After a long period of silence, it was our surprise to find under the Atari booth at this year's Games Convention, a long forgotten, yet equally anticipated title: Codename: Panzers. After switching development studios, the game is now developed by the Hungarians at InnoGlow. Since StormRegion, the initial developers, are also Hungarians, I can't tell exactly if some, most or all the members switched to this new firm. What I do know is that Cold War is beginning to take shape, and there is hope for Panzers fans - and all RTS fans in general.

As you may or may not know, Codename: Panzers takes place in an alternate historic timeline where the Soviet Union invaded France and West forces are fighting against the red army.

We've had the pleasure to talk to Ivan Nicoara, Multiplayer Designer from InnoGlow, who pointed out a few changes and cool new stuff we should expect from Codename: Panzers - Cold War.

We started out the presentation with the cherry on the cake: the weapons of mass destruction. Cold War introduces precise helicopter airstrikes, devastating napalm and artillery strikes, and, at the top of the "food chain" is the mighty D-bomb, a more powerful version of the - you guessed it - A-bomb.

Of course, the game still revolves around the so-called "Points of Interest" - or POI. There are a multitude of multiplayer modes and singleplayer campaign scenarios that involve conquering (and holding) some, half, or all the POI on a specific map or mission.

 

 

 

 

You do not have a base or the ability to produce units in mass, so the strategy element has to be taken more seriously. Each unit has to be looked after. Special abilities like the "super canon" or "smoke bomb" amongst many others are invaluable to your success. To help you even more, there is a new cover system and picture in picture ability that the game engine supports now.

Infantry is not to be neglected, as it is based on squads and a leader is assigned to each one of them. They too possess special abilities (through their hero leader).

InnoGlow did their best to re-create known war vehicles and to make them as historically accurate as possible, either based on the real actual model or a prototype design. As another feature, your units are fully upgradable: bigger guns, better armor, more hit chance and so on.

The engine has been improved dramatically too, and now supports huge cool explosions, smoke, detailed zoom, textures, trees, etc. Add to that the comeback of heroes from the previous game and I can already see the excited fans.

One of the biggest focus elements was multiplayer this time. There are quite a few types and subtypes of multiplayer matches based on the rules, maps and victory conditions available.

You will find here the classic team match where you can buy your army with a number of pre given credit at the beginning of the battle, but you will not be able to get reinforcements any time after that.

Then there's the domination mode, based on controlling POI. Cold War brings yet another innovation: dual monitor support: meaning you could have the battle unfold on one monitor while the big war map is shown on the other so you are able to see everything and everyone that moves. You will have to be smart enough to use the best way to connect POI with your base as you can't just go on randomly conquering strategic points in any order you want. And of course, all these maps can be played free for all, in teams vs other teams or of course teams vs AI.

That's it for this preview of Codename Panzers: Cold War. What we saw, we liked. See you again at the review, when the final product comes!

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