	D-Day
	Developer: Digital Reality Publisher: Digital Jesters Release Date: Out Now Players: 1/network multiplayer	Words By:
Brigadier Poncenbury Decade Smythe the 4th (V.C. V.D. E.T. D.V.D. ROM) here to deliver a tactical report on the videogame D-Day. The old boys and I put the game through it’s paces in the tactical room at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst (in between several games of Bridge and flowing Cognac), and we came to the conclusion that just like the real invasion it’s bloody, messy and sometimes fun. What? The war wasn’t fun? Must be the shrapnel in my brain- it tickles sometimes. Hoo har! Hoo Hoo Har! Hoo Hoo Hoo…. SLAP! That’s better. Now then, this is text book point-and-click, real time strategy territory, delivered with that typical bird’s eye view with the ability to roll the mouse wheel to zoom in and out for a closer look. So far, so uninteresting. You can take control of a plethora of allied units encompassing the whole range of armoured vehicles, transports and manpower, even being able to call up air strikes and aerial reconnaissance if you like. The situations in which you can deploy them are atmospheric and varied by default because Normandy and the Western Front offers all manner of scope for the discerning General. Beach landings, tank battles, resistance operations and street fighting, it’s all here don’t you know. Hoo har! How it brought back my memories of wartime France- that saucy waitress Yvette, that deserted barn and that French loaf…… SLAP! Now then, when I command an army I need to see everything crisply and clearly. That means the graphics need to be excellent, and sharper than me ceremonial sabre. In most respects D-Day does this well, displaying a nice level of detail and colour tones in its battlefields. The landscapes are well textured, highly destructible and the vehicle units are nicely drawn. But as usual the men let me down like the rebellious rabble they are. Who are these people? I can hardly distinguish machine gunners from sappers half the time and I really cannot be bothered to scrutinise in the heat of battle. There is a slight lack of sheen when zooming in too, compared to say, Codename Panzers, a game that looks even more delicious and detailed in close up. I also need discipline from my men. Tactics help too, but the problem with D-Day is that many of the missions require copious presses of the space bar to pause the game so that you can work out what you want to do. Most of the time I found myself ignoring the troops and treating them like cannon fodder so as to concentrate on the big boy’s stuff to solve situations. Problem machine gun nest? Chuck some tanks and artillery at it. Problem bunkers? Chuck some tanks and artillery at it. Or perhaps an air strike. Why worry, there will be some more reinforcements coming soon. Hoo har, it’s better than using my shotgun on my Airfix models! It’s just so easy (and more pleasurable) to be lazy and let the men tag along to be killed in a lot of the missions, but then I suppose that’s pretty realistic considering that the Generals of the past century seem to have been schooled in the Douglas Haig school of ‘death by attrition.’ This is why the game never really manages to attain the perfect balance between detailed campaigning and outright fun. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. To be honest, the only footmen I found remotely useful and worth seeking out were the Sappers and Flamethrower chappies. In fact, the game really should have thrown all its eggs into armoured combat situations because it’s clear that this is where most of the love has gone - or perhaps it’s the explosions and deliciously realistic impact sound effects that makes the combat a tasty feast. There are enjoyable subtleties though like targeting the caterpillar tracks of a tank to immobilise it in order to take it over later, and digging in your armoured pieces for a superior defence. It’s strange that there is rarely as much usefulness in deploying your men (unless you think really hard about it for a week) but then I guess this a problem that comes with games played from this perspective. On the plus side, there is a hell of a lot of stuff packed in here to enjoy. The game serves as quite an educational piece, what with the regular displays of real archive footage and descriptive text telling you exactly what happened and how the war progressed. It adds to the immersion factor considerably, though during the game there are some inexplicable ‘Allo Allo’-style embarrassments in the voice acting (you should never, EVER say “listen to zis carefully, I shall say zis only once” in any WW II game lest some crappy accordion music infects your brain). The game never seems to be stale either due to the diversity of situations on offer, the best being the secondary missions which can have quite a bearing on the rest of the campaign depending on whether you fail or succeed in them. So in conclusion, D-Day is sort of like a Sherman Tank - useful, workmanlike and versatile, but weak in some key areas and prone to technical problems. There is better, more confident and focused stuff on offer but if you want a grand, varied campaign then you could certainly do worse.

Best Bits
- A variety of units and situations to command.
- Loads of educational and historical elements.
- Looks and sounds quite nice.

Worst Bits
- It’s only really fun when the tanks are around.
- Sometimes the game slips from authentic to parody.
- The soldier units are a little indistinct.


by: 4thy