Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps

The Good
There are quite a few games that are set in the North African theatre of WW2, but IMO, this is definitely one of the best. The visually great (while not breathtaking) engine essentially reuses the same basic principles already featured in CDV's Sudden Strike series and later in Blitzkrieg. It's been rebalanced a bit in order to be more playable, for example most tanks will take a few hits from tanks on their level, and most importantly, DR vs AK mixes in concepts once found in SSI's successful Panzer General. The ability to choose your own core force from a pool of available vehicles that gain experience over the course of the scenarios, the ability to capture that German Tiger and add it to your pool, the ability to chose entirely different vehicles to go and try a totally different tactics in a scenario ... all these things really add to the experience. While the presentation of the storyline is sadly a bit disappointing after the promising intro movies, the first (German) campaign is motivating, most scenarios are challenging and after the about ten German scenarios, the game really reaches it's peak when you struggle to capture Tobruk for the DAK.

The Bad
Unfortunately, as the German campaign ends rather abruptly, most of the fun ends with it, too. After a single introductory level on allied side, the missions get rather epic in scope, which isn't a bad thing by itself. But the developers tend to go a bit over the top with objectives, combining superior enemy forces with strict time limits and unexpected reinforcements even further strengthening the Germans. In one briefing, the game describes how some allied commanders calculated that it needed seven of the best US tanks to match a single German Tiger, and this describes the frustrating parts of the allied campaign rather well. Tigers are a common sight in the late scenarios, which, along with the aforementioned time limits, makes playing them a pain.

The Bottom Line
If you like WW2 themed games and/or RTS'es, you really should give this one a try. The German campaign is quite rewarding, while a bit dry in presentation, almost completely lacking cutscenes and the likes, and thereby relying on try text passages in form of the "Diary" of the protagonist and the battle briefings. As mentioned above, the Allied campaign is somewhat frustrating, but if you're not a complete rookie on this kind of games, you should be able to make it through. I only hope they will make a sequel, a bit better presentation, a bit more balancing, and this could be an even better game. And there's at least one other theater that should ring bells when you think of big tank battles in WW2, isn't there? Dosvedanje! ;)