Category: Reviews

03/6/18

GrogHeads Reviews LNLP’s A Wing & A Prayer

Does LNLP’s air war over Europe game soar to the skies or crash & burn? ~

Michael Eckenfels, 6 March 2018

Is A Wing And A Prayer good enough to recommend as a game?

Way back in 1981, B-17: Queen of the Skies set the bar for future solitaire games, let alone future solitaire games dealing with the Allied air war against Germany. In recent times, a plethora of these have surfaced, including Legion Wargames’ B-29 Superfortress and its Hell Over Korea expansion, as well as Target For Today; DVG’s B-17 Flying Fortress Leader; and possibly others I’m not offhand remembering. Lock n Load Publishing’s hat in the ring is a good entry with interesting play for the solo gamer, though it has some production issues.

Is A Wing And A Prayer good enough to recommend as a game? I’d feel more confident in my answer of “yes” if LnL fixes some of those production issues in forthcoming printings of this title, and maybe polished some of its graphic design elements too. While not bad, it’s not the best I’ve seen, and while functional, it degrades the game overall somewhat. Still, it’s one I’d recommend to you if you’re into solo games about bombing the heck out of the Reich.

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02/7/18

GrogHeads Reviews In The Trenches: Base Set II Doughboys

TBP promises to pack big fun into small packages.  How does their WWI series measure up? ~

Designed by John Gorkowski and published by Tiny Battles Publishing ~

Robert Ellis, 7 February 2018

In The Trenches is a series of games that depict platoon level tactical combat during WW1, and offers a good selection of scenarios and forces from many of the involved protagonists.

Each hex represents 100 yards and each turn 5 minutes.

The series so far consists of two base games (this being one of them) and four expansions, all of which require one of the base games to play.

‘Doughboys’, as you might expect from the title, is about US Army actions set in 1918, and has three scenarios that feature a mixture of US infantry and light tanks in both defensive and offensive battles.

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01/26/18

GrogHeads Reviews 7 Wonders Mobile Edition

The tabletop favorite packs up on the go for your phone ~

Brant Guillory, 26 January 2018

My love for 7 Wonders is pretty well-documented.  My biggest gripe with it has always been that it’s pain to pull multiple people together for a game session, because the game plays pretty poorly with only two people (and hence the creation of 7 Wonders: Duel).  But if you wanted to play the original as a digital game, without having to drag up three friends, clear a table, and shuffle a bunch of cards, you were stuck.  There was a really crappy, borderline-illegal Game of Thrones/7 Wonders mashup that you could get through the Amazon app store, but that was it.

Until now.

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01/23/18

GrogHeads Reviews The Quest

RPG on the go?  Sure.  But how does it stack up against PC games ~

Avery Abernethy, 23 January 2018

The Quest is a light RPG which is playable on your phone, tablet or PC. The game has a single person viewpoint and you cannot gain party members or henchmen. This design choice will drive most characters to develop both fighting and magic skills. The graphics are state of the art 1990s and reminded me of Might and Magic 6 which was released back in 1998.

You start out as a first level character with the seemingly impossible mission of finding out what has happened to the Governor of a large province. Of course, the Governor is far away and inaccessible to your starting character. Your character then solves a bunch of quests, kills a bunch of monsters in the wilderness and gains levels which allow you to become more powerful.

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12/19/17

Classic Reviews – Prisoner of War

Got a hankering to conduct your own Great Escape? ~

Michael Eckenfels, 19 December 2017

Developed by Wide Games and Published by Codemasters

Prisoner of War is an evolution, of sorts, of the usual mind-assaulting first-person shooters – or a regression, depending on one’s perception. True adventure games with more puzzle solving and limited or no violence are rare; such a title set in the chaos of World War II makes for an even more interesting game. I tried hard, however, to not like this game; I’m afraid that this perception came from the plethora of lukewarm reviews that have preceded mine into print regarding this title.  Something tugged at me, however, to check this one out; I had a feeling I might not be disappointed.
Besides the Cold War, very little can evoke images of skullduggery or sneaky missions performed behind enemy lines like World War II. OSS agents mixing it up with fedora-donned instruments of the Gestapo and their jack-booted gun-toting guards…it’s a time of intrigue that helps to define modern standards for suspenseful storytelling.

So bring in Prisoner of War. No, it’s not about spying, but the premise is similar: an Allied pilot is shot down behind German lines while running a photoreconnaissance mission. He’s captured and brought to a sort of way-station (which doubles as a truck depot) for prisoners that are eventually shipped off to the official Stalag Luft prisoner-of-war camps. The pilot, one Captain Lewis Stone, resolves immediately and heroically to not stand for such imprisonment, and is off on one minor adventure after another to outwit his German captors and escape to freedom. Along the way, he uncovers a heinous plot that he tries to stop.

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