R.U.S.E. – Review – Xbox 360

By Corey Wallace (Writer - Co-Founder) on 20 September 2010 in Reviews, Xbox 360 with 1,201 Comments

World War 2, a horrible war. Video games LOVE using it as a stepping stone for countless games and locations. From Hell’s Highway to Normandy, from the Pacific to Germany, from the trenches to the air, the list goes on.

Story: You play as the American forces in Europe and northern Africa. Its your duty to stop the Germans from invading and taking over the world.

Gameplay: The game is a Real Time Strategy. You have the ability to command troops and vehicles. unlike most RTS’ you have the chance to zoom in and actually look at the items you select, such as troops from a far, some of them will be a circle, then if you zoom in partially, the circle turns into a Transport, if you zoom all the way in, they will actually turn into troops. The map of the current level can rotate, and sometimes will get confusing if they give you a direction, like north, but most of the time it will give you an arrow that shows where you need protect or whatever. Each of the factions are classified into 3 different colors. Red being enemy, blue are playable units, and green being support, non-playable units. Some of the levels it gets frustrating to play when you only have a certain amount of help, and you can see the AI tanks just sitting there. You get a special item called a RUSE depending on what the mission calls for some of them include Spy and decryption. The Spy allows you to see what type of forces are attacking you, changing the name from “Unknown unit” to whatever. Decryption is “overhearing” the enemy, letting you know what their next move is. They only last for a short time, but usually in that amount of time, you will be gifted with another one. When you select a unit, you will get a ghost , a copy of the unit that you can move to where you want it. Most of the controls are self-explanatory and will be explained as you go through each mission. You have 3 modes of game play, Battles, Campaign, and Operation. In Battles, you are fighting against AI. In Operation, online mode, you go head to head against other people.

Sound/Graphics: The game’s graphics seem like any other RTS. The landscape looks like scenery around a toy train or something like that so it isn’t graphically superior. It does look pretty cool to see how the units transform from on thing to another. The sounds are normal for war games, gun fire, bombing, airplanes, people calling things out to you. Despite the game being set in other parts in the world, it still speaks English. Other than that, there is not a problem with sound or graphics.