Battle Fleet Ground Assault review by Rick Moscatello

[Doom]

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Well…it’s different.





World War 2 is a tough game genre any more…how can you add something new to this, when many dozens of games have already covered it, and some with incredible success?

Battle Fleet Ground Assault is a WW2 tank-centered game, and while it does hit the “this is new” button, doesn’t accomplish much beyond that. If you’re wondering why a tank game has “Fleet” in the title, well, Ground Assault is based on the same engine as the Battle Fleet games, which covered WW2 naval battles in a new and fun way.



So what’s the new take? This is a turn based, skill based, game. Maybe “skill” is a strong word for it, but the way how you kill the enemy tanks is you line up the shot (easy), then eyeball the amount of power to put in the shot to get the right range. There are some “range circles” to help a bit, and once you master the system you’ll be fairly accurate (most tanks get multiple shots per turn, which also helps). The computer AI is merciful here, quite capable of missing even though I know it could be perfectly accurate if the designer had so desired.

Now, this is a fun system for naval engagements, as line of sight is always there, and there’s no place to hide at sea. On the other hand, land battles have hills and buildings and other things…there’s more strategy here, but it really seems like the obstacles detract as much as they add.



While the game play is pretty shallow (pretty much all you do is move tanks and blast tanks), considerable effort was put into the details. A wide variety of tanks are realistically drawn. Damage is modeled with great variety—you can damage tracks, guns, crew compartments, and engines, among other things which can happen. Tank armor and weapon penetration is also handled in a sophisticated way—you’ll want to set up your shots against side or rear armor, or get close if your weapon is under-powered.



Scattered around the battlefields are “loot crates” which provide bonus abilities during battle, like air strikes or instantly built minefields. This does add fun to the game, although it’s a bit jarring considering how realistically the tanks and damage are modeled.



There are a wide variety of battlefields, but the maps are generally quite small. While the game really works best in short doses (a whole battle can be resolved in 15 minutes, and PvP is easy to arrange), there’s also a campaign mode, where you can fight WW2, territory by territory, using factories to build more tanks to send into the grinder. Campaign battles also include two new unit types: artillery (basically tanks which don’t move) for the defender and trucks (tanks which don’t shoot) for the attacker—the latter are necessary to actually conquer a territory.

If you’re looking for something new and different with tanks, this fits the bill, but Battle Fleet 2 probably has more fun per dollar in it.


Overall Rating 65