Did you know that the Allies dropped over 10,000 tonnes of bombs on German communications alone, in the first wave of D-Day attacks in 1944? And did you know that Erwin Rommel was forced to commit suicide that same year, having been implicated in the officer's plot to kill Hitler? That despite his meteoric rise to Field Marshal and success as a military commander, he defied orders to shoot captured Jewish civilians on the spot and treated Allied POWs humanely?

You see what a Military History game does to you? Ostensibly, Commander: Europe At War is a turn-based strategy title with a penchant for historical accuracy, set over five years of WWII from Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939 to the D-Day landings of 1944. We enjoy it because it's a lot like the wildly fantastical Advance Wars for the GBA (and admittedly, the graphics have take a retrograde step to this era too): you have an initial pool of tanks, planes and infantry, with different movement speeds, strengths and weaknesses against different enemy units and advantages on specific terrain. Moving around a hexagonal grid overlay on the map of Europe, you use those units to attack enemies, capture cities and increase your production and manufacturing points so that more units can be created and maintained. This includes the eponymous commanders, who can add bonuses when attached to certain units. Primary goals are historically realistic to the era, for example, having captured Poland and playing as the Axis in 1940, you have a choice of taking the relatively weak Scandinavia or pushing across the Maginot Line into a more heavily fortified France.

Marching across Europe as the Axis you can choose to declare war on any country, friend or foe, so if you still think you can take Russia at Stalingrad while fighting a critical battle against the Allies on the western front, then knock yourself out. Flipping over to play the good guys for a chance gives you a renewed appreciation of the battle scene: from his relatively small chunk of land, Hitler expanded exponentially and by early 1944 had claimed most of Europe. Surveying the scene just prior to mounting your D-Day attack is intimidating, as the European continent is swathed in the colours of Germany, while your entire reclamation force of Allied units is crammed into the tiny strip of English channel, poised for the attack.
The historical setting is far more compelling than it might sound to some, more colour is given to the historical plot by photos from the time, plus black and white footage and gradually you begin to enjoy being drip fed history, especially when you get used the slightly anal effort to feed you facts that are completely surplus to requirements for anything you click upon.

What the folks at Slitherine Software have actually created here, is a covert educational toy that usurps all the useful knowledge that we've accumulated since leaving school. Ask us how to make a good Caipirinha now and we'll tell you to feed it privet leaves and change its bedding twice a week, while we can name at least three otherwise obscure Axis commanders who were cleared of war crimes in Nuremberg. Damn you Slitherine, for not making this game before we flunked our GCSE history so spectacularly.