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Name: Hearts of Iron III

Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, all names we associate with one major event, the Second World War, an event which Hearts of Iron III bases its grand strategy gameplay off. This is the third game in the Hearts of Iron series and while it still contains its complexities, this sequel makes playing the game a much easier experience, removing much of the unnecessary micromanagement needed to effectively manage your armies and economics. However, Hearts of Iron III is still a deep and involving strategy title that will take you decades to fully master, even with its improvements.

In the traditional Hearts of Iron sense, the depth and degree of management you have access to is simply mind boggling. You would be forgiven for thinking the game was simply a combat based strategy game upon picking it up, it certainly isn't however. Politics play an important role in how you run your nations, through democracy, fascism, and even communism, each nation is realistically based upon its real-world counterpart and it's for you to decide how to run the nations you'll have conquered. The number of provinces, which is in the five figure numbers, has its own leaders, from government ministers, to generals of the armies, each have their own separate skills and personalities which shape each country differently.

It does follow the years through World War II quite precisely, yet things can go completely differently depending on how you manage the multitude of details which can be addressed, making that all important Allied victory into an abysmal defeat and world domination by the Axis forces. While running your military campaign might seem the most important aspect, the economy is just as important since you'll need to gain access to natural resources such as oil, then factories to build the relevant materials and production of war machines for your army, air force, and navy. Each government has its own level of technology and Germany was at the top of its league when it came to breaking new ground on future technological advancements, this is also something you'll need to research for better military hardware, or, steal information from your enemies and sabotage their own plans for advancement with the use of Spies. This level of interactivity can seem a little daunting at first, in the first two games it felt like you needed a degree in military dictatorship to at least get your foot in the door, but Paradox Interactive have introduced an AI component to help you out, in more ways than one.

Hearts of Iron III allows you to select how much control you actually want, or don't, in running everything. Nearly all aspects can be handed over to the computer to control on your behalf, with you having the ever watching eye. Resources, diplomacy, research, military, spying, war, yes, even war can be handed over if you prefer to concentrate your efforts on running the economy. The computer still requires you to be present however, you can't leave the game running while you head to work and hope you've conquered Russia by the time you get back, you'll still give the nod on certain decisions, it just means the computer will deal with more of the menial tasks. The computer actually does a pretty good job of keeping everything running smoothly and it opens up the game to a much wider audience, allowing newer players to ease themselves in by only handling the aspects of the game they wish to and not being overwhelmed by the sheer depth which the earlier titles placed you in.

The military has also been greatly enhanced in how you control your forces, you now have control over headquarters in the field, enabling you to manually direct how a battle pans out and give orders to all units under the command of that HQ. This allows you to move an entire front to push forward when the need arises, saving you the time and effort of having to individually select units and issue them with orders. The computer does a fantastic job of keeping your units in check and issuing them orders to keep things active. It also doesn't waste any of your units, for instance, if you order an invasion of an occupied territory through one of the field level HQ's then the computer will simply request the units it needs to accomplish the task, instead of moving all your units into battle while leaving yourself exposed and having you always keep tabs on what the computer is doing.

Improvements have also been made with the graphics, now you'll be able to have 3D soldiers, tanks, ships and planes moving around the map in their own military fashion, you will however need a pretty good PC to get the most from this as the amount of units and the size of the map is simply staggering. The interface has been overhauled as well, lending itself from another of Paradox's strategy games, Europa Universalis III, making things much easier and removing many of the unnecessary screens from the previous games. It isn't all good though, even a high end number crunching PC will take a while to load and still lag the game when the action gets heavy, especially if you're using the 3D models, these can be replaced with the traditional war counters of old however, making things much smoother, but you still get the odd bout of lag, it isn't terrible, but it can be annoying in places. Another problem is the games translation, any decent English speaker will see the spelling mistakes and errors which plague some of the tutorial texts, and it's surprising for a company of Paradox's calibre to have not fixed these simple mistakes before release.

With a game that can last weeks instead of hours you'll be pretty surprised to find Hearts of Iron III does include multiplayer over LAN or the internet. You'll choose from seven different starting dates from the war era, each year having its own significance such as the Russian invasion or the bombing of Pearl Harbour. A multiplayer game is won by accumulating the most victory points, and surviving, before the time runs out and the war period ends. The implementation is a superb addition to the game, but you'll need so much time to actually play that most will likely never have the time to fully get through a match, especially the ones spanning the whole war.

Detailing all of Hearts of Iron III's features could take longer than the war itself, it's a grand strategy series which was destined for hardcore fans alone, until Paradox realised that giving players the option of controlling only certain parts of their own choosing would make the game much more appealing, it's a game that can give less, yet offers so much more, a unique perspective if ever there was one. Hearts of Iron III is still a game that isn't for everyone however, you'll need to be a pretty big strategy fan to get the most from it, and have the time to do it. Even with the few issues which sometimes hinder the experience, it is definitely an improvement over its predecessors and seeing the different ways the war can pan out depending on your decisions is a fun and exciting thing to experience. If you're a world war strategy fan with a lot of patience, then you'll really enjoy the game to its full potential.