14 DAY TRIAL // R.U.S.E. is a World War II real time strategy title developed by Eugen Systems and published by Ubisoft which aims to shake up the reliable formula of Allies versus Axis by introducing ruses, special powers that can alter the way the battlefield is laid out and offer an advantage to the one who plays them.
I quite like how R.U.S.E. is trying to change the way we play and we look at strategy games and I really think that the combination of tactical maneuvering of units on a battlefield mixes very well with the use of strategic effects that offer the chance to fool, trick and generally impair an opponent.
But I cannot find any justification for the move to anchor the title in the well known battlefields of World War II, the war that gamers know best and which has been so well explored in strategic manner by Company of Heroes from Relic or the Panzer General series or, on a grander scale, the Hearts of Iron series from Paradox Interactive.
It was important to get intelligence and mislead the enemy in World War II, as the great misdirections of the Calais landing can prove, but information and lack of it so much more relevant to the modern battlefield.
I wonder how this game would have looked if it had tackled a modern or post modern period, with satellites, drones, long range recon forces and all the other high tech tools of the modern military forces around the world.
It might have been a bit much for some to handle but a good development team would have probably managed to select the most important mechanics and replicate them, suing a fictional conflict (China vs. United States; Russia vs. China; Russia vs. NATO) to create a campaign that is free of the stereotypes linked to World War II and the various ways the 60 year old conflict has been depicted.
Let's hope that R.U.S.E. does well enough for Eugen Systems to create a sequel and that Ubisoft sees the benefit in giving the team a bit more (modern) space to built it.