Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942 - PC Game Preview
By Larry Levandowski

Published Monday, October 13, 2008 | 0 comments | Print | E-mail

Steel Fury - Kharkov PC Game Preview.

Steel Fury is a serious simulator, and not an arcade twitch-fest.

Only a tanker can really know the pure joy of 30 tons of hardened steel sloshing through muddy fords, smashing through small buildings and knocking over trees and fences with abandon. But for those of us who don’t drive these beasts for a living, we will soon have Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942, to make our tank fantasies come true. A month before it’s release by Lighthouse Interactive, ArmchairGeneral.com took a preview test drive of this exciting tank combat simulator.

The first thing players will notice about Steel Fury is the near-total suspension of disbelief. The lush rolling hills around Kharkov are a visual feast, well seasoned with realistic lighting and dust effects. The forests are full of individual trees that can be knocked down with leafy crunches. Buildings can be driven into, with walls cracking and falling. The complex environment is alive with smoke, infantry firefights, tank duels, debris, and even mud flying from rolling tank treads.

The sounds also pull you in. The player’s tank growls and clunks as gears change to cross a deep ditch. The main gun breech closes with a metallic clank, as the gunner announces that an HE round is loaded. Outside, bullets and shrapnel ping against the steel hull. On the horizon, artillery crumphs in the distance. In Steel Fury, "all is never quiet on the Eastern Front."

The player’s tank is also a virtual wonder. The game comes with three drivable tanks, each brought to life in full 3D glory. The German Pzkw IV, the lend-lease Matilda, and an early T-34/76 are all modeled with loving hands. From the outside, the tanks have divisional markings and periscopes; they belch diesel smoke and have every rivet and bolt modeled. The tanks also have complete 3D interiors. Looking around the cramped battle stations will give almost anyone a claustrophobic urge to open the hatches and gasp for some virtual air.

During battles, the player can take over any of the crew positions. Functional periscopes, view ports and sights work like the real thing. But the only way to really see the battlefield is by opening the hatch to pop your head out, which makes death from stray bullets or shrapnel a real possibility. Once players learn the positions, they will gravitate to the commander’s seat. From there, they can call out targets, select ammunition, and tell the driver where to go.

Even driving takes skill since the tanks move and drive like the real thing. Drivers must choose gears and the vehicle’s path carefully. Just like real terrain, there are always minor dips, and driving up a steep slope is certain to bring the tank to a crawl. The virtual ground beneath the tank also feels real; treads will even slip a little in muddy fields.

Sometimes the physics engine seems overdone. For example, tanks can fish-tail when going down a muddy slope. That’s logical, but they seem to spin like a NASCAR racer with a blowout rather than sliding like the tanks I’ve seen fish-tail in real life. Likewise, when infantry is hit, their weapons fly high in the air, then bounce rubber-like against the ground. These don’t have major effect on gameplay and, hopefully, will be tweaked before release.

For those who think that changing gears should be strictly for the NASCAR crowd, an auto-transmission is available. In fact, like any good simulator, many of the more mundane tasks can be automated. But the player can customize his game experience, and the hardcore player can choose to do everything himself.

Steel Fury is a serious simulator, and not an arcade twitch-fest. The steel beasts, particularly the Matilda, are not nimble; turning, loading the gun and rotating the turret take time. Still, the adrenalin factor is high and the player must have good situational awareness.

In a typical combat, the player pops out of the commander’s hatch and uses binoculars to scan the horizon for enemy units. Rapid flashes in the grass give away an enemy light machine gun. A quick command and the hull gunner silences the enemy with a burst of machine-gun fire. Off to the right, the commander sees a large plume of smoke from a hidden anti-tank gun. The red streak plowing up dirt in front of the tank means they missed. The commander only has seconds to order the tank into reverse while the gunner turns the turret to put hot steel on target. This intense pace keeps up until the last enemy tank is burning on the horizon.

Combat in Steel Fury feels real. Gunnery uses realistic ballistics and models armor penetration by hit location. Since the mission stops if the player’s tank commander is killed, it is sometimes frustrating to have an inbound round knock your commander out but leave the rest of the crew alive and the tank funcitoning. When this happens, the player will see his tank fighting on, even when the failed mission screen looms large. Buttoning up while in harm’s way becomes critical.

Gameplay revolves around either scripted individual missions, or a group of linked campaign missions for each tank. The situations and units involved come from the actions around Kharkov in May of 1942. Each battle starts with an overview map and operations order. The map is available at any point in the battle, and can be used to set waypoints and give formation orders to the player’s platoon.

Steel Fury is a tank combat simulator and not a wargame. The player cannot switch vehicles and has only limited control of his platoon. In some missions, the player will have a platoon of infantry or loaded half-tracks to command, but those units just follow and fight alongside the player’s vehicle. While battles can have a company of friendly infantry, other AFVs, artillery and air support, the player is just a cog in the overall battle plan. This is not a bad thing, but might be disappointing for players who like more control.

While the player’s ability to mold destiny is limited mostly to his platoon, one of the really wonderful things about the game is the great portrayal of the combined arms symphony. This is not a game where a lone wolf with great reflexes can win the war. The player has real-life constraints on his actions. Charging your tank platoon into an enemy-held strongpoint before your supporting infantry comes up is a quick way to die. Firing blindly into a town where enemy and friendly infantry are in a deadly brawl will kill just as many friendly troops as enemy. The player quickly learns that to succeed he must play as part of a combined-arms team.

The number of missions within and outside of campaigns are limited to about 30 battles. There is plenty of gameplay here, but once the player has exhausted the missions, replays may become stale. Also, the game does not support online play.

However, replay value is extended by a full set of editors that come with the game. There is even an editor for creating maps. While these tools seem to be very good by industry standards, building such a complex game environment is no trivial task. The average gamer will probably leave building new scenarios to the experienced modder.

The game in its preview version does have some issues, but they are minor, and it is assumed they will be addressed in the final release. The preview runs well and looks gorgeous on a Pentium dual core, running Vista with 2GB RAM, and Geforce 8800 card. But some views like a gun-sight zoom of infantry in trees can be a little choppy. While it is not clear if the final release will perform better or not, it is clear that players will need some good machine specs to get the most out the game.

Steel Fury - Kharkov is an exciting release. Even in its preview version, the game runs and plays well. This high fidelity tank combat simulator, easily carries the torch lit by such venerable titles as Panzer Commander and Panzer Elite. Steel Fury’s wonderfully rendered world and loving attention to detail will easily make it the new benchmark for WWII tank simulators.

Image Gallery

Larry Levandowski has been a wargamer for more than 30 years, and started computer gaming back in the days of the C-64. Until he recently discovered the virtues of DOS box, much of his computer game collection was unplayable. A former US Army officer, Larry has done his share of sitting in foxholes. Since leaving the Army, he has worked in the Information Technology field, as a programmer, project manager and lead bottle washer. He now spends his spare time playing boardgames, Napoleonic and WWII miniatures, as well as any PC game he can get his hands on.



http://www.armchairgeneral.com/steel...