This article is more than 1 year old

RUSE

Time for some tactics

This means WAR

Appropriately for a game based on World War II, RUSE is not won on resource and will alone. Subterfuge is a major element of gameplay - and sets Eugen System's game apart from many other RTSs.

Ruse

Farmville it is not

Selectable Ruse cards provide temporary strategic advantage. Enemy units are revealed by spies, or your own concealed by radio silence, for example. And decoy units are assembled to lure your enemy from your intended front, or whole sectors of troops and armaments bestowed with blitzkrieg speed.

Introduced in the single-player campaign, most Ruse cards have oddly limited impact on scripted AI, but employed against human intelligence in multiplayer they can deal devastating blows. The standard RTS battlefield is instantly transformed from one in which engagements are decided by the twitch reflexes of resource building and deployment, to one where mind games and posturing rule supreme.

Ruse

Barbecue season got a little out of hand

That's not to say the single-player campaign is any less enjoyable. Although often feeling mere training ground for multiplayer, the re-enactments of World War II's major operations provide excellent strategic variety, from the tension of limited supply lines and resurgent Nazis at The Battle of The Bulge, to the race to secure German scientists and technology after the Allies' handshake at the Elbe bridge in Torgau.

Next page: Total Annihilation

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