By Kieron Gillen on August 5th, 2009 at 12:50 pm.
It’s launching imminently (August 7th). Hell, I’ve got a review copy which is looking at me threatening. I inch away. I’m not Tim Stone, for God’s sake. He can handle a strategic lady like you. I’ll just try bopping my cock gently on your forehead, and that’s no use to anyone. Er… metaphorically speaking. Anyway, for those still on the fence, there’s a demo of Hearts of Iron III available now. In it you an play as Germany, France, Poland or the UK for the first four months of WW2. Poor Poland. Anyway, there’s a latest trailer below, which shows off the Blitzkrieg gameplay. “Blitzkrieg” is one of my favourite words. Go Blitzkrieg!
That sure is some Blitzkrieging.
You can pre-order it from here, if you fancy.
05/08/2009 at 13:09 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
I could relate…I bought EU 1 for half an euro from GG and I ragequit in terror in the middle of the tutorial :)
05/08/2009 at 13:38 Angryhead says:
You can also preorder on and get HOI 2 as a bonus. I’m guessing it will be made obsolete by the new game though.
05/08/2009 at 13:38 Pags says:
That’s the most awkward metaphor I think I’ve ever read.
05/08/2009 at 13:56 Theblazeuk says:
You play as the US in the first four months of WW2? That sounds kind of dull considering Pearl Harbor was in 1941.
05/08/2009 at 13:59 phil says:
Blitzkrieg centred games are only satisfying if you utterly gimp the strategic allied AI then play as the Germans for the sake of historical accuracy.
05/08/2009 at 14:01 Dave says:
“Germany, France, Poland or the US for the first four months of WW2″
O_o
Its not like the Brits did anything…
05/08/2009 at 14:04 Psychopomp says:
Nope.
Still can’t wrap my head around HOI.
I think I’ll go have a sit down, now.
05/08/2009 at 14:05 Dave says:
America – “you want some boats and stuff guys?”
Britain – “Nah were too busy drinking tea and playing cricket”
Poland – “FFFFFUUUUU-”
France – “They’re coming outta the walls. They’re coming outta the goddamn walls. Let’s book!”
05/08/2009 at 14:09 phil says:
@Dave – So you’re not so big on the whole history thing then?
05/08/2009 at 14:10 Trite says:
Yes, at last. Been waiting for HoI3 for so, so long. Except the fact that Paradox games are quite unbalanced at release and get noticeably better after patches. And about the picture: who uses those square unit markers? I want to view my troops as men and tanks, not squares.
05/08/2009 at 14:10 Psychopomp says:
@phil
Sometimes, comedy comes before historical accuracy.
05/08/2009 at 14:13 Psychopomp says:
@Pags
I quite liked his interpretation of Poland.
05/08/2009 at 14:17 phil says:
@Pyschopomp
To be fair they actually got as far as FFUUUUCCC-
05/08/2009 at 14:21 Dave says:
I think i have just grasped whats got sand in Phils naughty bits. I am a Brummy you silly sod, re-read it with the initial quote taken into context. the Brits are left out and the Americans contribution to the war at the start was mostly comprised of lending/giving Britain cash, destroyers and arms was it not?
05/08/2009 at 14:32 phil says:
@Dave
It doesn’t matter if you are English, American or God forbid, Cornish, you’re still more than slightly wrong.
05/08/2009 at 14:33 Xercies says:
@Dave
Did you not know that America and Germany were the only ones in the war.
I don’t know
05/08/2009 at 14:49 Psychopomp says:
No
All of WW2 was Texas V Germany.
Scratch that
The Texas Rangers V Germany.
Not the baseball team, silly.
05/08/2009 at 15:00 Kieron Gillen says:
I want to read Phil’s half-sentence potted histories of the first months of WW2 now.
KG
05/08/2009 at 15:16 Antsy says:
Not a thread for the irony impaired it seems.
05/08/2009 at 15:20 Mads says:
Oh my – that is one sexy looking gameplay video…
05/08/2009 at 15:26 Dave says:
I have just read the Penguins abridged guide to WWII and i have to admit to everyone that i am completely wrong! I am sorry. memes werent even invented back then! and James Cameron wasnt even a twinkle in Mr Cameron Snr’s eye.
05/08/2009 at 15:30 Psychopomp says:
@Phil
Don’t let Kieron down, he might make Walker cry for that.
05/08/2009 at 15:32 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
@Antsy
Hearts of Irony? :)
05/08/2009 at 15:38 Antsy says:
@ Frankie The Patrician[PF]
Hahah! Now THATS a game I could get into!
05/08/2009 at 15:39 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
@Antsy
I’m afraid that would be too much realism even for Paradox :)
05/08/2009 at 15:42 The Colonel says:
Presumably the title isn’t actually referring to the French?
05/08/2009 at 15:49 TC says:
In two minds about getting this, love grand stratergy games and became fairly addicted to EU3, however could not get into the previous HoI games.
I know if I spend the time needed to get into the game I will be happily using my Panzer groups to encircle the Russians in the Ukraine whilst researching improved googles for my pilots ETC
However I just dont know if I have the patience anymore…I knew buying that Xbox 360 would be bad for me.
05/08/2009 at 15:58 Algo says:
Er, my version of the demo has the UK, not USA as playable. Am i missing something?
05/08/2009 at 15:58 groovychainsaw says:
@TC Everyone needs improved googles for their pilots, would have been a huge communication boon in WW2, not to mention the development of google maps for bombing runs ;-)
/Stikcs pins in google maps
/15 hours later…
/KABOOM
05/08/2009 at 16:03 jRides says:
I am interested. But also slightly scared of its scary bigness.
05/08/2009 at 16:05 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
@jRides:
You, Sir, are the brave one…just look at the screenshot makes me shiver…
05/08/2009 at 16:14 TC says:
@groovychainsaw
Fair cop, I am just a victim of a particular well known search engines brand saturation.
05/08/2009 at 16:16 Jae Armstrong says:
@Trite
Sprites are in, iirc. Something Paradox took ridiculous amounts of flak for, as “everybody uses counters”.
Flargle.
I’m a fan of Paradox games in general, but WWII leaves me cold. I’ll probably buy it anyway, if only to see if they actually managed to pull off the ridiculous Molyneux features they were talking about in the dev diaries.
Who are you reviewing it for, Mr Gillen? More to the point, who is Tim Stone reviewing it for (I dearly hope he’s doing it for somebody)?
05/08/2009 at 16:19 Rosti says:
Wait, does this mean that the Great BremXJones is writing one more review?
05/08/2009 at 16:27 Super Bladesman says:
I just know that I will buy this and then not play it – business as usual then… :D
05/08/2009 at 16:32 CogDissident says:
@Jae
They left the counters in, specifically, to try to appease those people. Because they’ve always tried to cater to their hardcore base as well, lets face it, their games arn’t exactly
lowbrowmassmarket appealing.05/08/2009 at 16:33 icabod says:
@ Theblazeuk
I think it’s called “Spectator Mode”
05/08/2009 at 16:37 Novotny says:
This is pretty old, but maybe some of you haven’t seen it before. WW2 IRC channel.
*Hitler[AoE] has joined the game.*
*Eisenhower has joined the game.*
*paTTon has joined the game.*
*Churchill has joined the game.*
*benny-tow has joined the game.*
*T0J0 has joined the game.*
*Roosevelt has joined the game.*
*Stalin has joined the game.*
*deGaulle has joined the game.*
Roosevelt: hey sup
T0J0: y0
Stalin: hi
Churchill: hi
Hitler[AoE]: cool, i start with panzer tanks!
paTTon: lol more like panzy tanks
T0JO: lol
Roosevelt: o this fockin sucks i got a depression!
benny-tow: haha america sux
Stalin: hey hitler you dont fight me i dont fight u, cool?
Hitler[AoE]; sure whatever
Stalin: cool
deGaulle: **** Hitler rushed some1 help
Hitler[AoE]: lol byebye frenchy
Roosevelt: i dont got **** to help, sry
Churchill: wtf the luftwaffle is attacking me
Roosevelt: get antiair guns
Churchill: i cant afford them
benny-tow: u n00bs know what team talk is?
paTTon: stfu
Roosevelt: o yah hit the navajo button guys
deGaulle: eisenhower ur worthless come help me quick
Eisenhower: i cant do **** til rosevelt gives me an army
paTTon: yah hurry the fock up
Churchill: d00d im gettin pounded
deGaulle: this is fockin weak u guys suck
*deGaulle has left the game.*
Roosevelt: im gonna attack the axis k?
benny-tow: with what? ur wheelchair?
benny-tow: lol did u mess up ur legs AND ur head?
Hitler[AoE]: ROFLMAO
T0J0: lol o no america im comin 4 u
Roosevelt: wtf! thats bullsh1t u fags im gunna kick ur asses
T0JO: not without ur harbors u wont! lol
Roosevelt: u little biotch ill get u
Hitler[AoE]: wtf
Hitler[AoE]: america hax, u had depression and now u got a huge fockin army
Hitler[AoE]: thats bullsh1t u hacker
Churchill: lol no more france for u hitler
Hitler[AoE]: tojo help me!
T0J0: wtf u want me to do, im on the other side of the world retard
Hitler[AoE]: fine ill clear you a path
Stalin: WTF u arsshoel! WE HAD A FoCKIN TRUCE
Hitler[AoE]: i changed my mind lol
benny-tow: haha
benny-tow: hey ur losing ur guys in africa im gonna need help in italy soon sum1
T0J0: o **** i cant help u i got my hands full
Hitler[AoE]: im 2 busy 2 help
Roosevelt: yah thats right ***** im comin for ya
Stalin: church help me
Churchill: like u helped me before? sure ill just sit here
Stalin: dont be an arss
Churchill: dont be a commie. oops too late
Eisenhower: LOL
benny-tow: hahahh oh sh1t help
Hitler: o man ur focked
paTTon: oh what now biotch
Roosevelt: whos the cripple now lol
*benny-tow has been eliminated.*
benny-tow: lame
Roosevelt: gj patton
paTTon: thnx
Hitler[AoE]: WTF eisenhower hax hes killing all my sh1t
Hitler[AoE]: quit u hacker so u dont ruin my record
Eisenhower: Nuts!
benny~tow: wtf that mean?
Eisenhower: meant to say nutsack lol finger slipped
paTTon: coming to get u hitler u paper hanging hun cocksocker
Stalin: rofl
T0J0: HAHAHHAA
Hitler[AoE]: u guys are fockin gay
Hitler[AoE]: ur never getting in my city
*Hitler[AoE] has been eliminated.*
benny~tow: OMG u noob you killed yourself
Eisenhower: ROFLOLOLOL
Stalin: OMG LMAO!
Hitler[AoE]: WTF i didnt click there omg this game blows
*Hitler[AoE] has left the game*
paTTon: hahahhah
T0J0: WTF my teammates are n00bs
benny~tow: shut up noob
Roosevelt: haha wut a moron
paTTon: wtf am i gunna do now?
Eisenhower: yah me too
T0J0: why dont u attack me o thats right u dont got no ships lololol
Eisenhower: fock u
paTTon: lemme go thru ur base commie
Stalin: go to hell lol
paTTon: fock this sh1t im goin afk
Eisenhower: yah this is gay
*Roosevelt has left the game.*
Hitler[AoE]: wtf?
Eisenhower: sh1t now we need some1 to join
*tru_m4n has joined the game.*
tru_m4n: hi all
T0J0: hey
Stalin: sup
Churchill: hi
tru_m4n: OMG OMG OMG i got all his stuff!
tru_m4n: NUKES! HOLY **** I GOT NUKES
Stalin: d00d gimmie some plz
tru_m4n: no way i only got like a couple
Stalin: omg dont be gay gimmie nuculer secrets
T0J0: wtf is nukes?
T0J0: holy ****holy****hoyl****!
*T0J0 has been eliminated.*
*The Allied team has won the game!*
Eisenhower: awesome!
Churchill: gg noobs no re
T0J0: thats bull**** u fockin suck
*T0J0 has left the game.*
*Eisenhower has left the game.*
Stalin: next game im not going to be on ur team, u guys didnt help me for ****
Churchill: wutever, we didnt need ur help neway dumbarss
tru_m4n: l8r all
benny~tow: bye
Churchill: l8r
Stalin: fock u all
tru_m4n: shut up commie lol
*tru_m4n has left the game.*
benny~tow: lololol u commie
Churchill: ROFL
Churchill: bye commie
*Churchill has left the game.*
*benny~tow has left the game.*
Stalin: i hate u all fags
*Stalin has left the game.*
paTTon: lol no1 is left
paTTon: weeeee i got a jeep
*paTTon has been eliminated.*
paTTon: o sh1t!
*paTTon has left the game.*
05/08/2009 at 16:43 Psychopomp says:
I’ve got a gif of that somewhere…
05/08/2009 at 17:08 Clovus says:
@Novotnoy: Ya, the US suddenly crapping out a gigantic army was pretty unfair. In real life things happen that would just make no sense in a game.
For example, in the first Punic War Rome, who had almost no navy, decided to fight Carthage, who had the area’s biggest navy. In just two months Rome somehow managed to create a navy from scratch. They even made their navy better than Carthages with the corvus, a little bridge that hooked onto enemy ships allowing the much superior Roman soldiers to run across and beat people on the head. Can you image how pissed you’d be if the AI pulled that off in a game of Total War??
Also, I was shocked at the number of comments on a story about something as dry as HOI, so I wasn’t surprised at the content of them.
05/08/2009 at 17:10 Novotny says:
Thanks for that, Clivos.
05/08/2009 at 17:12 MrBejeebus says:
Seen it before still made me laugh
Looks ok I spose, not my kind of strategy really.
05/08/2009 at 17:27 Clovus says:
Here’s an on-topic question. I haven’t actually played a HOI game. Would it be accurate to call it a logistics-em-up?
05/08/2009 at 17:27 phil says:
@KG request for one sentence summation from up tread;
An Englishman and a German realise that using a tank, aircraft and shock troop version of a pile on work would be a smashing idea, everyone ignores them contemptuously until an Austrian (who everyone has been ignoring politely) is inspired to take a road trip through Poland, meanwhile the French and British successfully prepare for World War I and the Belgian’s experience Da Ja Vue.
Alternatively – Whoops!
05/08/2009 at 17:31 Mad Doc MacRae says:
well done Dave lol
And I was going to check this out until HoI2 veterans said “this is way more complex than what I’m used to”
05/08/2009 at 17:41 superking208 says:
Sweet zombie Jesus, it’s here. Thank you. On another note:
@Psychopomp
How is this any more complex than Dwarf Fortress?
05/08/2009 at 17:51 tmp says:
The demo allows to play as UK not US, btw…
05/08/2009 at 17:52 Kieron Gillen says:
I can’t even cut and paste correctly.
KG
05/08/2009 at 18:02 Tweakd says:
I’ve been following this for quite a while. Played the demo and I’m so lost! But I will really enjoy the learning curve. I have no doubt about that. Pre-ordered from GG and counting the hours until Friday.
Just to clarify you can play as UK not US in the demo.
05/08/2009 at 18:17 Orange Required says:
Wow, this really chugs on my computer. Totally unplayable.
Shame. Weird, too, because I could run World of Conflict on medium-low settings perfectly well.
05/08/2009 at 18:19 Tweakd says:
There is an incredible amount of number crunching going on under the hood. The simplistic graphics don’t do justice to the scale of this game.
05/08/2009 at 18:26 GreatUncleBaal says:
Gonna give this a go, but I’m hooked on the rather excellent Airborne Assault: Conquest of Athena at the moment, thanks to Tim Stone’s recommendation, so I don’t think I’ll be buying HOI3 just yet.
05/08/2009 at 18:27 GreatUncleBaal says:
Whoops. I meant Airborne Assault: Conquest of the Aegean. Don’t know what the hell I was on about there.
05/08/2009 at 18:27 Janek says:
Yeah there’s something funny in there somewhere, which seems to cause some people (including me, weep weep) to have crippling performance problems.
I guess maybe it’s something to do with multi-core CPUs? A shame, anyway, I was looking forward to this. Hopefully it’ll be fixed soon.
05/08/2009 at 18:38 goodgimp says:
I’m not experiencing the multi-core CPU performance problem you mention, Janek, but I know others on the forum have. You can go to your task manager, fine hoi3.exe, and set the core affinity to None or something along those lines to fix the issue.
05/08/2009 at 18:39 cowthief skank says:
I hope I like it. I will buy it anyway as I played Hearts of Iron 2 quite a bit without paying (err borrowed from a friend). I enjoyed Europa Universalis more than Hearts of Iron in the past.
05/08/2009 at 19:02 Janek says:
Juggling with affinities was one of the first things I tried, didn’t seem to make any difference. So I might be wrong with my guess, or it might not like certain lines of CPUs, or something.
05/08/2009 at 19:13 Serondal says:
I’m very good at Dwarf Fortress to the point where it is hardly a challenge any more to keep my dwarfs alive. I played HoI 2 and almost had a heart attack and all the options it gave me. I can’t imagine that this is going to improve upon that. I think my limit is a Total War type game because I need some kind of action that makes sense to me. (For example I sent like 10 german troops to attack 3 Polish troops, they march down a little line and suddenly the fight is over, my troops are dead and Poland has 4 troops now I have NO Idea WTF just happened and there is no after action report that I can read as far as I know)
It gives you way to much info without giving you enough info which is insane O.o I’m not saying the games are bad, just not for me.
05/08/2009 at 19:51 Fenchurch says:
@Kieron “I’ll just try bopping my cock gently on your forehead…”
If the review of HOI3 started with that in PC Gamer I’d re-subscribe in a moment. =-P
05/08/2009 at 20:06 Heliocentric says:
TBH this site has killed pc gamer utterly for me. They would never get away with what they do here. Or feel the personal focus to flap on about their own personal preferences.
Until they sell out in 2012 to be able to afford to eat i mean.
05/08/2009 at 20:37 Novotny says:
I did an article for PC Gamer a few years back and was completely caught out by the editor when I referred to a section of the magazine they’d stopped something like two years before.
I had to admit I hadn’t read it in years :(
05/08/2009 at 20:41 Heliocentric says:
Developers who refuse to play modern games are twats. So too are journalists who refuse to read their own rag.
Also, dogs who don’t kick their own nuts.
05/08/2009 at 21:36 Nuckfut says:
If this is hard and true, it’s mine already, stop touching my thing.
05/08/2009 at 21:36 Hi!! says:
I thought this was about the latest JRPG from Square Enix. You know, the one with the emo robots.
05/08/2009 at 21:38 Quests says:
No it’s not a game for console pussies, scram.
05/08/2009 at 22:40 Jazmeister says:
Kieron, it’s becoming increasingly hard to share your humour with my mum.
05/08/2009 at 22:57 Serondal says:
Kieron is sharing something else with your mum entirely.
06/08/2009 at 00:41 MunnyFan says:
You know, the guy who has written the tutorial must’ve had a rather fun day at the office. That thing’s bloody hilarious!
06/08/2009 at 03:31 Psychopomp says:
@Quests
Wow, you managed to be more of a cunt than people who use “consoletard.”
@Kieron
The hell is with you the last few days? I think the Darkfall crap got to you.
06/08/2009 at 10:34 StalinsGhost says:
I strongly recommend anyone thinking of tackling HOI 3 takes a look at the quickstart guide here:
http://www.hoi3.com/HOI3_Quickstartguide.pdf
The manual’s somewhere on the site too. The in game tutorial is apocalyptically bad, I wouldn’t bother. But once you’ve cracked the quickstart, things start to come together. I managed to beat history by 5 days in taking over Poland by the time I’d got the hang of it :D
06/08/2009 at 10:45 fijam says:
Why do great games always have to be so flawed? This is a badly written RAM-guzzler. From a game of that simple interface you’d expect playable experience on a 2.26GHz/2GB/integrated graphics. No dice.
06/08/2009 at 11:17 Jae Armstrong says:
fijam, that’s hardly fair. This is doing FAR more work under the hood pretty much any other game out there. It’s simulating a world of ten thousand provinces and dozens of AI actors who have to competantly handle the Second World War across all that space at the division level… which is before we consider the resource/diplomacy/production/research/intelligence/politics subsystems. It’s a miracle it loads at all.
And if it is underoptimised (and it does seem to be, to be fair), that probably has something to do with a dev team in single figures. And, going on past experience with Paradox games, it’ll be patched soon enough. First patch is scheduled for release, no less.
06/08/2009 at 11:59 schurem says:
Brigade level, not divisional :D Look again.
HoI3 is, along with ArmA2 one of the few games you can play and still feel quite unequivocally clear about your manhood.
06/08/2009 at 12:19 Fenchurch says:
@Schurem
“HoI3 is, along with ArmA2 one of the few games you can play and still feel quite unequivocally clear about your manhood.”
So say we all! =-D
06/08/2009 at 13:29 fijam says:
@Jae And it does all that even when paused? The interface is not responsive, I have to hover the cursor over a button for about a second for it to light up. The CPU is not really stressed either, it’s the graphic subsystem that sucks. And I do not think it’s about the optimizations. I still remember the HoI1 installer copying hundreds of .bmp files, each one for every unit. I think the series is just badly coded. Or perhaps they just target only high-end systems with that game.
And don’t get me wrong, I am happy that Paradox invests in ambitious projects like this one or M&B — it’s just a bloody shame they have so little resources.
06/08/2009 at 14:25 Tweakd says:
I wouldn’t expect an integrated graphics card to manage anything =p
Besides Johan (PI’s front man shall we say), has stated that most of the performance issues have been optimized in the release patch. The main one being a huge log file that had to read/write data to the hard disk constantly during play. This was for debug purposes and has been removed from the full game.
06/08/2009 at 16:22 lePooch says:
@StalinsGhost
I thought that the quick start guide was a good read, especially when combined with the tutorials
…. until the very moment I started a game…
It took me a long time(like, ten minutes of looking over stuff) just to feel confident enough just to press the “resume” button. I mean, I picked POLAND, and I still had two dozen divisions strung out across the length of the border, about four different critical research projects, and an entire system of government to change(I think, I mean I went from an economically and socially moderate country to… well, to wartime Germany basically). And then I spent a while allocating research projects and tuning my nation’s production.
And when I pressed play, I still got warnings about danger and poor allocations in spending. Not to mention that whole blitz thing going on.
God, this game is cool.
@fijam
Disable sprites; if it worked for my piddly four year old laptop, it should work for you. Besides, those counters show some useful info once you can figure them out.
06/08/2009 at 20:45 Railick says:
This is one of those games that has always called to me to master it but when I attempt I fail and feel like a horrible idiot :( Maybe I will try again with HoI 3.
07/08/2009 at 07:56 cowthief skank says:
Who needs tutorials or quickstart guides!
07/08/2009 at 09:57 Kommissar Nicko says:
The fighting in HOI2 was the hard part, until you realize that you need to slow the game way down for your fights and make sure you attack first thing in the morning, and also how the game decides how many men you can use to attack. It’s one of the only games I’ve played in the last 5 years where I spend a lot of time looking at the manual. Overall though, it’s not soooo bad. Then again…
…When most kids were learning how to read, I was learning that the NATO symbol for a division of Mechanized Infantry was a big X with an O around it, and XX on top of the box. My dad loved wargames.
08/08/2009 at 15:24 Funky Badger says:
Demo crashes every time I run it :-(