Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943

This Is The second 1C Company-published game this month and this one also has a box cover that has the wrong name emblazoned on it. Unlike Blood of Europe to the right, this one is just missing the number '2' after Theatre of War. Oh, and the cover has the game names in the wrong order too. Apart from that, it's a success. This game is a hardcore World War II RTS that plays like a cross between Men of War and Combat Mission. It's more intimidating and harder to get your head around than the former, but it's more forgiving than the latter.

There are three campaigns here: one for the Wehrmacht, one for the US, and one for the British. They all play the same except with different accents when you receive orders and when you click on your units. Despite it being more intuitive than the Combat Mission games, Africa 1943 is no picnic. One tutorial told me to find a bazooka in a box near a burning vehicle. I found the vehicle, but I couldn't interact with anything around it.

Having said that the game's got a substantial amount of strategic depth, something Battlefront are renowned for. There's a battle creator, online modes and an exhaustive encyclopaedia referencing all the vehicles and stuff used in the battles. Sadly, it's just not easy for people who aren't already well versed in how this game series works to get into it.