R.U.S.E. | Gameguide R.U.S.E. – Gameguide

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RUSE is a real time strategy game (RTS), a genre that is pretty much still under the icy grip of PC gaming. Fortunately then, even though RUSE is available for the PC, it seems to have been built with the console in mind, and what’s more, build extremely well. Being a game, it of course comes with a story line, one that sees you chasing an elusive German intelligence source, code-named Prometheus. The game kicks off at the end of the Second World War, with a mad dash through enemy lines to try and save a Allied agent held prisoner in Colditz. This is not where the game begins however, as you’re soon transported back in time to Tunisia in 1942, controlling only a handful of troops in a desperate attempt to stem the German and Italian armies. You only get to control a handful of troops on the table – the ones under your command will vary in type and size as the game progresses – but the table itself is full of units from both sides. Zoom all the way out and you’ll see planning table where your troops are visualised as counters. Zoom all the way in and you’ll see individual soldiers fight (and quite often, if you;re not careful, die) in minute detail. Getting used to the thumb-stick navigation took me a little while, and some of the early missions I was cursing my non hard core gamer multitasking abilities (by which I mean lack of) as when ever I wanted to move across the map table I found myself rapidly zooming in or out and vice versa. Practice however makes perfect and about half way through the North African campaign I finally got the hang of it. And just in the nick of time as I was having to think on my feat and move units around, whilst utalising my special RUSE abilities to stop an ongoing, multi front assault on my positions. It’s your RUSE abilities that make or break the game – these abilities are limited and must be used wisely, they will tell you every think you need to know about what the Germans are up to and what type of units you’re about to head into. Later in the game your RUSE abilities increase so that you can fool the Germans and move about undetected. As you progress through North Africa to Italy, the game becomes more complex with the ability to build bases and generate troops. These bases need to be protected however at the same time as you need troops to achieve objectives. But as the game becomes more complex – and harder – it also becomes a heck of a lot more fun. Controlling your troops is easy – though it can be frustrating when you make huge blunders and you see your tiny little men being cut to pieces – you can do just about everything you need to with a combination of a couple of buttons and the tumbsticks. Graphically and audibly, the game is convincing enough to allow you to feel like you are playing a part in the most important battles of recent history. The game flows along teaching you everything you need to know, when you need to know it. WIth RUSE, UbiSoft have shown us that consoles can be good at RTS games, and hopefully other developers will pick up on this and develop some more strategy games to give us console gamers a way to engage our brains in-between endless bouts of mindless FPS action.

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