Video-game wars, like those in Halo or Call of Duty, are usually seen from the grunt’s-eye view. If you want to play general, with thousands of troops following your every order, you have to turn on your computer, home to real-time strategy (RTS) epics like StarCraft II and Age of Empires. Developers have produced a handful of Xbox and PlayStation RTS titles, such as Halo Wars and Civilization Revolution, but their more cerebral gameplay may never have the mass appeal of shootouts like Gears of War.
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R.U.S.E. (Ubisoft, for Microsoft Inc.’s Xbox 360, Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3, $59.99) is the latest attempt to get console gamers hooked on strategy. The setting is all too familiar: the Western battlefields of World War II, as Allied forces push back against Adolf Hitler’s seemingly inexorable conquest. Each skirmish, from the shores of northern Africa to the heart of Germany, is presented as a map on a table in a secret war room. From a distance, soldiers and vehicles look like checkers, but you can zoom in close enough to focus on each individual element in your forces.
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It’s a nice effect, with only the occasional graphical hiccup. More important, it answers the most common criticism of console war-games: that the controllers aren’t precise enough to allow unit-by-unit attacks. R.U.S.E. lets you switch smoothly and instinctively from maneuvering entire battalions to getting one guy in exactly the right place.
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Early in the solo campaign you have only a few types of units, such as infantry and light tanks. You have to construct and defend supply depots and other facilities to build up your forces, even as you try to figure out the best way to make inroads against the Nazis. By the end of the campaign you can create a full arsenal of recon vehicles, heavy tanks,…