Sudden Strike 4 review for Xbox One

Reviewed on: Xbox One

Sudden Strike 4 is not the first RTS we’ve covered on Xbox One. Control the North American, German and Soviet armies in the biggest battles of World War II. And with plenty of patience and strategy, achieve your objectives in this RTS.

Sudden Strike 4, as the name suggests, is the continuation of the RTS with great detail and a difficulty above its competitors. SS 4 has 20 missions, divided into three campaigns, split among the Allies, the Axis and the Soviet Union. Each army has missions based on operations of historical events and some missions overlap, with one campaign having you try to take a location, while another may make you defend it.

Unlike many RTS games, there are no bases or resource gathering in Sudden Strike 4. You receive a set number of units and can get reinforcements at some points during a mission. Completing some extra objectives and pulling off some ambushes can also give you random units at some points in the game. Without this help the mission will certainly fail.

You also need to understand, as in any game of this kind, which units have advantages over others, since that way you can advance and achieve your objective more easily. Just as infantry is better against anti-tank weapons, or tanks are more effective against buildings and bunkers. There are repair and supply trucks, extremely important, since units will suffer critical damage to engines or tracks, and have limited ammo and will need resupply.

GAMEPLAY

Well, it doesn’t take much justification to say that a game of this style is much better with keyboard and mouse than on a controller. But it was tested on Xbox, and indeed at first the game feels somewhat confusing on the controller, but after a few hours you get used to it. I believe it could be more adapted to controllers, as in Halo Wars 1 and 2, and City Skylines, which adapts to the joystick very easily.

A point that draws attention in this game is how units move, leaving trails and knocking down all vegetation, buildings and obstacles, all of it impacting your attack or defense strategy, making you move through other corners, build new bridges and create paths for more effective attacks.

You can save the game at any time, making it possible to redo your move if you fail. This is an option that helps a lot and makes things easier at the same time, taking away some of the challenge, but it can be disabled. SS4 requires you to plan your attacks or defenses well, since any wrong move can make you lose the entire match. This is when the “save state” comes into play, creating a new possibility at any moment.

By completing each mission, you can earn up to three stars, which can be used to upgrade three commanders. With that you can choose which commander to use before any level. Each commander will give certain bonuses to some unit, starting with more weapons of mass destruction, repairing damage without a repair truck or allowing tanks to use smoke grenades. You can distribute the points however you see fit for your strategy and play adaptation. There is a type of objective that earns you a bonus star, but it’s harder to complete, objectives like a time to meet or passing the mission without saving at any moment, or even without losing any unit.

AUDIOVISUAL

Sudden Strike 4 has great graphic detail for RTS games. As I mentioned earlier, the destruction physics implemented in the game are quite attractive; buildings being hit, the trail of units through woods, dirt roads, villages and water. All this can make you feel a bit more realism. When those tank and soldier battles are happening, the intensity of the exchange of fire is something cool to watch, along with great sound design, from the weapon sounds, where each has different sounds, to cannon fire and the noise of engines and explosions.

CONCLUSION

A pleasant game for RTS lovers, even more so for those who enjoy good strategy and are tired of RTS games where whoever builds more units quickly wins, and of course, who have great patience. And for those who don’t have a PC to play in the best way with keyboard and mouse, with a few hours it’s possible to play well on a controller.

Narrative: 6
Audiovisual: 7
Gameplay: 6

The version provided and tested was for Xbox One.