World War II Armored Recon

was very fun , need to see more history stories of war.

Does not play like a 900,000 word epic. Characters are hardly explored, choices are often opaque, and the game is rife with bugginess/clearly unintended game design. This entire concept feels tailor made to me so I'm really disappointed by its execution.

I hadn't played this kind of games before, but being a Burden of Command fan, I had to try. And so it happened that it kept me busy for more than 8 hours (for over two days). I am not native english, so it might have taken me a little longer than average. Though, I also just took the time to enjoy. It was definately worth it. I think the story is well written and although with an historical background, it did feel like 'going on an adventure' to me. After just one playthrough it is hard to say how much impact your choices really have, but that makes for the desire to play again. There are enough choices to ponder upon and it is great to see how your crew and tank evolve during the story. Though, here and there I felt some disconnection as the scenes or replies did not always match my expectations. Definately, this will get better over time. Thanks for this nice experience and I hope the story will continue as we have seen in Burden of Command.

Good

WWII tank focused Text RPG from one of the writers of Burden of Command with some of that game's character's appearing. Well written and good variety of choices, finishing the game left me with less than half of the narrative achievements but the RPG stat elements either don't make any sense or in many cases don't seem to do anything at all until maybe a possible battle at the end of the game. There were also a few bad bugs I found in the game. You play as a Sergeant in command of your own tank with your driver, gunner, and mechanic under you. Through the course of the game you end up in different tank battles supporting your commander, infantry, or being sent out on missions where you are the only allied tank in the area. You can talk to your men over time and learn more about them, try to find money or salvage supplies to improve your tank or try to kill or steal to improve your tank and supplies, and over the course of the game you can become involved with German spies trying to pay you to complete jobs for them and French agents trying to recover hidden plats to print money. You can be killed in which case you start back at the chapter checkpoint or back at an earlier decision but the men under you can also be killed and replaced. Your tank can also be too heavily damaged to repair, or for some of your men to escape the destruction of, with you being given something new. Maintenance and managing supplies is a frequent part of the game. You try to find equipment to improve your tank, padding and better food to improve the condition for your soldiers, radio upgrades to be able to send out messages or hear from infantry or aircraft, medical supplies if you or one of your men or someone you meet is injured, in later battles you have to manage your MG, HE, and AP ammunition, and gas is always a concern. You and your men gain experience over time that allows you to increase driving, gunnery, and mechanical skills with each skill capping out at three for everyone except for the main job each of your men does which caps out at six. The issues with the game start to come from not knowing what a skill level means in regards to what you can expect from your men, and then you have some things that don't seem to make sense at all like everyone increasing mechanical makes sense but what use does your mechanic have with driving or your driver have for gunnery? You have three stats that are at odds with each other and increase in one way or another based on your decisions, these are listed as tactics and include zeal/caution, delegation/control, and adaptation/routine. None of those skills ever seem to do anything and I don't believe I ever had anyone mention anything about my command style. You also have the skills leadership, doctrine, career, logistics, and observation that are increased by your actions. At no point until the very last battle did it ever mention any of these skills doing anything or being checked against anything, and as I was never promoted or given anything, even in the epilogue, despite having a high career stat I don't think that did anything at all. There are also certain upgrades that are clearly helpful or give you new options in the narrative (being able to send radio messages), options that it doesn't say help but that I can see helping in behind the scene tests like the stabilizer, and then their are things that I don't believe I was ever asked about or in a situation where it implied they do anything (camo painting, telescopic sight). Fun enough playing through it as a branching paths story but it explains everything so badly and so much doesn't even seem to do anything that it isn't a good recommendation as a character skill based text RPG. I also had three different moments where choosing a certain choice would cause the chapter to go back to an earlier point with certain options now no longer able to be chosen, and in later chapters the skill upgrades seemed to have a visual issue where I could both raise a skill to where it is supposed to be or raise it to the level where it should currently have been. This game was written by Allen Gies who wrote an earlier text RPG game for the company called Tin Star that seems very highly praised and with skills that all make sense and clearly do things so I might check that one out some day. Screenshots: https://bsky.app/profile/kennanw.bsky.social/post/3md76kbf5tk2d

Its OK.

I appreciate the attention to historical detail. The game portrays war in a gritty, down-to-earth way. There is never enough gasoline or ammo! I don't like a lot of description when I read, but sometimes the writing is a little too spare here. It's hard to understand what some of the choices are asking, and sometimes I don't get what is going on enough to make an informed choice. This is especially true in the battles where success or failure seems really arbitrary. All the stats for your character, tank, and crew are cool.