When Night Falls ...

Screenshot - Call to Arms: Panzer Elite

... Sarge gets his game on.

Yup, back in the saddle again, this time with Call to Arms: Panzer Elite from Digitalmindsoft Publishing. I originally got into this publisher's games via their Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront. When Panzer Elite came out, I jumped on it. I mean, y'all know my love of tanks. (And juvat, I'll try and find some screenshots of aircraft blowing up tanks in one of the games I have. I know it's there, just haven't played that particular setup yet.)

This one is in early release, in other words you buy the game and provide feedback to the developers and as the game gets updated, you get the updates. Basically you're paying for a finished product and get to help test that product. I don't mind, that particular business model seems to be working for a lot of game publishers.

Anyhoo, that opening photo is the standard player's view. You're hovering behind your tank so it's perhaps a bit more "arcade-ish" than IL-2 Sturmovik - Stalingrad. But it's great fun. Once you see something you might want to shoot at, you can zoom in to this view ...

Screenshot - Call to Arms: Panzer Elite

I thought I saw movement just beyond that farm ahead to the right, so I zoomed in to the gunner's position. Moments later a Pzkw IV came rumbling into view. He blew off my left track but this was his fate ...

Screenshot - Call to Arms: Panzer Elite

I'm not sure if the crew can bail out at this stage of development, they can in Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront, in that game you can bring up spare vehicle crews to repair and re-man a vehicle. Which is pretty cool.

For now, if the vehicle dies, so does the crew.

As for Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront, it looks like this ...

Screenshot - Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront

Screenshot - Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront

You can play zoomed out, with a map showing you your guys and known enemy positions, or you can zoom way in, like that last screenshot, to really see what's going on. You can order your units to advance, fight, withdraw, what have you, and they'll execute in real time. Then you can zoom in and watch the action.

It's immersive, very immersive.

I highly recommend both, if you've got at least this much oomph in your machine:

Minimum System Requirements

OS *: 64bit - Windows 7, 8, 10, 11

MEMORY: 16 GB RAM

GRAPHICS: GTX 1070 / RX 5600

DIRECTX: Version 11

STORAGE: 80 GB available space

SOUND CARD: DirectX 11 compatible

ADDITIONAL NOTES: SSD drive and fast internet connection needed for optimal gameplay

If you've got that, or better, you should be able to run these games. (juvat - Not sure if they'll run on a Mac, but the discussion page on Steam says "Yes" it runs on Windows and Mac.)

Sorry gotta run, Krauts are breaking through near St. Vith!