Panzer Commander puts you in the lead tank of a WWII tank platoon, fighting for the German, Russian, US or British forces in one of 40 standalone scenarios or in one of three German Russian campaigns.

There's no strategy outside of the set piece scenarios the tactics come into play within the battles. You'll typically command three tanks but you'll only be able to drive or shoot from your own tank. While you can give commands to your platoon you can't control any other vehicles on your side these follow prescript orders until they achieve their goal, get destroyed, or flee the battle. This is in contrast to iPanzer'44, 1944: Across the Rhine and Muzzle Velocity where you do play as an "all-seeing mega-being". 

The more confined nature of Panzer Commander does add extra tension, more so when you can optionally choose to make the "simulation" more realistic by disabling external camera views or your all-seeing "radars" of enemy positions. Once you do that, playing by riding cupola view is pretty exciting as your tank bounces at high speed over rough terrain with shells exploding all around.

Panzer Commander is a throwback to the days before modern electronic aids were invented. There's no CITV, no IVIS, and perhaps most importantly no gun stabilisers if you want to have any chance of hitting an enemy you'll have to park up, aim, shoot, and then move off again before someone draws a bead on you. If, like me, you prefer duelling in a Spitfire to an F-15, then you'll be more likely to warm to the hard realities of this game. 

Taking the luxury to see if your shot hits its intended target might indeed be the difference between life and death, for while M1 Tank Platoon 2 plops you in a mobile fortress otherwise known as the Abrams MBT, in Panzer Commander you can just as easily be in a lowly Panzer III as a more godly Tiger II. And in that relatively paper-thin wrapper, one hit will inevitably kill.

Overall:- There's a lot to admire about Panzer Commander, and there's a lot to cause much gnashing of teeth. As a tank sim, which puts you under pressure it's pretty good, and those cute looks are backed up by a generally sound physics model. Some will argue that some gun and armour ratings are a little out, and they may be right, but the general relative performances seem OK. If anything, perhaps too much effort has gone into getting the looks and the physics right, and not enough into wrapping a game around it. Ultimation have delivered what's arguably the best 3D tank models in any tank sim to date, yet the performance of the "AI" in providing support by the platoon around you is poor, particularly on path finding. Imagine playing Quake in a three-man squad where your partners got stuck behind pillars and walls. It wouldn't be as much of a problem if you didn't need their firepower, but you do.

Star Rating: HHHII

Producer: Wizard Software

Required Spec:

Pentium 166 MMX

32 Mb RAM

200MB hard drive space