Hinterhalt

Review

Herr Kommandant, vee have some news from Poland! Our der Kundschafter (spy) have zighted an outpost of the evil Mutter (mother) Russia in Poland. This is a katastrophe (well, easy to figure this one out) Herr Kommandant. Vot should vee do? Alarm. . . ALARMMMM! Prepare all divisions for a Hinterhalt (ambush)!

Hinterhalt is a strategy game which takes place during the Wold War II conflict where you take control of German and Japanese troops.

This game has three modes of play as well as a very good tutorial which I strongly recommend that you complete, which, by the way, is not too long. After that, you can jump right into a campaign, a skirmish or a zombie game.

The gameplay in the campaign and skirmish modes is pretty much the same. Each map has a few nominated squares with a pole and a flag at the top. Your goal is to capture all of the squares in order to win the game. At the start of each mission (campaign mode), your army will be allocated a barrack (sometimes a couple), several soldiers and 100 credits to purchase new units. Capture the squares as fast as possible, hold them and more credits will start to flow into your coffers. One important tip is that you must have a worker in order to build any structures, such as barracks, factories or artillery units. These poor buggers have only a knife to defend themselves, so make sure to give them a good escort. Lucky for you, you’ll have several other infantry units at your disposal which are: rifle, sniper, heavy, fully automatic, handgun and rocket units. Some of them incorporate a few divisions with different price tags; the more expensive they are, the more effective they’ll be. The other types of units include a variety of tanks for when you build a factory.

Hinterhalt is a fast-paced strategy game and you might find it hard to proceed to the next mission. The good news is that you can slow down the speed to see where your opponent’s next move might come from, and importantly, to send your units to your chosen positions on the map.  I personally like to place my sniper or heavy unit in an elevated position, a) because they can see further, and b) because they can inflict heavy casualties. The maps are not too big, which is good for this fast-paced strategy game, as you can easily move around them and also zoom in and out.

The zombie mode is slightly different. Here, you start the game with 3500 credits and a larger number of soldiers; you have to survive the waves of zombies as long as possible.  As the zombies move very slowly, it might take some time for each wave to be cleared, therefore you may choose to increase the speed.  Still, it’s a lot of fun!

The low poly graphics suit this game perfectly and give it a unique touch. The soundtrack is good but I keep encountering stop and go sound issues. No problem with the sound effects though. My major issue here is the building interface.  Each time you want to build or purchase units, a large box appears on the screen with the options. Don’t get me wrong, it works fine but I would rather have them permanently on the screen and smaller.