I remember when this game was released. It had numerous bugs, and the SWAT team AI was unreliable at best. Despite that, it was way ahead of its time. Combat is fluid, the tactics are realistic and the random positions of enemies ensured that no replayed mission was ever the same. It's very, very repayable. When missions go wrong, it's frustrating but you generally accept that YOU messed up. When you succeed, saving all the hostages and walking away with your team intact, there's an unparalleled sense of satisfaction. In some of the earlier missions the atmosphere is spot on. As you progress, missions just seem to get bigger, and harder, and the atmosphere is lost - but they're still good missions. A solid game, and worth anyone's money.
Despite repeated attempts, I just could not get into Hearts of Iron 4. Being an avid historian I gave it a fair shot. HOI4 gameplay, whilst deep, is unnecessarily complex and the front line system is messy. For those wanting an 'easy to play, hard to master' title had to look elsewhere. Strategic Command fills this need for me. The interface is easy to use, and within minutes you'll be moving troops around and ordering new units. The game allows you to focus on the strategy. The graphics won't win awards, but everything looks sharp and units are well drawn. After a while you'll start to appreciate the depth. Supply makes a massive difference to how successful you'll be, bombers need to be escorted, technology needs to be up to date and units upgraded. The AI is good and will strike if it detects a weakness. Many games get the AI wrong; and this was refreshing. There are some negatives. Turn times are long. You can turn off animations; but then you miss any of your units that were destroyed. If you like playing as the UK, you may struggle to retain North Africa as it has terrible supply issues. I suppose this is realistic to a degree, but its frustrating as the AI doesn't seem to have any issues countering my units. My biggest gripe is that you can't set a destination for units that they automatically follow every turn. Overall, this is a great game. It's quite expensive for what it is, so I'd wait for sale.
