No, not us. We're not making history. This game is. Sorta. Wait. There's a genre for "history sims." Wtf. Really? Here's the review.
Making History 2 is a sandbox History sim focused on the World War II era.
I say that it is a history sim, rather than a strategy game, to differentiate it from games like the Civilization series; this is a hardcore simulation with a focus on historical accuracy and national AI personalities. The developers state that it evolved out of educational software, attempting to make the sequel to the first Making History more accessible and balanced.
The beta build available of Making History 2 available included three full scenarios to try out. At the start of any scenario, you begin by choosing a nation--but you can always pick any of the nations worlds. So while the scenario may focus on the rise of German power in World War II, the player can elect to play the role of China, Australia, or Peru. The victory condition, in all cases, is to maximize victory points.
Play occurs at four levels: nation, regions, cities, and units. At the national level, you monitor and influence diplomatic relations and trade. Nations are divided into regions, which are used for producing resources. Regions can be developed with farms, factories, airports, roads and military installations. Cities are the centers for research, specialized buildings such as universities and building military units. At the level of units, they can be moved or issued orders to fight.
Each nation must weigh numerous resources, such as iron, oil, food, coal, arms (weapons), goods, research points, money, and manpower. Trade can be established between nations to generate resources, or bought and sold on the world market.
That said, Making History 2 has a major issue from the start: currently there is no tutorial and comes with only an anemic instruction manual. There is no explanation of how to obtain victory points. There is no explanation of how to develop the nation, or how to make sense of the many, dense information screens. It took me hours of random experimentation and restarted games to begin to grasp how to construct buildings, perform research and obtain new resources. Even then, I didn't feel like I was making any progress.
It might sound interesting to play as any country in the world during World War II, but many of those outside the theatre of war seem incapable of accomplishing much. When I tried my hand at combat, I had a difficult time understanding how units moved and combat was resolved.
Making History 2 is ultimately a niche game for hardcore history fans. With a plethora of options, it has the potential to grant the player precise control over every detail of their nation. I was told by one of the developers that they are working on a tutorial. I recommend waiting for that tutorial before considering Making History 2, or you will likely find yourself frustrated and confused.
Alex "axatrix" Calhoun
