Category Archives: First Impressions

Grogheads Impressions – Jupiter Hell!

450px Jupiter Hell cover

Jupiter Hell is a traditional roguelike currently under development by ChaosForge. It is set on a futuristic moon station that you might recognize from the golden era of ‘90s gaming.  You play as a Totally-Not-Doom-Guy fighting for desperate survival against swarms of demons and zombie soldiers who all happen to be armed to the teeth.  Along the way you’ll find plenty of pistols, shotguns, grenades, med-kits, and BFGs to fend off the hordes of Hades.  Sound familiar? More importantly, if it sounds fun – keep on reading for our impressions!

450px Jupiter Hell cover

By: James Maxwell

Groghead’s First Look! Field of Glory: Empires – Persia 550 – 330 BCE

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It was a great day when Slitherine announced that the original Field of Glory – Empires (FoG:E) would link to Field of Glory 2 (FoG2) and allow players to fight out the campaign’s battles in a tactical turn-based format. As I concluded in the Groghead’s FoG:E review, the system succeeded! I never had one stutter, bump or crash when switching between the two systems, or in the games themselves for that matter.

What did happen, though, is that the campaigns were very long. This is still the case with the new FoG:E DLC released this week for Persia (Persia 550BC-330BC) – I’ll acronym it as FoG:P. I fired it up for the first time yesterday, chose Persia immediately and played for two hours. How many turns did I complete?

persia

By: Gusington

Space Beast Terror Fright, oh my!

SBTF

A little background…I was there when the FPS was invented [que the angels singing], Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, Unreal Tournament, in the beginning I played them all.  Sure, time has marched on, reflexes have dimmed, no more snatching the pebble out of the master’s hand.  However, Two hours of play time with Space Beast Terror Fright (“SBTF”), or as I like to call it, “how I can die a dozen times in a half hour simulator”, and an impression has definitely been left on me with a giant kick to my ass!

SBTF

-budd-,

Grogheads Is Loving Field of Glory: Empires!

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If you’ve been reading the Groghead’s front page for the last week or so you have seen the couple of teaser articles we published in anticipation of the Field of Glory: Empires (FogE) launch on July 11. It has been a while since a PC strategy game has generated the kind of excitement that we have seen in our forums.  So, we’re going to continue with our coverage here to hold you over until our detailed review is ready – the only difference being that you all can now play the game along with us. We even have a massive MP game set to kick-off on July 18 between 16 different GH forum members!

Lloyd Sabin,

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Its launched!

Thunder in the East: A First-time Player’s Perspective

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Our guest author takes us to ConSimWorld Expo for a report on VPG’s upcoming east front mini-monster ~

Christian Snyder, 21 July 2018

I recently had the amazing opportunity to sit down with some good folks at ConsimWorld Expo’s Monster Conand play Frank Chadwick’s Thunder in the East for the first time; it was fantastic! Full disclosure: I am currently awaiting my Kickstarter copy of the game and had seen some Vassal play prior to arriving in Tempe, Arizona. Seeing the game on videos and reading the rulebook, however, are nothing compared to sitting down to play with the printer’s proof copy at the show. Since the game is not available, this is not a review, but a first impression focusing on what impressed me about seeing, playing, and meeting the development team for Frank Chadwick’s ETO Vol. I: Thunder in the East.

Frank Chadwicks ETO Vol I thunder in the east

Frank Chadwick’s ETO Vol I: Thunder in the East! Nice maps, charts and counters!

Thunder in the East is a dynamic, action packed game covering the entire Eastern Front of World War 2 in six scenarios starting with the German Operation Barbarossa and ending with the Soviet Operation Bagration. You can do each scenario singularly or start a full campaign from these points with incredible systems for morale, seasonal activities, economy and unit reorganization. My experience consisted of three playthroughs of Operation Barbarossa using the optional and campaign game rules. For each of our playthroughs, we were typically unconcerned with capturing Moscow. However, to capture Moscow, along with Stalin, would have been a scenario automatic victory.