Ubisoft's "R.U.S.E." is not your typical real-time strategy game. Brute tactical force is replaced with high-level strategic posturing, both on the physical battlefield and in the backdoor misdirections of two wily commanding generals. Playing your cards right, quite literally, takes precedence over unit production and constant micromanagement. That's the theory anyway. How does it pan out in practice? Let's take a look.

The Basics

The main single player campaign in "R.U.S.E." features two consecutively laid out storylines. The first follows a U.S. Army officer from World War II's Africa front all the way to Germany. The second focuses on Erich Von Richter, the German general who developed the strategy of Blitzkrieg (not really), though don't let that fool you into thinking there's no cloak & dagger: a traitor's afoot. Joining the campaign mode are a welcome selection of other options: Operation (standalone multi-objective scenarios), Battles (offline skirmish-style engagements) and, of course, Multiplayer (online skirmish).

The Highs

Look Over There!
The driving force of the strategic engagements in "R.U.S.E." boil down to the title itself. A cooldown meter ticks away, rewarding players every few minutes with a ruse point. The titular ruses are sneaky special modes that can be activated specific areas on the battlefield. Ruse benefits -- 10 in all -- come in a variety of forms; one reveals all enemies in a sector (all of the game's large maps are divided in this way), another show enemy orders and yet another masks friendly structures with camouflage.

The Art of War
Ruse effects go nicely with the basic gameplay, which places a focus on setting a broad strategy for your amassed forces. The game's zoom goes from a unit closeup to a view of the battlefield that is so distant, it appears as a map laid out on a wooden table in a war room. Play works best most of the time with the zoom somewhere in between, far enough out that grouped units are represented as a single stack of tokens. The feel is very much that of a general issuing orders from inside a war room, with occasional jumps into the heavy fray to keep things running smoothly.

The Most Dangerous Game
The best place to engage in the art of misdirection is online. The computer-controlled AI is fine, sometimes seeing through your tricks and sometimes not, but human opponents are, of course, endlessly unpredictable. There's a learning curve of course, and some hurdles to cross, but the basic elements are there for a compelling online experience.

The Lows

World War Boo
Seriously... World War II? Again? There's something to be said for keeping things familiar to offset the uncommon RTS flavor of the "R.U.S.E." gameplay... but World War II? Come on.

Cam-plain
The single player campaign really tries to tell a good story. It so badly wants to. Unfortunately, much of the dialogue -- and dry delivery -- is laughter-inducing. Cutscenes drag and drag between missions. Worth noting that the audio in all cutscenes was completely out of sync in the PC review copy I played. That, coupled with the gradual unfurling of key game elements makes the campaign feel like a laboriously drawn out tutorial. A proper tutorial would have been preferred, but there is nothing of the sort.

Glacial Progression
"R.U.S.E." features HUGE maps and relatively few units moving around on them, resulting in a s-l-o-w-l-y paced game. It is plenty rewarding to get all of your people and ordnance into place, fire off the masterstroke ruse and move in for the kill... but damned if you're not going to first have to sit there patiently waiting for your grunts to crawl into place. It would be nice to see the game patched to include some kind of speed control, even if it's just for offline play.

The Verdict
The patient strategist will appreciate this less frenzied flavor of RTS in "R.U.S.E.," but take caution. Issues with the overused setting, forcibly gradual learning curve and snail's pace gameplay progression are going to be a big turnoff for the majority. This isn't a game without its rewards, but you're gong to have to tolerate a lot to achieve them.

NOTE: This review is based on play with the PC (Steam) version of "R.U.S.E."