Blitzkrieg: Burning Horizon review

A game based on Rommel's battles wouldn't be complete without a Tobruk scenario.

Blitzkrieg sold more than 500,000 copies and thus German publisher CDV and developer Nival Interactive are busy working on a brilliant-looking sequel. Naturally with such a profitable franchise at their hands there was no doubt that we’d get something inbetween the two games. Blitzkrieg: Burning Horizon is that gap filler and has been released at a time when World War II real-time strategy games are more plentiful than fake military items on eBay. Thus the question is whether you should invest in Burning Horizon or go for new developments like Soldiers: Heroes of World War II. We’ll take a closer look at that in this review.

Blitzkrieg: Burning Horizon is a stand-alone expansion meaning that you don’t need the original game to play it. The price is somewhat lower than that of a ‘full’ game, but don’t let that fool you. There’s quite a lot of new content in Burning Horizon compared to the first game.

In the sandy tracks of Rommel

This is a brilliant mission where the British are under attack by Japanese troops.

Burning Horizon focuses on the battles fought by the legendary German general Rommel, beginning in northern France in 1940 and ending with the Allied invasion in 1944. This is actually a very good decision since you’ll get to play one long string of ‘historic’ missions instead of random battles. I played Blitzkrieg a lot when it was released last year, but then boredom set in because of the repeating random missions. With the Rommel campaign this is a problem of the past. Objectives vary a lot and even include freeing hostages and besieging towns.

Since Rommel not only fought lots of offensive battles, but also got his share of defending, you won’t get bored and most of the campaign has a freshness to it not seen in the original. As usual you’ll get a couple of core units, which you can upgrade to new equipment as you progress. Burning Horizon includes 56 new units, although some are just variations of infantry (read: not interesting). Besides the 18-mission Rommel campaign you’ll find a bunch of single-player mission that also vary a lot in objectives and tactics needed. One of my favourites is the Singapore mission, where you get to fight the Japanese (the only new country in Burning Horizon).

"I would rather he had given me one more division"

The Allies invade Normandy. The beginning of the end for Rommel.

Blitzkrieg: Burning Horizon is a bit more difficult than the original and should thus appeal to those of us who need new challenges. Enemy AI also seems to have been improved slightly but it’s still mostly a matter of the computer having many more units than you – which means that at least it doesn’t cheat on resources, line-of-sight and such. New players should not worry, though, as the easy setting once again gives your German units a healthy advantage over the Allied. Blitzkrieg doesn’t let you construct new units during missions, so you’ll have to make it through the mission with a given number of units. Sadly the infantry is again somewhat irrelevant most of the time; so I tended to rely heavily on tanks, artillery and maybe a couple of defensive machine guns myself. In reality it’s again a question of spotting the enemy’s artillery before he finds yours and you’ll have an easy time.

Where Blitzkrieg excels is the ease with which you can conduct assaults and coordinate attacks giving you the feeling of really ruling the battlefield. The high (but not too high) number of units gives this game a more strategic feel than most other real-time strategy games and I really enjoy going for ‘just one more map’. Another very nice aspect is the way units gain experience and ranks enabling them to fire quicker and aim better than green units. You’ll also get promotions and historical medals,like the Iron Cross,yourself.

Old and new problems

Infantry. Not the troop category I used most often in this game.

Sadly Nival Interactive didn’t use this occasion to fix some of the most irritating flaws in the game. Manoeuvring and positioning units (especially artillery) is still worse than navigating London’s morning traffic in a car. Not only will units often get stuck when close to other units (‘it’s not my turn to back off!’), they will often also fail to respond to your frantic orders during an enemy attack or get widely scattered, because the game refuses to let the units form a tight formation automatically. Worst of all is the lack of indicators on good places to unload artillery. Often you can order a truck to unload at a certain point and then think that everything is in order, just to realise that it didn’t unload, when you need the gun during an enemy attack.

CDV are usually very strict on historical facts and have again included a huge database for all the units with lots of good info. But this time you’ll see some strange inconsistencies like a PzKpfw III Aus J in 1940. That tank did not enter production before March of 1941. It may be a small detail, but it ruins the historical illusion for World War II fans.

Fans should apply, others should scout the market

Bridging the gap between Blitzkrieg and Blitzkrieg 2.

Blitzkrieg: Burning Horizon is one of the last franchises that doesn’t use 3D graphics. Instead the graphics are beautifully rendered 2D graphics and personally I like them a lot. 3D graphics tends to use less details and I don’t really miss the option to zoom and rotate the camera freely. The 2D graphics engine also allows resolutions of up to 1600x1200 and thus suits even the biggest screen. Sounds have not changed a lot and unit voices are only provided in German, but they are not terribly interesting so you’ll survive not understanding them.

The game is a very good reminder of what made Blitzkrieg such a popular game and with the historic campaign as its centrepiece we avoid the tedious random missions of the original. However, it’s also clear that bigger and better things are happening at the moment and with Soldiers: Heroes of World War II in the stores and Codename: Panzers only 1½ months away from release, only Blitzkrieg fans should go for Burning Horizon. Those fans will, however, enjoy this product very much.