The year is 1939, and the world is on the brink of the second world war. Prepare to assume command of one of the three most powerful armies of that time: the German Wehrmacht, the Red Army or the Western Allies. The three different historical campaigns enable you to experience the demanding strategic aspects of combat for the first time on a handheld device. Lead your men to victory - on land, on water and in the air!

User Reviews about Panzer Tactics

Most of the other reviews are right on target. While this game is probably not a good match for the under 10 crowd (who are probably more interested in Pokemon anyway) it does a great job at bringing this kind of game to the DS platform. The references to Panzer General are talking about a specific series of classic PC strategy games that were popular in the 1990's (which dates most of the reviewers to somewhere between 25-40...). There is a reason it is a well known classic. This is the kind of game for strategy people who think Risk or Stratego is fine for playing with the kids, but who actually have seen and enjoyed practically any wargame that is more complex. It is not burdened down with a terrible level of detail however. Most of the flaws noted in other reviews are largely cosmetic due to the limitations of a hand-held platform. For a gift for teen or adult strategy gamer it should be a hit. -- Rare depth for DS strategy games

I love turn-based military hex strategy games and Panzer Tactics is a lot of fun. There are 3 campaigns to play (Axis, Soviets, Allies) and each of them will keep you occupied for many many hours, so this game gets good mileage for your gaming dollar. I played through the German campaign and now I'm on the Soviets. It's fun to see the game from the other side, though it's basically the same units with different paint jobs.

What I really like is that units gain experience in combat and carry over to the next level. You can then upgrade them to more powerful units when they reach the necessary experience level. You also get bonuses for completing the level under a certain number of turns. You can hire additional units or officers with the points you earn after each level. Officers give you certain tactical bonuses. Each level also has secondary objectives that reward you with special prizes if you accomplish them.

The music is very suitable, and sounds like World War II military-themed music you'd hear in war movies and shows like Private Ryan or Band of Brothers. The game is not without flaws, however. It takes a long time to "think" and you'll be seeing the hourglass a lot during enemy moves. This is a major complaint. It can take several minutes for the computer to finish thinking and complete its moves. On the plus side, however, the AI opponent can be very tough and give you a good run for your money. Another complaint, though minor, is that it is somewhat hard to distinguish which unit you're targeting for attack because only the hex outline color changes.

If you like hex turn-based strategy games, this one is definitely worth owning, but be mindful of the wait time before it's your turn again. -- A lot of fun for turn-based war game geeks

Great game for the strategy-minded "big kid". Probably a little too dry for the younger crowd, but for the 20- 30-something this game is rock-solid strategy. Bring along your units and upgrade them throughout the story. -- Great hex based WWII game

If you love Panzer General you'll love this game as well, which is heavily inspired by it, to the point of it almost being a copy. There is a learning curve at first, but once you get immersed, it's highly addictive and lots of fun.

The game is about 90% Panzer General, somewhere in between PG1 and PG2 rules-wise. Playing through the game I notice some details or minor rules here and there that are different. Some improvements, some steps backwards (especially considering how old PG is I'd expect more improvements). As a PG junky, none of these little changes kept me from enjoying the game, some I actually liked more(the leader system reminiscent of PG3, artillery can move one unit prior to firing without having to mount).

One thing I didn't like is movement rules - movement ends when your unit fires. And you can't move a unit, switch to another, come back to the original unit and then fire. Unit movement is done all at once with a particular unit and once it's done, it's done for that turn. I recall PG2 you could fire first and then move, or move one unit, move another, come back to the first and then fire. This system is a little to simple for me. It becomes troublesome in congested areas where things just get stacked up and sloppy for my tastes. It can get annoying when you can't bring firepower to bear because too many adjacent hexes are occupied, or the new leader systems gives leaders an effective range of usually 1 hex, but it's very difficult to optimally position units around the leader to take advantage of that with the aforementioned movement rules. Also recon don't get phased movement, which really reduces their effectiveness since they are so weak in combat. Most AT guns only have a range of one hex (even 88s) - which makes them almost useless, since you have to get right up on top of any enemy, hope they don't wallop you since you are so vulnerable mounted and wait until your next turn to dismount when the enemy may have already withdrawn at that point - it really hampers an aggressive blitz type approach when you have slow things down to want to engage these creeping AT guns. Also, no unit knockback, it was always a nice touch when an engineer would assault some INT entrenched in a city and force them to withdraw, or when a recon unit would pull itself back when facing heavy pressure. In this game your units are planted where they are when turn ends, this ends up being very costly. And resupplying costs prestige! And refitting doesn't also resupply, meaning in longer missions you may have to resupply one turn, refit the next, thus taking your unit out of the battle for basically 2 whole turns!

Anyway, minor differences aside, this game sucked me right in in much the same way PG did. I found the game to be very challenging and unforgiving, especially in the later campaigns.

Most of any interface frustration comes from the limitations of the DS. Screen size makes for a lot of clumsy scrolling, especially for long range units. Only one save game slot for all 3 campaigns. No mods, expansion maps, custom campaigns like the good ole' PC games.

It's not quite Panzer General 2, but it's the closest thing to it, and I'd recommend it for wargamers.
Great portable strategy fix! -- Panzer Jeneral 1.7 (contains 90% actual Panzer General)

Here's the bad news: Graphics are hard to understand. The manual is almost useless. Game navigation is cumbersome. There's a STEEP learning curve.

The good news: Once you learn how the game works, it can provide hundreds of hours of fun and amusement!

This game needs a "2nd Edition" with lots of improvements, but if you're willing to work around the cons, and you like strategy games (kind of like chess on steroids) then this game is loads of fun. There are so many variables that it will be fun to "fight WWII" multiple times. Skip the manual and try the built in tutorials and maybe some online video tutorials and then just play. It took me 3 days to get the hang of it, but now I'm losing sleep to play and late to work because of playing and can't wait to get home to play...

I wish there were more hex-grid games for the DS. It's a great platform for them. -- There's good news and bad news...