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Not a game for the faint of heart!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 24, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Wargammers rejoice! SR2020 is a micromanager's dream game. Control you Region/Country in the great collapse of the modern age as oil prices and border tensions fragment the world. From the Units and Spys all the way down to spending on roads and building of factories, SR2020 gives you so many choices that you will spend hours deciding how to run your economy and how to tax your populace to pay for your expansionist dreams. If you enjoyed Paradox's Hearts of Iron, Europa, and/or Victoria series this is a game for you. But this title is not for the weak willed. Expect to spend days understanding the games dynamics and tactics. This is a deep game.

BattleGoat is a small development team that has put out a fun and engaging title. They have a great forum comunity and are activly working on this title to make it perfect. Though it did ship with some worrisome bugs, the patches that have been released have greatly improved game mechanics and playability.

This is my kind of game. I really wish there were more titles like this one out there, but this is cream of the crop for modern strategy war gamming.

Had High Hopes..

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The biggest cons are:
-fastest game speed setting is almost unplayable when at peace. You will find yourself sitting for hours to make it through 1 game year. While when in war the slowest game mode isnt quite slow enough, this is not as big of deal as the game can be paused.
-The AI is awful. They don't use their assests properly. I was playing as Afganastan and got invaded by Iran, they only invade with like 3 tanks 2 inf divisions, did not use any aircraft. Their tanks would stop as they ran out of gas from under supply. Needless to say wars are generally retarded.
-Flat out missing some of the options where supposed to be in the game. Some of the smaller but noticable ones: No avatars (your rulers pic is a black outline of a person and you cant change it), tourism while mentioned in the game and manual is completly static (does not change or develop)

Some Pros:
If these two above things were fixed I would give this game 5 stars.
-I thought the interface was well layed out for a complex game; kinda reminded me of a beefed up Simcity 3000 interface.
-Good economic, trade, political models.
-Tons of units.
-Research seemed to have actual impact on aspects of the game.

I like a lot of other Paradox games (Victoria, HOI1 and 2, EU1 and 2) and I wanted to like this one, but could not force myself. I would recommened checking out Paradox forums after more patching and mods have been done to correct some of these issues, before purchasing this game.

See the front cover? That's the coolest part of the game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I've been fond of strategy games since I hogged the family computer to play the original Civilization II as a kid. I've played a lot, some good, some bad, some RTS, some turn-based, some a mix of both. I have to say, without a doubt, this has to be one of the worst strategy games I have played in a while.

Initially this game will sound inviting. You can play literally any nation in the world, and control their military, economics, and to some degree their government. You can increase industry, trade, sign agreements, and generally pretend you're president for a day.

Any high hopes end when you actually enter into the game. The first thing you'll notice is the over-the-top interface, which is ridiculously complicated. Paradox Interactive has been infamous for hard interfaces, but here they have really outdone themselves - something I didn't think possible. It makes no rhyme or reason. Worse still is no back button for most of the menus, so you'll be clicking buttons around for a long time, trying to figure out how things work.

Industry and trade are fairly straightforward until you actually TRY to trade. After about the tenth time of spending five minutes making a perfectly balanced trade offer only to have the opposing nation throw it all out and ask for $100-million upfront...well, I just gave up on trade altogether. In theory it's a fine economic system, but in execution it's very poor.

Now let's move on to the juicy bit: warfare. You would imagine, "OK, I'll just ignore the economics and trade and go kill something." Again, you'll enjoy yourself the first few minutes until you realize just how broken the system used in the game is. To move units you left-click on a unit, then you have to left-click on a spot on the map - what kind of system is that?! For the past decade-plus strategy games have had a system of left-click select/right-click drop, why was this changed? In terms of unit organization, the micromanaging is asinine and will leave you putting up with whatever organization they give you in the first place. Despite this, battle will essentially consist of throwing your army against the army haphazard.

I remember playing Hearts of Iron, and earlier Paradox Interactive game, and planning out in detail how, as the Soviet Union, I would invade Poland. I planned what I would do with infantry, how I would use an armor spearhead, and how my air force would be utilized. It felt like a planned operation. It all worked out beautifully. This can't be done in SR2020. Like something from a Star Wars prequel, modern armies will just have at each other in a big line, tanks and infantry mixed together. Battles look like a drunken bar brawl than organized combat.

I would not recommend these even to the most ardent gamer. The only ones who would possibly like this are people just looking for a quick campaign, someone who wants to know what would happen if the Czech Republic launched a full scale invasion of Austria, or the most ardent Paradox fanboy (a breed which makes the Nintendo fanboys look like people with a fleeting interest). As I suggested at the start of my review, there are far better strategy games out there. Just keep searching.

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