Desert Rats vs. Afrika Corps preview

Desert Rats vs. Afrika Corps is a new WWII real-time strategy title. Avoiding the overcrowded marketplace of city based WWII games, Desert Rats goes for the North African confrontation that took place between the troops of Montgomery and Rommel. By moving to focus on this battle Monte Cristo games have managed to get away from the other WWII real-time strategy games and go it alone with a different struggle on a different continent.

Desert Rats will be a purely strategic title with no base to build and no resources to manage. This frees the gamer up to tinker with their combat tactics and try to outwit the enemy forces in one of two campaigns. By eliminating the bases and resources a scheme is needed to build your army up and here Desert Rats doesn’t disappoint. Before each mission in the campaign you choose which units you want from a selection of artillery and foot soldiers. To be able to add troops to the basic selection you’ll need to complete secondary and hidden objectives within the campaign missions. These supply you with command points which can be used to buy units in the selection screen. As you progress through the missions more units will automatically become available to you.

Story time

Two campaigns are available in Desert Rats. One will follow the fortunes of Rommel and the other will follow Montgomery. The missions in the preview version were well balanced with a nicely progressing difficulty curve, easing the gamer in with clearly explained objectives and plenty of opportunity for sub missions to be explored.

Single player isn’t limited to the two campaigns with a story mode and a random mission generator. The story made takes the story of five characters from the various countries involved in the struggle and cut scenes are used to progress the story. These modes are going to add plenty of longevity to this title. Desert Rats won’t be forgetting about multiplayer gaming either. Monte Cristo have packed Desert Rats with three multiplayer games, including capture the flag, for up to four gamers.

A fine balancing act

The balance between units and combat feels polished and satisfying. The developers have tried to make a more realistic experience with the vehicles available to you in game. Vehicles don’t have drivers built in to them but rather must be manned by your foot soldiers. Each vehicle has a set number of soldier slots and the more that get filled the better the vehicle performs. A tank with a driver has a limited visibility range, manoeuvres slowly and takes a long time to fire. Add a couple more units and visibility is improved and operations occur much more quickly.

ou need to balance your army between manning the vehicles and leaving yourself enough foot soldiers. This feature extends to enemy vehicles which can be captured by spare soldiers. This means that, while you are limited to the soldiers you start a level with you aren’t limited to the vehicles that you start with.

A very scenic desert

Whilst you might think that basing a game in the desert might be an excuse to skimp on the graphical detail Desert Rats vs. Afrika Corps won’t disappoint. The preview code already has plenty of details in the terrain and good texture mapping means that the landscapes aren’t dull. The 3D engine is capable of rendering real-time light and shade effects from the in game units and the terrain adding a feeling of depth to the levels. Scenery can be destroyed by the larger units in the game and seeing your tanks rolling over fences and trees helps to lend a feeling of quality to the presentation.

The game features the gamut of presentation features that we have come to expect from real-time strategy titles like a fully controllable camera and pre-rendered cut scenes to move the missions along. Along with the real-time control you can pause the game and still issue commands. This little feature gives a turn based feel to proceedings but helps to prevent you feeling overwhelmed by the frantic action.

Shipping out

Desert Rats looks like a promising game. By stepping away from the more common battleground of Europe and into the desert it immediately gets a hook to distinguish it from other WWII real-time strategy games. The presentation is certainly going to be an asset to Desert Rats but at the moment it isn’t anything out of the ordinary - sure it’s good but it isn’t really very far ahead of other modern real-time strategy games. The gameplay and strategy is what will sell this game in the end and Monte Cristo seems to have that sorted. With a few unique tweaks and gameplay features this is going to appeal to plenty of gamers and the story and campaign modes might even attract new gamers to the genre.

Monte Cristo are going to be putting this game on shelves pretty soon now so we won’t have to wait long to see whether they can deliver on their promises. In the meantime you can download both a single-player demo and a multiplayer demo in order to see for yourself...