High Command Europe is one of seemingly hundreds of World War II strategy games that became popular in the early nineties. With games such as Third Reich, the 5th Fleet, World War II: Battle for the South Pacific, Balance of Power, the Grandest Fleet, Clash of Steel; about one hundred different battle tank, submarine and flight simulations, plus the standard old World War II classic Axis and Allies converted from a board game, Colorado Computer Creations was looking at a nearly impossible challenge: to create a World War II strategy or simulation hybrid that would be somehow set apart from the possibly thousands of other choices.
Three-Sixty Pacific Incorporated chose to publish High Command: Europe 1939-1945, evidently seeing some individualistic quality that would do just that. It was created specifically for the DOS format.
High Command: Europe 1939-1945 is, as mentioned above, a combination of simulator and strategy. The user can choose between playing from the perspective of either the Axis or the Allies, and is the High Command of whatever faction he chooses to play as. As such, it is the user’s sole responsibility to make the important decisions involving the military (from training to movement), economy (balancing resources to keep the military functional while taking care of the people) and diplomacy (maintaining authority and independence without alienating potential allies). It’s a tricky balance to strike.
There will be many other issues
with which the user will have to address, many of these being the unique things that help differentiate High Command: Europe 1939-1945 from the others. There will be detailed weather conditions that will affect the user’s campaigns, and disagreements with other nations to be resolved. Terrain offers bonuses and hindrances to account for. There are many factions of the military to control: air support, land deployment, and naval units. Overall, it is a strategic level game, not a shoot ‘em up.
Technically speaking, like most strategic level war games, High Command: Europe 1939-1945 is not a game featuring life-like movies and great graphic displays…rather it relies on game play and strategy to interest the user. The interface is entirely mouse driven, which gets to be a lot clicking around, but it is at least easy to follow. The AI is predictably unpredictable. It has moments of brilliant logic followed by complete confusion, which is not exactly sound as war strategies go, but perhaps adds a more human depth to the play. In short, this is a decent game and it should be given a try if you enjoyed any of the games listed above.
