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Steel Fury is a serious simulator, and not an arcade twitch-fest. The steel beasts, particularly the Matilda, are not nimble; turning, loading the gun and rotating the turret take time. Still, the adrenalin factor is high and the player must have good situational awareness.

In a typical combat, the player pops out of the commander’s hatch and uses binoculars to scan the horizon for enemy units. Rapid flashes in the grass give away an enemy light machine gun. A quick command and the hull gunner silences the enemy with a burst of machine-gun fire. Off to the right, the commander sees a large plume of smoke from a hidden anti-tank gun. The red streak plowing up dirt in front of the tank means they missed. The commander only has seconds to order the tank into reverse while the gunner turns the turret to put hot steel on target. This intense pace keeps up until the last enemy tank is burning on the horizon.  

Combat in Steel Fury feels real. Gunnery uses realistic ballistics and models armor penetration by hit location. Since the mission stops if the player’s tank commander is killed, it is sometimes frustrating to have an inbound round knock your commander out but leave the rest of the crew alive and the tank funcitoning. When this happens, the player will see his tank fighting on, even when the failed mission screen looms large. Buttoning up while in harm’s way becomes critical.

Gameplay revolves around either scripted individual missions, or a group of linked campaign missions for each tank. The situations and units involved come from the actions around Kharkov in May of 1942. Each battle starts with an overview map and operations order. The map is available at any point in the battle, and can be used to set waypoints and give formation orders to the player’s platoon. 

Steel Fury is a tank combat simulator and not a wargame. The player cannot switch vehicles and has only limited control of his platoon.  In some missions, the player will have a platoon of infantry or loaded half-tracks to command, but those units just follow and fight alongside the player’s vehicle. While battles can have a company of friendly infantry, other AFVs, artillery and air support, the player is just a cog in the overall battle plan. This is not a bad thing, but might be disappointing for players who like more control.

While the player’s ability to mold destiny is limited mostly to his platoon, one of the really wonderful things about the game is the great portrayal of the combined arms symphony. This is not a game where a lone wolf with great reflexes can win the war. The player has real-life constraints on his actions. Charging your tank platoon into an enemy-held strongpoint before your supporting infantry comes up is a quick way to die. Firing blindly into a town where enemy and friendly infantry are in a deadly brawl will kill just as many friendly troops as enemy. The player quickly learns that to succeed he must play as part of a combined-arms team.

The number of missions within and outside of campaigns are limited to about 30 battles. There is plenty of gameplay here, but once the player has exhausted the missions, replays may become stale. Also, the game does not support online play.

However, replay value is extended by a full set of editors that come with the game. There is even an editor for creating maps. While these tools seem to be very good by industry standards, building such a complex game environment is no trivial task. The average gamer will probably leave building new scenarios to the experienced modder.

The game in its preview version does have some issues, but they are minor, and it is assumed they will be addressed in the final release. The preview runs well and looks gorgeous on a Pentium dual core, running Vista with 2GB RAM, and Geforce 8800 card. But some views like a gun-sight zoom of infantry in trees can be a little choppy. While it is not clear if the final release will perform better or not, it is clear that players will need some good machine specs to get the most out the game.

Steel Fury – Kharkov is an exciting release. Even in its preview version, the game runs and plays well. This high fidelity tank combat simulator, easily carries the torch lit by such venerable titles as Panzer Commander and Panzer Elite. Steel Fury’s wonderfully rendered world and loving attention to detail will easily make it the new benchmark for WWII tank simulators.

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Larry Levandowski has been a wargamer for more than 30 years, and started computer gaming back in the days of the C-64. Until he recently discovered the virtues of DOS box, much of his computer game collection was unplayable. A former US Army officer, Larry has done his share of sitting in foxholes. Since leaving the Army, he has worked in the Information Technology field, as a programmer, project manager and lead bottle washer. He now spends his spare time playing boardgames, Napoleonic and WWII miniatures, as well as any PC game he can get his hands on.

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Tags: PC game, World War II