Category: Reviews

12/27/12

Review of Levee en Masse

Review by Jim Cobb, 27 December 2012

Published and Developed by Victory Point Games

Yes, Virginia, there was a revolution before Napoleon. Gamers’ fixation with the Corsican ogre has obscured a fascinating period before the assumption of First Consulship in 1802. Only Crown of Glory included this period its grand overview of the period. Victory Point Games has addressed this situation by porting their solitaire boardgame over to the iPad and iPhone. Can a simple game capture a complicated time?

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Paris Squares

Levee en Masse’s map shows France surrounded by the English Channel, the Low Countries, the Rhineland, western Austria, Switzerland and the Piedmont in Italy. Naturally, Paris is the center of everything. France’s external foes – Britain, Prussian, Austria, and Piedmont – start in their homelands while the perennial rebels in the Vendee are slightly misplaced in southwest France. A chain of four boxes link enemies to Paris with color guards advancing toward the Isle de France. Circles in the Low Countries and one in the Channel represent possible spots for “Liberation” armies.

 

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12/14/12

PC Game Review of Strategic Command WW1 Breakthrough

A review by Boggit, 14 December, 2012

Developed by Fury Software and published by Battlefront Inc.

Wargamers have recently had a series of fine wargames set during the First World War competing for their attention. With the Breakthrough expansion to Strategic Command World War One, Boggit takes a Grog’s view of whether this is just “Over the Top” or “Bang on Target”.

 

Strategic Command World War One Breakthrough is Fury Software’s latest addition to their Strategic Command stable of games. Strategic Command World War One Breakthrough is an add-on to Strategic Command World War One, so what has changed with the addition of Breakthrough, and for those unfamiliar with Strategic Command World War One itself, how does the game play?

Breakthrough makes a number of changes to the Strategic Command World War One game engine and introduces a new unit – the armoured train, which substitutes for the rail gun in some scenarios. The game engine changes cover a host of improvements including new hotkeys and some nice combat features like combat unit swapping, improved bombardment options, and so on. Supply rules have been overhauled and improved. Breakthrough also adds a variety of additional scenarios and a range of modding features to the game editor.

 

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What scenario to play? Action takes place from the muddy Flanders fields to the jungles of Africa.

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12/12/12

Game Review of Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Developed by Treyarch and Published by Activision

A review by Jim Zabek, 12 December, 2012

Call of Duty is a well-established franchise that has become almost a perennial expectation to first-person shooter fans. But has it taken a step toward becoming a full-fledged wargame? Read what GrogHeads’ Jim Zabek has to say on the subject.

The Siren’s Call

The Call of Duty franchise has been so successful that it has been played by nearly a full generation of gamers. Its trademark is an intense single-player campaign powered by a game engine that gives a robust multiplayer game longevity that few FPS games can hope to match.

The breakup of Infinity Ward a few years back briefly left the franchise’s future in question, but development studio Treyarch stepped into the breach and has deftly managed to fill the role of a top-shelf FPS development house. With the release of Black Ops II they have demonstrated that they can consistently deliver games at the highest caliber and gamers will buy them unhesitatingly. Within two weeks of its release, Black Ops II grossed over a billion dollars and eclipsed revenues generated by Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster movies. By any measure it is a grand slam. Let’s look at why.

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