Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps

James007 · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2007 1:13 am Post subject: Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps

The screens for DRvAK before it was released really impressed me. The detail was particularly good, but the fact our review copy criss-crossed North America in an attempt to get it to someone with a powerful enough PC to run it at an acceptable level – that would be, me – should indicate what kind of hardware you’re going to need to play DRvAK. Basically, you need the hardware equivalent of a Concorde super-sonic jet getting a push-start from Superman to play it on the highest detail settings. Scaling the detail back lets DRvAK run at a more acceptable speed, which admittedly, I had to do even exceeding the recommended requirements. The developers didn’t skimp on the graphics (with plenty of satisfying explosions and special effects) nor with the audio (a real orchestra was used). Even with my gripes about the hardware requirements, the biggest problem is with DRvAK’s pathfinding.
The enemy AI is generally good – attacking and defending in ways that make sense – but the AI of your units is lacking. “Unpredictable” is probably the best descriptor. As long as the terrain is open you won’t have any problems but throw in any kind of wrinkle in there, like a building, and you can quickly lose track of units as they attempt to make their way to your chosen destination and getting picked off. (Granted it doesn’t happen all the time, just the worst time.) This is bad enough, but the fact you can’t replenish your forces truly frustrates the matter.