14 DAY TRIAL // Wargame AirLand Battle might be a victim of its own marketing, at least for a portion of players, as many took to forums and the official in-game chat to complain about the limited scope of the campaigns and the misleading way in which Eugen Systems promoted the game.
Many players were imagining that the strategic dynamic maps were a sort of Cold War take on the mechanics of Total War, with unit production and movement on a full European map.
As Eugen System explained when AirLand Battle was announced, the focus is on Scandinavia and the player is not the overall leader of NATO or the Warsaw Pact but rather the commander for the theater.
This means his options and resources, from battlegroups to special deployments, are decided by a chain of command and he must manage them the best he can to achieve pre-set objectives.
I quote like the four campaigns in Wargame AirLand Battle because they introduce a number of interesting situations, with battlegroups that the player cannot customize, and also throw in some randomized events to change the course of the campaigns.
There are choices to make every step of the way and the each tactical engagement is a nail bitter, complete with huge tactical coups and defeats that I still replay in my head from time to time.
But I am sure that Eugen Systems can do even better in the near future, expanding on the core ideas seen here and delivering a Cold War in Europe set of scenarios that can use the same philosophy to cover Germany, a southern front and potentially an amphibious invasion somewhere in Russia.
Wargame AirLand Battle has some unfulfilled potential, which is always a pity to see, but the core campaign are still impressive for the strategy gamers starved of Cold War related content.