Video Games : Hearts of Iron 2: Doomsday Expansion Pack

In association with Amazon.com
  

from: Atari

: Hearts of Iron 2: Doomsday Expansion Pack
variant image variant image variant image
List Price: $19.99
Price: $17.95
You Save: $2.04 (10%)
Prices subject to change.



Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
More Information



Binding: CD-ROM
Brand: Atari
EAN: 0742725271302
ESRB Age Rating: Everyone
Format: CD-ROM
Label: Atari
Manufacturer: Atari
Model: 27130
Platform: Windows XP
Publisher: Atari
Release Date: April 04, 2006
Sales Rank: 5917
Studio: Atari

Features:

Accessories: Related Items:

Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Hearts Of Iron 2: Doomsday leads you into the aftermath of a brutal, never-ending conflict. As the German war machine falls, two great nations rise to claim power: The United States in the West, the Soviet Union in the East. As both nations attempt to claim superiority, a new war is waiting around the corner -- this conflict will decide who becomes the remaining superpower.

Amazon.com Product Description:
Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday is an intriguing real-time strategy game for the PC that begs some interesting "what if" questions related to World War II. Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday includes all the campaigns from the original Hearts of Iron II that take place in 1936, 1939, 1941, and 1944, as well as a new mission that continues the battle in 1953. The world of Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday is both familiar and strange, with events that often come to drastically different conclusions than they did historically.


Events often come to drastically different conclusions than they did historically. View larger.


This game is reminiscent of the classic WWII board game, Axis and Allies. View larger.
This version of Hearts of Iron II also includes updates and expansions requested by gamers, with technology, units, and abilities being added for each side to make for a balanced gameplay. What is also intriguing is the ability to resolve the entire conflict through diplomatic means rather than by force -- a trait that sets this game apart from most WWII strategy games. Players can trade weapons and secrets with allies to strengthen themselves as well as their alliances.

This game is reminiscent of the classic WWII board game, Axis and Allies, but has the additional advantages of the computer platform -- more complexity, and real-time gameplay -- that keeps the action non-stop. One particularly unique aspect of Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday is your ability to play from more than just the traditional "big boys", such as the US, UK, Russia, Italy, Japan and Germany; in fact, you can play as any one of 175 countries. You also have the option of which year to start and what specific missions to try, which is especially important as the only way out, other than by winning, is by surrendering.

It's also important to choose which technological path to take, rather than simply assigning certain strengths based on your choice of side or nation. Technology is broken down into different categories, such as Air Doctrine, Land Doctrine, Armor and Naval units, as well as the classic and sometimes all-important Secret Weapon programs. In order to make technological progress, you'll need to assign teams to work on specific projects, many of them based on real historical programs. Each team has different sets of skills that allow them to work on different projects, while each project focuses on a different field. The expanded technological tree in Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday even allows you to develop nuclear weapons. Another important factor in this game is diplomacy, in which your choice of allies can say as much about you as who your foes are. The all new diplomatic options and intelligence system lets you steal and sabotage equipment, control mass media, start riots, and even assassinate ministers and leaders.




Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - Long
This game is extremely long. I have owned it for a couple of years and never completed an entire game. Also it is a rather poor simulation. That said it is fairly fun, and does try harder at historical accuracy than other games. I would like to see a more realistic version of this game with even more options.


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Best Strategy game ever
All they could do to improve this game is even more details. They also improved it from HOI to HOI II to Doomsday, I did em all. It takes a little while to learn the interface, but it's very ez after that. I was dissapointed at not being able to play my gaming buddy online, then I would have still been playing this game every day after 3 years, as is I still play it. If they could make this game go into squad level if u select a battle each game month and then fight it out personally if both side "select" the battle area, that would be great! Still, this is the closest to perfection I've ever had the pleasure to play, only MOO II could give HOI Doomsday any compettition only beause MOO II was ez to play onlne with many friends.


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - The Best Strategy Game Ever
So may want to debate the title of this review but in terms of requiring you to consider EVERY aspect of running a nation in war, there is no other game even close to this one. Scroll down to the bottom if you just want a brief summary.

In Hearts of Iron, which came out back in 2002 or 2003, there was a game that was excellent but still lacked alot of things and the technology development was just so clustered. HOI 2 improved upon that. HOI Doomsday adds even more. I have not played HOI Apocalypse but I am sure that adds even more to this.

In this WWII strategy simulator, you get to pick which nation you control and at what point in time. You can pick pretty much any nation in the world but you'll have more fun as one of the major powers. You are required to do a balancing act between the economy, technology, the military and trading. You can manipulate the direction of your nation based on historical and random events that occur, such as as Germany, you can choose not to demand the Sudetenland or as America, you can cave in to Japan's demand for oil. You will occasionally have the ability to directly change your government in the diplomacy screen with sliders such as "Left/Right, Authoritarian/Democratic, Hawk/Dove," and so forth.

Each nation starts with their specific technology level and military strength. It will be up to you which direction you take in this area. Do you want a highly advanced Navy? You can research it but your ground and air forces might be a bit obsolete and vice versa. As some nations you will be forced to compromise on this but as others, you won't need to. For instance, as Germany, you don't really need a navy at first so you can focus on ground and air forces whereas the British need their navy to stay alive. The game is real-time though you can slow down/speed up the time. Building units takes as long as it historically would have. For instance, an Iowa Class Battleship will take a year or two depending on your economy/industrial technology level.

You can also research doctrines and strategy such as Blitzkrieg or Carpet Bombing which will improve the effectiveness, morale, and speed of units. Each nation will have a set number of research teams and these cost money. So does building units and having units. You'll also have to devote resources to the civilian economy.

When war breaks out, the strategy will be up to you. And unlike other strategy games, it is also up to you to ensure that your units are supplied. Should you invade and take some islands in the Pacific, you better create a supply route or else those units will dissolve over time. The map is divided up into regions with some regions having value points. Some of these are obvious such as national capitals or major cities. Areas with alot of resource values also have value points. It will be up to you to take your enemy's territories and gain his value points. For instance, as Germany if you invade Poland, you must take Warsaw and a few other regions in order to annex it. When the war starts and it could take any shape depending on your decisions or the random decisions of the computer, some historical decisions can be made such as whether or not to create Vichy France or to assassinate Admiral Yamamoto. The point of the game is to have more victory points than the other factions. The factions are divided up between Commintern, Axis and Allies. But again, you can drastically change the scope of the war if for instance you were to play as America, you could make it a Fascist state or a communist state and you would then have the option of joining with Nazi Germany or the USSR.

The game is a lot of fun to play and you'll find yourself playing longer than you would think as it is addictive. Researching the higher levels of technology is fun to do to see what new units are opened up. You also have the ability to send spies to other nations and can attempt to conduct various missions such as delay tech team or fund partisans though the success of this depends on your own intelligence forces and the target's intelligence forces. The game is challenging in that you must focus on all aspects. Luckily, the economic side is simple and you won't get bored with this. There are no stunning graphics but they are not really needed. This IS a game in which you'll want to play again and again, especially as different nations. Doomsday also has different scenarios in which you can play, such as the Winter War between Finland and the USSR or a fictional war in South America. As I mentioned earlier, you can play as any nation at any of the given years. This is fun to do to see if you can do better than what the historical leaders did. Will you play as America in 1936 and begin preparing for the coming war earlier? Will you play as France in 1939 and not make the mistake of relying on the Maginot Line? Will you play as Germany in 1944 and successfully repel the D-Day invasion?
Added in this game are a longer timeframe; in previous versions, the game ended on December 31st 1947. This game will end in 1953. Also added is the new "Doomsday Scenario" where in the last days of WWII, the USSR invades the West and Truman uses the A-bomb on Moscow. This is a tough scenario but very interesting in a "what-if" sense.

The game isn't perfect though and the supply system might get a little frustrating as there is seemingly little you can do to improve the supply chain to a certain area or units. Your enemies may sometimes attack one of your areas where you left it open but they seem to give little thought to overall strategy and are intent on just getting regions with victory points. Also the skill of historically great commanders such as Manstein and Eisenhower are hurt because when you promote them to a level where they can command more than one division, they lose skill levels and sometimes never earn it back unless they are in combat alot. Kind of annoying but a minor point.

Overall, this is a great game. It forces you to think about all aspects of a nation and unlike other strategy games, there is no easy "cheat" bug to take advantage of to quickly win. You may find yourself restarting the game when you realize that you completely neglected some aspect of the strategy and are now doomed to destruction. Each nation has it's strengths and weaknesses. Play this game if you like strategy games or if you like studying WWII. Think you can conquer Russia as Germany? Give it your best shot. Do you want to invade Canada and Mexico as the US, go for it! You can do whatever you want in this game but just keep in mind, your population might not agree with you, nor will other nations just stand by. Your actions will have consequences. Play this game and be prepared to spend alot of time on it!


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Thinking Mans WW2 Game!
If you want to just shot up men and tanks look elswere.But if you want to fight the war using political and economic planing this is it..

I have been playing this game now for about 2 weeks and there is so much to this for the player willing to put time into it.The reason

I only gave it 4 stars is because you really have to sit down and think before you fight and its is not for everyone.But the games forum is a lot of help.

So if you like this sort of game be prepared the game will outlive your PC.



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - HOT
Best WWII game I have ever played. This is not an expansion pack, but the whole game with extra years and other good suprises.

If you don't own it, buy it.

see more


More Information
Browse for similar items by category:

 

HOME

Car Credit - Info Videos - Hotel Las Vegas - Payday Loans - Problem Mortgage