I can't say that I've been overloaded with the large number of WWII games that have come out over the past decade or so. In fact, with the announcement of R.U.S.E, I decided that this game would be worth a try and spent the 2 weeks leading up to it's release by playing a few favorite WWII video games and watching a few movies. Saving Private Ryan, Enemy at the Gates, and Band of Brothers Boxed Set made their way into my DVD player and Medal of Honor (the one for PS2) and Company of Heroes occupied my time on the games front.  These things made me remember that WWII movies are bloody and gory, Medal of Honor is a great game and Company of Heroes single player pisses me off with secondary missions that seem impossible (timed missions anyone?). 
 
When I first loaded up R.U.S.E I wasn't actually able to play for the first 30 minutes. Ubisoft prompts you to login to your Ubisoft account or create a new one. I tried logging in with one of my common IDs I use for these sorts of things but was told that "that ID did not exist." Creating a new account didn't help either. I couldn't make a new account using the same e-mail address. I had to close the game, go to Ubisoft's homepage and locate my missing Ubisoft ID and password. An ability to do that in game would have been nice. 
 
It's a really good thing that this game started me off slowly with tutorials because the controls for this game take awhile to get accustomed to and furthermore seemed to hinder my ability to make quick decisions in the game. For example, when queuing up new units, I'd often forget that they need to be sent to a rally point. I'd queue them up, go to a different building to queue up a different kind of unit and then wonder why the first group didn't get built. Even making 2 groups of the same unit to go to 2 different rally points seemed to be a monumental task. Also, don't even try to make new units if one of those neat cutscene panels pop up during the mission. You'll either send those units you just made to a random place on the map or they won't get made at all.
 
R.U.S.E. uses the rock scissors, paper formula, for the most part, to decide whether I crushed the AI or if my army was left in a smouldering mess of metal and body parts. It's not a bad system in theory, but when a group of tanks is approaching and you have to zoom in to select your tank busters and then zoom out to find the tanks on the map, it's a pain in the ass. I generally took my stack of mixed units, clicked them all the attack that group of tanks and watch the tanks chew holes in my anti-air units, my infantry and my recon. This seemed a little disappointing afer initially hovering my mouse over the tanks and reading the tooltip.  I guess "easy" means that my tank busters will have an "easy" time destroying those tanks after the tanks rip me a new one. Quite often I'm finding that I have to replay each mission because it seems like there is one way to get all of the side missions as well as complete the main mission. Sometimes, completing the main mission is impossible unless you do it in exactly a specific way. The mission where you fight the battle of Bastogne felt hectic and tense the first time I tried and failed it. The second time I did it, I lost very few units and never felt pressured at all.
 
The story for R.U.S.E revolves around a conspiricy that someone is providing intel to the Germans from within the American ranks. When it comes to a movie with a plot twist, I'm pretty dense and generally don't see these things until the end. I was hit over the head with how easy it was to connect the dots to find out who the mole is. I haven't reached the point in the game where they reveal the twist, but I'll eat my keyboard if I'm wrong. 
 
So why is this game addicting? Despite it being frustrating with difficult controls, one way answers to missions, and a paper-thin story, it somehow still feels cool to be a war general looking at a table top covered with miniture armies. I've yet to try the multiplayer, but it could be fun with the differences each countries' units and the ability to deceive your opponent (I didn't feel the ruse abilities were much use in the campaign other than in a "we're teaching you how to use this ruse and if you don't use it, you'll fail the mission."). I think I still prefer Company of Heroes as a WWII RTS but this one feels a little more like you're a general ordering his troops around. 
 
Although Company of Heroes and its timed missions can go screw itself, R.U.S.E. has some of those too, but they aren't difficult to do.
 

 
 

I can't say that I've been overloaded with the large number of WWII games that have come out over the past decade or so. In fact, with the announcement of R.U.S.E, I decided that this game would be worth a try and spent the 2 weeks leading up to it's release by playing a few favorite WWII video games and watching a few movies. Saving Private Ryan, Enemy at the Gates, and Band of Brothers Boxed Set made their way into my DVD player and Medal of Honor (the one for PS2) and Company of Heroes occupied my time on the games front.  These things made me remember that WWII movies are bloody and gory, Medal of Honor is a great game and Company of Heroes single player pisses me off with secondary missions that seem impossible (timed missions anyone?). 
 
When I first loaded up R.U.S.E I wasn't actually able to play for the first 30 minutes. Ubisoft prompts you to login to your Ubisoft account or create a new one. I tried logging in with one of my common IDs I use for these sorts of things but was told that "that ID did not exist." Creating a new account didn't help either. I couldn't make a new account using the same e-mail address. I had to close the game, go to Ubisoft's homepage and locate my missing Ubisoft ID and password. An ability to do that in game would have been nice. 
 
It's a really good thing that this game started me off slowly with tutorials because the controls for this game take awhile to get accustomed to and furthermore seemed to hinder my ability to make quick decisions in the game. For example, when queuing up new units, I'd often forget that they need to be sent to a rally point. I'd queue them up, go to a different building to queue up a different kind of unit and then wonder why the first group didn't get built. Even making 2 groups of the same unit to go to 2 different rally points seemed to be a monumental task. Also, don't even try to make new units if one of those neat cutscene panels pop up during the mission. You'll either send those units you just made to a random place on the map or they won't get made at all.
 
R.U.S.E. uses the rock scissors, paper formula, for the most part, to decide whether I crushed the AI or if my army was left in a smouldering mess of metal and body parts. It's not a bad system in theory, but when a group of tanks is approaching and you have to zoom in to select your tank busters and then zoom out to find the tanks on the map, it's a pain in the ass. I generally took my stack of mixed units, clicked them all the attack that group of tanks and watch the tanks chew holes in my anti-air units, my infantry and my recon. This seemed a little disappointing afer initially hovering my mouse over the tanks and reading the tooltip.  I guess "easy" means that my tank busters will have an "easy" time destroying those tanks after the tanks rip me a new one. Quite often I'm finding that I have to replay each mission because it seems like there is one way to get all of the side missions as well as complete the main mission. Sometimes, completing the main mission is impossible unless you do it in exactly a specific way. The mission where you fight the battle of Bastogne felt hectic and tense the first time I tried and failed it. The second time I did it, I lost very few units and never felt pressured at all.
 
The story for R.U.S.E revolves around a conspiricy that someone is providing intel to the Germans from within the American ranks. When it comes to a movie with a plot twist, I'm pretty dense and generally don't see these things until the end. I was hit over the head with how easy it was to connect the dots to find out who the mole is. I haven't reached the point in the game where they reveal the twist, but I'll eat my keyboard if I'm wrong. 
 
So why is this game addicting? Despite it being frustrating with difficult controls, one way answers to missions, and a paper-thin story, it somehow still feels cool to be a war general looking at a table top covered with miniture armies. I've yet to try the multiplayer, but it could be fun with the differences each countries' units and the ability to deceive your opponent (I didn't feel the ruse abilities were much use in the campaign other than in a "we're teaching you how to use this ruse and if you don't use it, you'll fail the mission."). I think I still prefer Company of Heroes as a WWII RTS but this one feels a little more like you're a general ordering his troops around. 
 
Although Company of Heroes and its timed missions can go screw itself, R.U.S.E. has some of those too, but they aren't difficult to do.
 

 
 

Play the multiplayer. Do it right now.