Sudden Strike 2
If you manage to finish a level then you'll be ranked on your performance and awarded stars. At least, that is what's supposed to happen. In practice, the ranking system is completely busted. At no point could I ever figure out what caused my ranking to increase or decrease. I watched the star counter displayed during levels and often found it stuck at the lowest it could go before suddenly jumping up to completely full with no rhyme or reason. You can use these stars to upgrade your commanders, giving them more command options or better passive boosts. If you manage to figure out the game's secret formula for three stars then you can replay a level with a challenge active, things like only starting with half ammo or not getting specific units. Completing these goals will earn you a fourth star, for better commanders.
Sudden Strike 2
At times I actually thought the game was rather nice to look at. Battles could look impressive, and little effects like light tank rounds bouncing off the armor of a heavy tank really helped sell the game. Unfortunately, harking back to the technical issues of before, Sudden Strike 4 suffers from noticeable frame drops, especially when the battles got too intense. These frame drops could see the game dropping into single digits, and causes new problems like the fog of war not lifting correctly or the selection cursors for air attacks not loading. Animations also broke often: soldiers would get killed but proceed to stand there a solid minute before suddenly playing their death animation. Assuming they actually play their death animation and don't suddenly warp into the T-pose before fading away like they never existed in the first place. I also want to give a shout out to the game's terrible voice actors. I'm not sure there was more than three, and it was hilariously clear most of them didn't have accents even close to the country they were supposed to be representing. 041b061a72