The Graphics

Deja TRIBES? The game felt very familiar for some reason, it was quite odd. Then we realized that the terrain is handled much like in Tribes. It's all polygonal, in full 3D and with an incredible view distance. At the longest ranges, the artificial foggy/performance saving horizon isn't that far from the real horizon. Granted, there is a price to pay in terms of performance, but the feeling of realism and detail it adds is remarkable. You'll find yourself shooting tanks from a kilometer away - at least if you're German. The American guns can barely damage German tanks at 100m, nevermind 1000.

Smokescreen

Cockpit interior

So why didn't we immediately say "hey, cool. This is like Tribes!"? Because it's better. Way back in our original Tribes review, we mentioned that it would be really cool to have trees and other natural obstacles to clutter up the vast openness of Tribes a bit. Well, they're finally here. They might be 2D sprites, but the trees and bushes are here. Then there are random farmhouses as well as entire towns and villages. Those, in turn, might be lying on a river which you have to cross by a bridge.

The ground has a bit of a washed-out feel, as if the textures are blurred too much. This feels a bit funny but can be easily overlooked. The tanks, on the other hand, are done quite well. They look blocky, but that's how they're supposed to look. The texturing on them is quite good and actually makes for realistic camouflage at range. It's hard to spot a Panther lurking in some trees and bushes unless you know where to look or scouted out the area with your binoculars.

Scaleable MouseTank

You can move turret with mouse

Nifty and Not-So-Nifty

What is amazing about the tanks is how well you can tell them apart. Nearly all the discernible differences on real tanks appear in Panzer Elite. Should you be lucky enough to catch a couple of varied Shermans in their profile view, you'll have no trouble deciding what to attack first. Say there's a M4A1(76) - he'll have the longest barrel and be the largest threat to your tanks. The M4A3(105), on the other hand, will have a short, fat barrel - it's designed to take on infantry. It won't pose too much of a threat except at close range. The regular M4 Sherman will have a short, weak 75mm gun that poses little threat to any German tank better than a PzIV F2. Thus, your decisions can be made appropriately.

Panzer Elite has a few cool features that we loved. Infantry are in the game - albeit as 2D sprites, but they're in the game. Hopefully their appearance in the two best tank games recently released (M1 Tank Platoon II being the other) means that infantry will now become a mainstay of tank sims. There are real-time shadows which do only a fair job, but they really do add a lot to the sense of realism in the game.

Nice background

Shrink the MouseTank

One of the most useful and cool of the tricks we encountered in the game was the ability to destroy buildings. Just load some high explosive rounds, take a few potshots at a house and flush the infantry out. Speaking of explosions though, we found them disappointing. A gun going off or a tank blowing up didn't have quite the satisfying graphical feedback we expect.