CDV Software is likely to be a new name to gamers around the world. CDV Software is a publisher/developer based in Germany and seems set to make its name known around the world. What is it that is likely to move this firm from an unknown entity to a possible market leader? Nothing more than a little game entitled Sudden Strike.
They call Sudden Strike a Real-time strategy/tactical wargame. Well, it is real-time but there is no resource management. It is a tactical wargame but it is not turn-based. The best way to look at this game is to draw comparisons to another real-time wargame, Sid Meier's Gettysburg! If you have played that civil war classic you then have an idea how Sudden Strike will play out.
It's real time but as I said before, with no resource management. The player is not able to gather resources nor does the gamer have the ability to "train" new units. Basically, the troops you get at the beginning of a scenario are the troops you have throughout the scenario, save for any planned reinforcements. So this is a real-time game in which "the rush" is a tactic that will surely end your game prematurely.
Success in Sudden Strike will more often depend on careful use of your troops. In this regard the game is reminiscent of turn-based wargames but only in this regard. Action is still very much a priority for the designers and because of this you'll notice a similarity to the frantic paced action of Command and Conquer: Red Alert.
Based on historically accurate scenarios from World War 2 and using historically accurate units you will not, unlike most real-time strategy games, be able to have a soldier take out a tank. Rather a tank will likely take out a soldier in one shot. Tanks will be able to take out other tanks but only if they could do so historically. There are anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns and a huge assortment of tanks and other units from the World War 2 era.
Sudden Strike will feature units from Germany, Great Britain, The United States, France and the former USSR. Sudden Strike will feature scenarios that you will undoubtedly be familiar with, The Invasion of Normandy, as well as scenarios that might only be familiar to hardcore grognards, The Winter in Stalingrad. The addition of some of the Russian scenarios is particularly interesting because of the intensity of some of those battles, the terrain and the weather and its effect on the battle and the men of both sides. There is an argument to be made that had the weather been different the outcome might well have been different.
