Previous Next

During the heat of battle, the air is filled with the stench of cordite, burning metal and scorched flesh - the smell is awful, and so is the pong coming off this latest offering from Empire.

On the face of it, Campaign could have been a great war sim - after all there haven't been many more dramatic events than World World Two. What was a great idea, however, has made for an awful game in practice.

The first thing you realise is that Campaign crashes extremely regularly - when you try to access different parts of the game's menu system, for example. We pointed out this fault when we included a demo of Campaign on ST Format 34's Cover Disk, but, unfortunately, nothing seems to have been done to resolve the problem.

The game itself is a war/strategy sim with maps, 3D tank battles and lots of groovy pictures of warmongering hardware. At first you're presented with a default map view of a battlefield with various battle groups at your command. You can then take control of Allied or Axis forces in one of the 20 complex scenarios, including D-Day and the battle of the Sahara. The basic idea is for you to manoeuvre your forces to a desired objective by placing a series of waypoints. With the help of air support, you're soon able to pinpoint the enemy's positions and engage them in 3D combat.

Your success is determined by how well you plan your campaign strategy and minimise your losses at maximum cost to the enemy. Sounds good? Well, it's not. Campaign is extremely boring to play. Placing waypoints and manoeuvring your forces is engaging for the first few minutes, but you soon reach your boredom threshold even on the more complicated scenarios. When it comes to do battle you can either let your ST work out the outcome for you, or engage in a bit of pointless charging about in the 3D view. Because all the 3D battle options - driving and shooting - can be left on automatic, you end up feeling more like a spectator than a participant. If you do fancy taking charge of a T-34 you're given a choice of control options - keyboard, keyboard and joystick or two joysticks.

The keyboard option is user-definable and this is by far the easiest way of controlling your tank - using two joysticks is laughable, unless you have four arms or two human drivers - oh, and, of course, you have to unplug the mouse to use it. The icon menu system is also pointlessly complicated. You can't click on the tank or aircraft option to see the information about your battle groups, you have to click on it once, then go to the information icon and click on that as well. If you want to choose aircraft to launch an attack, you can't select them by clicking on them once - that just shows you the 3D view - you have to hold the mouse button down and move the aircraft pointer over to a different box! The graphics are average for this sort of thing - although there are over 3,000 different vehicles for you to gawp at - and the sound effects are crap - your tanks sound like someone rapping their fingers on a table instead of lumbering behemoths.

When you get one of the scenarios to load, you're presented with this map screen. Here's the ST Format guide to those icons, waypoints and round-tipped scissors.

1. Map
   This is the main view of the battleground. Your forces are marked in yellow and enemy forces in red. Left click to highlight a battle group. Hold down the left mouse button to see battle group status. Use the right mouse button to relocate a battle group.
2. Scroll Bars
   Moves you around the battleground.
3. Mini Map
   Overall view of the battleground.
4. Save Map
   Click here to save the game. Do this frequently.
5. Load Map Loads one of the twenty predefined maps, or one of your own versions.
6. Tanks
   Click here and on the text icon to find out information about your battle groups.
7. Aircraft Icon
   Click here, then on the text icon for details of friendly aircraft in the battle zone.
8. Text Icon
   Use this with the weaponry icons to get information on your own forces.
9. Status Icon
   Tells you whether you're one of the good guys or one of the bad guys.
10. Ship Icon
    Click here and on the text icon to get information about friendly battleships.
11. Truck Icon
    Click here and on the text icon to get information on any convoys coming from armaments factories.
12. Factory Icon
    Click here and on the text icon to check weapons production at your factories.
13. Speed Icon
    Click on this to change the game's speed.
14. Scissors
    Enables you to access the map editing screen.
15. Magnifying Glass Icon
    Click here then left click on the main map to zoom in on your battlefield, or right-click to zoom out. Click on the icon again when you want to switch the magnification off.
16. Sleep Icon
    Click here to start action on the battlefield. Click again to stop the action.
17. Loudspeaker Icon
    Click here to toggle the sound on and off.
18. Clock
    Enables you to tell whether it's day or night.

This has to be one of the most disappointing games ever to have reached the ST. It's extremely temperamental when you try to load different maps and it crashes so often you feel like just chucking your ST out of the window. Buying Campaign is a waste of £35.

You get lots of lovely WW2 posters and postcards to look at instead of the game.

Campaign has an alarming tendency to crash... and it's boring.