Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 review

Where the house-lights are burning tanks, stage-fright is common, and the corpsing is literal

GamesRadar+ Verdict

Pros

  • +

    Cool moments make it stand out

  • +

    Dirtier

  • +

    grittier action

  • +

    Approaches combat unusually

Cons

  • -

    Lip-curlingly unimaginative campaigns

  • -

    Bog-standard AI

  • -

    Performance a bit choppy

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Baptisms don’t come much fierier than the Battle of Sidi Bou Zid. On February 14, 1943, in the shadow of the Atlas Mountains, the US Army got its first taste of Blitzkrieg. The results weren’t pretty. Panzers + experience > Shermans + naivety.

Developers 1C uses Sidi Bou Zid and the rest of Operation Fruhlingswind (Rommel’s last-gasp lunge in North Africa) as the backdrop for this slim but pithy Theatre of War sequel. If you remember, ToW was the pretty WWII RTS from 2007 that thought it was a wargame. Big battlefields, credible ballistics, men with minds of their own... not since the Close Combats had a real-time tactics title treated WWII so tenderly. Oh, and the silly spotting and lack of tactical smoke, on-map mortars, and building interiors. The good news is that ToW2’s houses are hollow, its battles smoky, and its troops can’t spot camel fleas through undergrowth at a thousand yards.

The bad news is those campaigns are still as lip-curlingly unimaginative as ever. Instead of exerting themselves by turning Tunisia into a patchwork of conquerable cantons, 1C have divided fifteen too-similar scenarios between three sequences and called it a day. Attack this pretty hill-ringed town, defend that one... after a few missions a beige mist descends. You have to go look at a friendly tank to remind yourself whether you’re playing as the Brits, Yanks or Jerries.

If ToW2’s take on WWII combat wasn’t so unusual, the game would be in serious trouble. It keeps you playing in spite of the samey, over-scripted scenarios, by offering things its peers don’t. That 88 way over there just nailed my Valentine tank! Lovely, one of my grunts just scavenged a bazooka off that dead GI! Endearing echoes of Combat Mission, Men of War and Close Combat combine to give ToW2 the character it needs to stand out from the Sudden-Codename-Blitzkrieg brigade.

A bit more of Combat Mission: Afrika Korps wouldn’t have hurt, though. CMAK offered Italian and French forces, soldiers that surrendered and tanks that reversed when nervous. Here we get a bog-standard AI, and a surprisingly shrunken unit roster (where are the Churchills and the Crusaders?). And the skirmish facilities and framerates are nothing to write home about either.

Once again we’re forced to proffer a guarded recommendation rather than a fulsome one. The Theatre of War engine has a lot to offer, but until its creators present it to us in a more imaginative form, it will remain under-appreciated.

Jun 17, 2009

More info

GenreStrategy
DescriptionThis WWII era strategy game offers a bit of unusual gameplay that separates itself from the others of the same caliber, however the fun gameplay is masked by an unimaginative campaign that has been done so many times before.
Platform"PC"
Release date1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK)
More
CATEGORIES
Latest in Strategy
A big mech's lost its limbs in a screenshot from Mecharashi.
After Square Enix cancelled the first new Front Mission in years, it’s suing the developer behind it for releasing another very similar mech game
Kingmakers
Kingmakers is a strategy game about taking on medieval armies with a gun, but its devs thought the giant mech was too much
Kingmakers appearing in the Future Games Show Spring Showcase 2025
Remember that bonkers Kingmakers trailer where an attack helicopter blew up some knights? It's back with a deep dive of its simulated attackers and destructible buildings
Mount and Blade 2 appearing in the Future Games Show Spring Showcase 2025
Strategy RPG Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord heads to the seas for a Viking-inspired expansion
Rise of Industry 2 appearing in FGS Live from GDC
Go big or go home in Rise of Industry 2 as you claw your way to the top in this complex 1980s business management sim
The Deadly Path appearing in FGS Live from GDC
Strategy roguelike game The Deadly Path poses an uncomfortable question: "Am I actually any good at strategy games?"
Latest in Reviews
Image of the Corsair Virtuoso Max wireless headset sitting on top of a gaming PC case taken by writer Rosalie Newcombe.
Corsair Virtuoso Max Wireless review - a PC headset tour de force
Zombicide box featuring stylized art of survivors fighting zombies
Zombicide 2nd Edition review: "Like a zombie flick brought to tabletop"
Razer Handheld Dock with Steam Deck sitting on cradle, pink and yellow RGB lighting on, and Alienware monitor in background with Tomb Raider Trilogy gameplay on screen.
Razer Handheld Dock review: “Your Steam Deck will ride shiny and Chroma"
Photographs of the Agricola board game in play
Agricola review: "Accurate representation of the highly competitive and often unstable world of agriculture"
Photos taken by writer Rosalie Newcombe of the Shure MV7i microphone, within a pink and white themed room.
Shure MV7i review - convenience and excellence rolled into one superb sounding package
Key art for Atomfall showing a character in the English countryside looking at a nuclear plant some distance away
Atomfall review: "This isn't British Fallout – it's something much better than that"