Game Review -- R.U.S.E. -- Rife with trickery

Let me start off by saying, this is one of my favourite games. I play it very often, and enjoy it immensely. R.U.S.E.'s gameplay is a heavy focus on illusions and deception, requiring a lot of thought - but QUICK. As a real time strategy (RTS) game, you make decisions on the fly to react to your enemy - Or, if you're good, make HIM react to YOU. I found the campaign to be very engaging, the storyline very dramatic, and the multiplayer is a new challenge everytime.

There are different nations in R.U.S.E., (UK, USA, Italy, France, USSR, Germany and with a 400 point DLC, the Japanese) and these different factions have varying strengths and units. For instance, while the USA are a generally flexible faction, they have no specific strength. Compare this to, say, the Italians, which have fast, cheap units, and while they are weak, they can strike fast and get out, with the heavy artillery support that is also endorsed by the Italian faction.

All of these different factions and units make for hundreds of interesting strategies.

Unit wise, R.U.S.E. is your classic RTS setup, with the standard triangles, but a liiittle more complex. See, you can have tanks, which are effective against infantry, and anti-tank guns, which are effective against tanks but have no use against infantry. HOWEVER, infantry < tank is a flexible rule in R.U.S.E. with the addition of "hiding spots", being woods, swamps and city squares where anti-tank guns, infantry, and more can hide in. Units in these hiding spots cannot be seen without a recon vehicle or recon infantry, which reveal them. When hidden, infantry can use their range-limited but generally powerful anti-tank weapons on tanks that venture too close. This expands in a lot of different ways when you also add armored recon (recon with armor, and a weapon to boot!), anti-air guns, planes, artillery, and even special "prototype" units (late age, usually superheavy units). As I said, every game is a different experience.

So, to summarize:

Campaign (Single Player)

Storyline: 8/10 (It was good, but there are better ones out there.)

Difficulty: 6/10 (Not really that hard, IF you can figure out the patterns and identify weaknesses.)

Multiplayer:

Variety 9/10 (In terms of how many strategies, ways to react, etc., there is many.)

General Gameplay: 8/10 (Its an involving game, makes you think quite a bit. As there are many strategies, there are many different ways to play.)

Length of play per match: Very long: anywhere from 10 mins (not enough for a real match IMO) to an hour (what Tristan and I play)

Overall: 7.75/10

Gameplay is enjoyable, but you must be able to sit down for a while.

Personally, I recommend this game.