T.A.C. Heroes : Big Red One - Nintendo DS

Just ok

Rather disapointing. The game engine and mechanics had the potential for an excellent WWII turn based tactical game but it missed the mark. Surviving platoon members may recieve stat increases after each battle but most have little game effect or are so incrimentaly small there is no benifit to keeping orginal soldiers in lieu of better available replacements. Mediocre soldiers can not become great soldiers or hardly good soldiers for the most part due to large disparity in starting stats.The Scenarios are loosley based from historical events. The Goal of every scenario is to kill or nuetralize all enemy soldiers or vehicles on the map. The moment the last enemy is destroyed the scenario ends so loot early During the battle, equipment may be looted and either used or sold later. Most scenarios a very short and end abrubtly.T.A.C Heros does have a large weapons selection but they are tacked-on to create volume like in Fantasy game melee weapons to provide lots of Up-grades. The tedious time to equip your unit could have been worthwhile if some more research in application had been applied to the weapons and equipment. There is a slew of revolver as upgrades from the 1911 45. Also, anyone can have anything so you are almost channeled into purchasing everyone belt fed Browning 30Cals and Bazookas because there are no weapons or soldier restrictions. NCO's have little leader affects but do have more action points.It is suppossed to be a Tacticle game but the AI deploys your units for you. Poorly. So you have no control where your NCO's, machinegunner or Anti-tank soldiers will be if you attempt to create a realistic platoon formation. One Scenario simply dumps them into Fox holes along a road, almost garunteeing the first postion will be wiped out. The Auto deploy also makes some two player scenarios useless if you play the Axis as you can lose the game in turn 1 before ever having a chance to fire. T.A.C. Heros however does only require one game card. That's great, after some digging you may find a couple of scenarios that are compatable for two players inspite of the Auto Deploy.I was not amused by the selfindulgent use of portrait photos of the game designers to represent WWII soldiers. Seems like they grabbed everybody and anybody to wear the same helmet and a T-shirt. Really? The voice overs during animations are also just as convincing.There did appear to be some thought put into the scenario situations. The Graphics are good and the animations and sound effects are fair. Perhaps someone actualy read a book. Shame they were not fluent with well desinged & researched old school WWII Hex games. Sadly the WWII theme seems too morphed from a Fantasy game engine. All the elements are here for a good WWII tactical game but not applied with attention to detail. Hopefully a second game will be released and correct these short commings.GW