Playing Unity of Command is much like the experience you get when trying a new and rather difficult hobby for the first time. The initial experience is likely to be met with an amount of frustration and swearing akin to slamming your hand in a car door. However, once you've managed to get some traction the immense feeling of accomplishment when you finally complete a scenario is so euphoric you keep on coming back for more.Unity of Command puts you in the generals chair of either the German or Russian forces on the eastern front of WWII. The different sides have unique advantages and disadvantages depending on the scenario, Tiger tanks will decimate nearly anything put into their path but if you can successfully outflank them you can quickly cut their supply lines making them unable to fire and move. In fact, the majority of the game will be spend staring at the supply map debating if you have the forces to make that final push. Make the wrong call and you'll quickly find yourself with no supply lines being systematically annihilated by a smaller well supplied force.
The defeat screen is one you may find yourself looking at quite often. At times, it feels as though the computer is turns ahead of you and simply baiting you into bad decisions. They'll retreat across that bridge to their final supply point only to summon reinforcements decimating you as you bottleneck in an attempt to land a killing blow. There's no mid scenario saving either so every action you take is a permanent one.
Keeping in mind that this was developed by a small indie team the graphics and sound design are quite impressive. Unity are easy to distinguish between each other at a glance and the maps are well designed and quite historically accurate. All the needed information is presented clearly and concisely while remaining easily accessible from the games main screen.
Unity of Command is a challenging yet fair experience that is marred by glaring flaws such as below industry standard multiplayer and options to appease a more casual wargame fan. Despite this, Unity of Command is a fantastic option for those that would like to explore a genre that previously required you to spend dozens of hours learning game systems to be at all competitive. At a budget price of $19.99 you owe it to yourself to give Unity of Command a go.
Game Features
Easy to learn and intuitive
Historically accurate operational-level units
17 single player scenarios
Game Information
Developer: 2x2 Games
Publisher: Matrix Games
Platforms: PC (reviewed)
Release Date: November 15, 2011