Panzer Corps 2 Reviews

[Kiane]

Reviews are essential for visibility and we always ask that you provide them.

But personally, they don't bother me too much. It's nice to get good ones ( though apparently I've never been able to handle a compliment ). While not everyones opinion is valid, the bad ones, often being more detailed and colourful, can be the most useful.

On the whole, the genuine reviews ( as opposed to the ones that look more like fake news stories - you know the ones ) for a niche, turn based wargame have been great and will get better over time as we add, improve and fix. The current 84 on Metacritic is awesome. A great start.

meta critic 84.JPG

Pat

What makes it feel like OoB in some cases?

You don't? I was sure you took inspiration from it!

OK thx. I did not realize that changing certain mechanics to the way countless of games worked before either PzC or OoB even appeared would be considered a step towards OoB in particular, but at least now I know what you guys mean. Well this does sound like you are wary about changes. I can totally understand it. But I've made two games (PG Forever and Panzer Corps) with mechanics very close to Panzer General, and it was time to move on. You did not expect me to spend 10 years of my life doing the same game again and again? So, Panzer Corps has been changed in the way which I personally consider an improvement. Many people will disagree and it's fine, but I suggest to give it a try. I know very well from experience that it is hard to evaluate game mechanics theoretically. You need to try to play with them. So who knows? Maybe it won't look so much "OoB", after all.

Have I been misinterpreted? I actually think that this game is better than PzC1. More compact. In the time that I have setup my units in PzC1, I am halfway through a scenario in PzC2. In other words I'm doing more of the things that I actually bought the game for. The only two things I outright dislike is that it can be difficult to distinguish and even click on air units (try to distinguish between a 109 and a Stuka at a glance); and that sometimes the animations can queue up and you're sitting there waiting for them to play out, when actually you just want to keep pounding away at it. I haven't actually looked into the settings, so there might actually be something for that.

If I had tell some one what the game was, I'd tell them that it's 70% PzC1, 20% PG2, and 10% OoB. I apologize if that offends you, but it's how it strikes me. The oldest wargame I've played is PG1, so if the things that OoB and PzC2 have in common have some older common ancestor, then I'm simply not aware of it.

[Patrick Ward]

Have I been misinterpreted? I actually think that this game is better than PzC1. More compact. In the time that I have setup my units in PzC1, I am halfway through a scenario in PzC2. In other words I'm doing more of the things that I actually bought the game for. The only two things I outright dislike is that it can be difficult to distinguish and even click on air units (try to distinguish between a 109 and a Stuka at a glance); and that sometimes the animations can queue up and you're sitting there waiting for them to play out, when actually you just want to keep pounding away at it. I haven't actually looked into the settings, so there might actually be something for that.

If I had tell some one what the game was, I'd tell them that it's 70% PzC1, 20% PG2, and 10% OoB. I apologize if that offends you, but it's how it strikes me. The oldest wargame I've played is PG1, so if the things that OoB and PzC2 have in common have some older common ancestor, then I'm simply not aware of it.

Thanks for the kind words. I think we're still shell shocked.

I gave all the German planes fairly unique identification stripes. Its not ideal but sometimes it helps.

There was a way to have all the AI moves happen at the same time which saved you waiting and looked really cool .. but I've not tried that for months and having just tested it couldn't get it to work. Added to the list.

Pat

[adiekmann]

I like the new game and some things take time to get used to but then they grow on you.

The graphics are great, but only when zoomed way in. However, then the game is unplayable. So, at an "altitude" that you're likely to play at, they aren't so special after all. I too have some difficulties telling one unit from another, especially infantry units. In PC1, it was easy to tell the difference between a Pioniere, Grenadier, and Wehr Infantry at a glance in all screens, battlefield and deployment screens.

The user interface is fine, but little things annoy me. Like I can't simply hit "Enter" to close a unit's info window. In short, too much mouse moving and clicking. Otherwise, yes, it is nice not to have as much screen permanently taken up with UI bottoms. It's mostly the little stuff. Like when I hit "5" to see the strategic map, I am still too zoomed in. The whole purpose of viewing the strategic map is to get an overall sense of the lay of the land, the objectives, etc. So why do I still have to zoom way out to do that? It should be automatically all the way zoomed out. So, that's just another example. The little stuff.

Campaign is good. I can anticipate lots of surprises and things that people are missing to come in future DLCs, like special historical heroes and whatnot. Rudankort, I understand you probably can't comment now, but a simple "yes" would suffice.

The danger is comparing this to the PC1 Grand Campaign DLCs which isn't fair.

Everybody wants something different. The things I don't like about OoB is exactly what others do like, and so it is for this game.

Still, well done. I'm sure you'll be making additional improvements and I hope my 2 cents here helps.

[ErissN6]

The graphics are great, but only when zoomed way in. However, then the game is unplayable. So, at an "altitude" that you're likely to play at,

Yes, so paradoxally the game is less beautifull and the UI is far worst, as start' map has less features than old game map, it's quite same problem than in old PG3D.
We can twik the options, but it's still not enough.

[Lifever]

It seems the game has earned spoils very similar to PC1 overall.
That is quite the accomplishment

For German players
The review of 4players was done by chief editor Joerg Luibl, who has a reputation of a critical thinker.
Over the years it was more interesting to read his thoughts on the development of the gaming industry than any game review.
A rare quality by now

He came to a very positive verdict

https://www.4players.de/4players.php/di ... rps_2.html

[Nalikill]

PZC2 is a lot like the original Dark Souls or Ultimate General Civil War: you have to be a bit of a masochist to really get into it. The industry is better for having games like this, don't get me wrong, but they're niche titles... they're the titles you want to play when you want a challenge and want to feel exhausted at the end of a play session, like the game was grinding you the player down - not just your character or your army. It gives me that pleasant "bastard hard" feeling, where I restart the campaign four or five times after playing a certain number of missions just because I feel like I understand the game so much better on the next attempt and I do better, lose less prestige, etc.

Very fun game but definitely not for everyone and I can see why the media might give it an errantly low rating.

Albeit there could be more diversity in some of the missions - the later missions seem to become just "deal with this giant swarm of tanks". I was waiting for my core slots to go DOWN at some point, to have a mission where they said high command has pulled forces away from me to a more important mission, but that was never done... it seems like a missed opportunity. Kiev is the only mission I've seen in the game with a main objective other than 'hold all the victory hexes before the turn limit expires'; and the missions and forces involved always get bigger, bigger, bigger. Sevastapol - dealing with a hellishly thoroughly fortified set of lines - was almost a nice change of pace just because it was something different.

You could have simple survival missions, you could have "control at least one victory point" missions, or "control 3 of 5 victory point" missions, you could have more of the "kill X enemy units" missions; you could have "hold Victory Point X at all costs without losing control of it until the end of the mission" missions; you could have "kill this particular enemy unit" missions or objectives. The allied German forces in Along the Volga feel very interesting; I'm wondering why that mechanic wasn't used more, the need to coordinate with this AI whose actions you might know the general thrust of but who you don't control.

That lack of diversity is probably what is currently holding the game back the most in my eyes, but it's still an amazingly fun campaign.

[Kerensky]

That lack of diversity is probably what is currently holding the game back the most in my eyes, but it's still an amazingly fun campaign.

Like Panzer Corps before it, I believe this was done for sake of intentional tradition. It's not a spiritual successor to Panzer General if this is not the main heart of the game. I still am of the mind that Panzer Corps 2 does a good job of expanding it's baseline campaign without completely throwing out tradition. There are massive improvements to gameplay over Panzer Corps, without completely divorcing from the main themes.

And, as before, I do look forward to expanded content to really dig into greater variety of content, also in a more meaningful and advanced way as well.