Hell has not frozen over. Pigs are not flying. But, somehow, Battlefront game(S!) are on GOG. Battlefront has been vociferous in their opinion of third party storefronts like Steam or GOG. So much so that when it was pointed out that Combat Mission : Beyond Overlord was on GOG, they weren’t even aware. Then it disappeared…
But now CMBO is back, along with a few others.
Continue reading…
Finally. Steel Division.
The info is still pretty sparse but it looks like Paradox Interactive, the studio who developed Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, and Stellaris, are publishing a Tactical RTS WW2 strategy game developed by Eugen Systems. You might remember Eugen from RUSE and the Wargame series.
This is gonna be good. Here’s a few things that caught me eye in an otherwise sparse press release.
Lately I’ve been getting my gaming fix away from prodigious hexes and even more prodigious spreadsheets. My evening reading has been Mary Beard’s excellent SPQR, and Bernard Cornwell’s the Last Kingdom. So I sought out games to cover me between pre-republican Rome all the way up to the the reign of Alfred the Great.
Total War : Warhammer drops you into a realm of magical and martial violence without much of a tutorial on how these units actually fight. That Orc warband should be easy, those undead should die, hell, the little orange bar says so. Then, lo-and-behold you get stomped.
Well we’ve got some options. Lets go over the hows and the whys of using your formations.
I didn’t intend to make Jackie Fisher roll over in his grave. Sure, commonsense told me to make warships like, well, like they’re supposed to be made. Instead though I’ve been using Rule the Waves as a test bed for wacky ideas and horrible tactics. Did it work?
Absolutely.
Fans of Patrick O’Brian rejoice, now you can channel your inner Captain Aubrey and take command of an 18th century sailing ship in the early access game, Naval Action. Creaking sails, strained rigging, and the rush of water all set the stage. The time period is probably around 1800, though some of the games features make it feel like it’s happen in the golden age of piracy, or about a hundred years earlier.
February is bringing some really awesome looking games. For the shortest month of the year we are getting a full load of games. The one that’s topping my list is Crusader Kings II : Conclave. But Xcom 2 is right behind it. To make choices even more difficult, the sequel to Pillar of Eternity’s White March rounds out the month. Here’s some more detail for you.
Initially I wasn’t going to step foot into reviewing Early Access games. It’s a realm of great ideas, marketing, fluff, and little substance. An idea for a great game is significantly different than a great game. Now we get to watch the process from shitty early access game all the way to shitty released game.
It’s kind of like sausage. You probably don’t want to watch. Getting the finished product is much better.
But, unfortunately, in our era of gaming we have a shitload of games in Early Access. As such, it’s worth taking a look and wading through the idea and getting to the substance.
I regain consciousness on the sandy shores of some distant beach. Waves lap gently against the shore like some long lost summer vacation. It takes me a moment but finally I get up. The sea stretches out beyond me. Turning about I get my first shock.
Naked men. Lots of them. This beach has more sausage than Oktoberfest. Behind them is a hill, rocks, forests, some strange looking fortresses rise up, and what could be a distant satellite dish.
Where the hell am I?
Support units are essential in the War in the East. They are your artillery, engineers, rocket battalions, and anti-aircraft. By abstracting these units it saves you a ton of time shuttling them about. But there’s still some things to know in order to maximize your effectiveness.
“Nebelwerfer and Land Mattress”. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nebelwerfer_and_Land_Mattress.jpg#/media/File:Nebelwerfer_and_Land_Mattress.jpg
Support Units come in two flavors. One is Combat Support Units like Artillery or Pioneers (Engineers). The other is straight up support, or Construction Units. We won’t cover much on the Construction side for right now. But on the Combat side there’s a lot going on.
