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I am very grateful to Toni Ramirez of Retro Bytes Productions for sending my way a pre-release version of his new strategy war game for both Amstrad CPC and Spectrum called The World War Simulator Part 2. It is the same team that coded Outlaws, the winning game of the 2016 CPCRetrodev.

The World War Simulator Part 2 (no World War 1 Sim game by the looks of it?) takes place in in you guessed it World War 2 - obviously! Played from the overhead view, this war strategy game felt more like a shoot em up maze adventure, in the same vein of well known commercial games from the 1980’s - Gauntlet (Atari/U.S. Gold, 1987) and Into The Eagle's Nest (Pandora Software, 1987). You find yourself inside Hitler’s compound. Your mission orders are simple, yet precise. With four lives locate Hitler and kill him, lose all four lives and Hitler lives. In total there are 57 screens to go exploring to fulfil your perilous mission. Although it doesn’t have a huge amount of rooms to explore, there's plenty to do to keep your mind occupied.

Each room is different, some may appear to be the same but they are not. A room could be empty allowing you to roam free and pass through it without any chance of causing you harm, that's not often though. As you pass from one room to the other you have to be careful not to walk straight into a land mine, or get noticed by Hitler's guards, who will hunt you down if they sense you are close enough to them. Shoot to kill first and ask questions later as Hitler’s henchmen won’t think twice to bring you to your demise.

Avoiding land mines is done so by walking around them, be careful though as they could be placed close together, one wrong tap on the controls and your instantly dead. Landmine placement is basically anywhere in a room, there may be few or there could be many, the saving grace for your play is that they are not in every room. To get to certain rooms you will have to find keys to open doors. When you locate a key sometimes you may have to back track to open a door you may have passed earlier but couldn’t open as you were not holding a key. At first it may feel confusing, like you are going around in circles, however the room layout is easy to remember as they appear to have been constructed in sections, meaning a key is usually found in an area that will open the door to leave that section. Once a door is opened you can travel back through it as it remains open.

Hitler's guards will appear in the same rooms all the time, this helps you remember where they are. They are very cunning adversary’s, firing at you pretty quickly. Distance is not an impediment in this game. You can shoot at Hitler's henchmen from across the room, you don't have to be close to them to shoot them down, but you might have to move closer towards them to get a clear shot, as they might be stuck against a wall and will only move about the room if they can sense that you are near.

Ammo is limited so keep a keen eye on your supply. Guards will appear in multiples in some rooms too, so a little bit of strategy to get them may be required, i.e. drawing one out of its location while trying to not get spotted and shot at from the other guards in the room. You could charge at them shooting bullets like Rambo, I tried but usually came off dead. Once the guards have been killed make sure you walk over their dead bodies, because when you leave a screen and then go back to it the guard will reappear if you don't. Doing this will also help you complete the achievements, more on that below. Bullets and energy can be replaced, but you need to locate them as they are hidden. This is done by searching the walls of the compound.

Lots of on screen messages appeared when I was doing this and I had no idea what they were saying as they were in Spanish, unfortunately an English version of the game has not been made. It was also hard to make out what the writing was on the menu screens.

As well as locating and killing Hitler, there are another five tasks to complete if you are to achieve a 100% rating in the game. You need to locate Hitler's dog, Blonda, the propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and his wife, Magda, locate Hitler's wife, Eva Braun and collect all of the bodies. To kill everyone you just have to walk over them while they are in their beds and then keep moving through the rooms. There is no big confrontation or end of level bad guy shoot out or anything, for this type of game it probably doesn't need it, but I guess there are people out there expecting there to be one hell of a last boss battle? Hitler gave up in real life by shooting himself so maybe a big boss battle wouldn't do justice to history.

The standout elements of this game for me is the fluid gameplay and the music. That music is just excellent as it was in Outlaws. Jose A Martin really knows how to score great tunes to a CPC game. There is a heart that thumps continually, I thought this had some other meaning or purpose, like if you were getting close to an enemy or closer to Hitler it would beat faster and therefore the sounds of anxiety would get louder, but it wasn't. The heart beats faster and the sound gets louder as you lose your lives. The loud thumping heartbeat is great and adds to the games atmosphere. Movement around the playing area is what makes the game fun, there's no lag or any issues with the controls, so your gaming experience is not one that is frustrating. Graphically, the Amstrad CPC version is full colour mode 0, which just looks so much better than the Speecy game. Hitler's compound, all the character sprites, the rooms and what is inside those rooms are beautifully detailed for such a top down view game such as this.

Probably the only blemish is that The World War Simulator Part 2 is a Spanish language only game. It didn't really matter, it would have been nice to choose an English language option, but it was easy enough to progress without too much hassle. The only issue of frustration this caused occurred when trying to work out what the achievements on the screen meant. I couldn't make heads or tails what was going on, like I said though, only a minor issue, not one that takes anything away from the game.

The World War Simulator Part 2, is a game that I enjoyed playing from start to finish. After a few goes you realise that it is quite an easy game to complete, but there is enough there to keep you entertained for some time. It's really good to see different styles of games like this one being coded. Another good job by the Retro Bytes Productions team.