So… said the exasperated General were outnumbered, outgunned and the enemy advances on our pos ition relentlessly. I fear there is little hope but to sound the retreat and hope that our weary l egs keep us at enough distance from our foes. It is that, or we hunker in and we fight to the deat h.

Its clear that the limitations of the genre as a whole have been on the mind of the developers whe n creating H.A.W.X 2. Huge open expanses of sky and endlessly firing off automatically targeted mi ssiles at wave after wave of enemy in short spurts it can be exhilarating but in the long term rep etition will scrape through the rush and force the player to hit the ejector seat.

Wouldnt it be great if there was a game that recreated the element of surprise at the heart of eac h conflict, one that would enable players to not only show the understanding of their arsenal but also genuine lateral thinking in the face of something unexpected? That is the premise behind R.U.S.E. It may seem like a familiar rehash of things that have seen befo re. The World War II setting for example means that almost anyone will be familiar with the units, the setting and the factions.