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Panzer
Front Ausf.B
bills itself as the only Tank Simulation available on the
PlayStation2. Developed by Enterbrain, Panzer Front Ausf.B has
been published in the UK by 505
GameStreet, who have been pushing several innovative titles in
recent months. These include 10,000 Bullets, Harvest:
Fishing, Bujingai Swordmaster, Fighting Angels, Michigan:
Report From Hell, Aces Of War and Guilty Gear
Isuka. These
titles, among others, have helped maintain the diversity of releases
available on the PlayStation2 over the 2005 Christmas period, and,
as the only Tank Simulator, Panzer Front Ausf.B, certainly
fits the bill.
However,
the reason behind the lack of Tank Simulators quickly becomes clear
once playing Panzer Front Ausf.B. The majority of war games
seem to have accepted that accuracy regarding tank warfare should be
dropped in favour of attaining a more playable and resultantly
enjoyable game. Panzer Front Ausf.B has however sets its
crosshairs directly on accuracy. Overall it seems largely successful
in achieving this goal. There is a overwhelmingly endless supply of
background information and stats on each individual tank model,
as well as
detailed
historical narratives surrounding each Mission.
The
gameplay also seems to be a reasonably accurate simulation of tank
warfare. However this is not necessarily a good thing. It is through
this accuracy the game becomes almost unplayable and completely
devoid of enjoyment. The tanks move agonizingly slowly; it can often
take the majority of a battle to drive through the barren terrain
just to get within sight of any enemy units. You do have the
opportunity to change the engine, but the only choices are normal or
500%. The higher of which is comically fast and seems to lead to
certain death pretty quickly. The time spent simply driving is quite
probably the weakest point of the game.  You can however set the
options for the tank to be driven there automatically and sit back
and have a cup of tea while you wait.
Panzer
Front Ausf.B fares slightly better on the shooting side of
things. Your tank starts off with several varieties of ammunition,
depending on the nation and tank you have selected to use. These
range from; Armour Piercing-High Explosive, to a good old
Machine-Gun. A tap of the Circle Button activates a
crosshair-screen, which enables the player to identify a target,
select his or her preferred form of ammunition with the Right Analogue
Stick, and finally to fire with another tap of the Circle Button.
However, shooting is not quite as easy as it might seem. Different
methods have to be mastered to use different tanks, as the
crosshairs and ammunition varieties differ. In addition multiple
extra factors come into play. If you don’t consider the effect of
gravity you are much more likely to see the trees behind your target
fall, or the mud in front of it churn up. It is also important, when
firing at a tank or other armoured vehicle, to aim at weak points.
When you are down to your last High Explosive round, you can simply
aim at your foe’s tracks and leave them immobile, easy prey for
your other units. The Machine-Gun proves particularly satisfying
when recreating the
Somme
on a small scale
every time the enemy has to bail out of a troop carrier.
The
sound is also a pretty accurate. The battlefield is full of the
sounds of engines and gunfire, with the occasional aircraft passing
overhead. The odd natural noise, such as birds is also heard. This
does however become a little tired, and the game would perhaps
benefit from some atmospheric music. The sound is not a major aspect
of the game, and consequently doesn’t affect it overly much.
The graphics are however another matter. Time has obviously
been spent crafting the tanks as recreations of WWII models, and
although they don’t look too bad, they are a little disappointing
on a console like the PlayStation2. The movement however looks
frankly abysmal. The tanks seem to move across the ground in small
blocks rather than smoothly, and the camera movement is the same.
There are also plenty of other graphical glitches. Firstly the
aerials on the tanks seem to have big gaps in them at points, and
worryingly the tank commander is often missing the center of his
head. The terrain is also rather poor, simply being green or brown
depending on the location, without any visible attempt at making
either the grass or sand look realistic. There are also some
problems with Polygon Pop-Up, although these problems are not
crippling. On the other hands the  explosions are very satisfying,
and nobody can really complain about the way the turrets are blown
off tanks or men are thrown through the air by anti-tank rounds.
The graphics as a whole are rather poor and really do damage
the game. The game is billed as the latest in the Panzer Front
series, but rather looks like a game ported from an older console,
with some minor tweaking.
There
are some good points to the game, which should be explored. There is
an extensive Tactics Menu, which enables the player to command the
other units around him and complete Mission Objectives. This
includes changing formation or calling in artillery or air support.
You can even order artillery to cloud an area with smoke. The sheer
size of each battlefield is also a definite bonus, it is however
difficult to explore or utilise much of it without risking defeat in
the engagement.
The
good points are unfortunately outweighed by the bad. It seems that
whilst creating a thorough, authentic, moderately accurate Tank
Simulator no attention was actually spent to making a game that
would appeal to a broader audience than the local tank buff. It
seems that it was simply overlooked that a necessary element of any
game is that it be fun to play, not a chore. In this respect Panzer
Front Ausf.B has failed. From the very opening Menu (which would
be a crime on a Mega-Drive title) to the depressing sight of seeing
your men bail out, or your turret blown of, there is little
enjoyment to be garnered from playing the game. Although not the
worst title available on the PlayStation2, neither will Panzer
Front Ausf.B help effect any kind renaissance for the console.
The aforementioned tank buff may love this game, thousands wont.
 
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