
The original game attracted a huge multiplayer following, and SSF adds some new features to the multiplayer capabilities. The first is that SSF supports GameSpy Arcade (a copy is provided on the SSF CD), making it simpler and quicker to find multiplayer opponents. The other tweaks involve the ability to set time limits for things such as the length of time an enemy zeppelin must be held before it is captured, and the length of time a player can be without a zeppelin before they lose. Like the single player tweaks, these are relatively minor, but do remove some irritations from the original. SSF also includes twenty new multiplayer missions including Capture The Flag and King Of The Hill scenarios.
Summary
The new campaigns and single missions introduce new units and terrains, but no significant changes in gameplay. Without exception, these are very difficult, and will challenge even the most experienced Sudden Strike player. The changes to multiplayer are minor, but all are a definite improvement. The Map Editor is superb, and offers a great deal of scope for extending the life of the game. Overall, if you enjoyed Sudden Strike (and especially if you finished the original campaigns) you will enjoy SSF. Given that it retails for around half the price of the original, I’d also say that this provides good value for money.
