World War Two in grand strategic scale!
The setting for Commander Europe at War is the most turbulent era in recent European history, namely World War Two. The player is put in charge of either the entire Allied or Axis forces with one sole purpose, the enemy’s utter defeat! Some might argue that the chosen historic setting has seen its fair share of game titles but still, when a game has got what it takes and gets its historical figures right as well as gameplay, there’s no reason to dismiss it.
Point and click never fails.
The game’s interface is a strict point and click affair, with right and left mouse clicks determining all of the available interactions. Most of the screen is taken by the map with a small bar at the top displaying general information such as faction, transport capacity, oil reserves, available manpower for each of the faction’s major nations and the dreaded oil reserves. In addition, the bottom 1/6th is occupied by the detailed info bar, in which starting from the LHS shows available resources, manpower, oil reserves and the war effort put by the major nations. As for the RHS, there’s the order tab through which a player upon selecting a unit can repair or upgrade it, the research, diplomacy and deploy buttons as well as the war map, statistics pages and the necessary end turn button. As for the middle, when no unit is selected there’s a mini-map of the whole theater of operations, while when a unit is selected specific details, combat estimates and faction-specific statistics are present. Overall it’s a sleek and seamless interface that serves its purpose well.
Well polished and familiar looks…
Being a turn based strategy game; you should not and cannot expect a custom 3D engine with polygon count running in 6-digit figures. In fact, one of the reasons for failure in SSI’s 5-star series was switching from a flat 2D map to a pseudo-3D one. Commander’s viewpoint is a traditional flat 2D map with units represented with pseudo-3D icons. As expected, being a grand strategy game, the map scale has made excessive detail devoid and superfluous and rightfully so. After all it’s a ‘light’ wargame in which eye candy takes second seat. Different terrain types are represented with different and distinct colors of the map’s hexes while unit types are easily distinguished so you can tell at a glance a motorized corps from a panzer one or an infantry army. Moreover, each country besides a specific graphic has a small icon in the bottom left corner of a unit to further increase situational awareness and control of your armies.
As soon as the player starts a scenario and takes a glance at the main map window and provided that he/she is one of the Panzer General veterans can’t help but notice the familiarity within these two games. If you have spent an unhealthy amount of game time with SSI’s light wargames will know what I mean. Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean that Commander’s graphics are a relic of the past, in fact they are well polished and detailed enough to serve their purpose and the color palette is eye pleasing. A pleasant surprise was that if a unit is upgraded its appearance changes, thus allowing you to distinct at a glance your advanced armies from your regular or obsolete ones. In addition, each nation’s unit has a specific icon on the bottom left corner which signifies the owner so you can distinguish the Belgians from the French or the Americans. However, most Allied and minor Axis units have a small airforce roundel as their icon, thus making it tricky at times to separate units from a given nation. Nevertheless it’s a nice visual feature.
Explosions and machine-gun fire.
Commander Europe at War’s sound suite is keeping up with the game’s visual element, in other words it’s sleek and functional. Sound effects range from artillery fire from big naval warships, machine-gun totting from fighter aircraft and automatic fore from tactical bombers. Fitting, functional but with one objection, that of the MG sound effect that lacks the ‘depth’ and ferocity of a proper weapon. Special note has to be taken with respect to the game’s soundtrack which is atmospheric avoiding a bombastic and ‘serious’ military theme it adds a lot to the game’s atmosphere. Overall a well designed work although the fleet movement effect is very, very familiar to Panzer General’s submarine effect.
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Commander Europe at War 
