Monthly Archives: July 2014
A Distant Worlds AAR – Part 1
By Brandon “Kushan” Johnson, July 17, 2014
Welcome all. I’ve been playing Distant Worlds (DW) since it was first released in 2010. Since then, it’s become my favorite 4x game of any genre. No other game, except the Paradox games, come close to the breadth of options and replayability of DW, in my humble opinion of course.
Click images to enlarge
I’m going to be changing up my normal DW playstyle this time around. I normally fully control everything, and I’ve restarted a dozen different times trying to find a level of automation I can deal with. I’ve created a custom theme (mod) for this playthrough. I started with Haree78’s DW Extended Mod and merged in several other mods I thought would add a bit more variety.
Classic Reviews: Dust
Great chips-and-soda game that is familiar in gameplay, but with just enough added complexity to keep players engaged throughout the game. Combat is nuanced but still fast-flowing, and players have to make serious strategic choices at every turn.
Review by Brant Guillory, about 7 years ago 🙂
This review originally appeared in Scrye Magazine
Number of players: 2-6
Designed for ages: 12 and up
Learning Curve: Low to Medium
Playing time: 1-3 hours
Pros: Visually grand; familiar mechanics; lots of choices for players
Cons: Backstory irrelevant to gameplay; some game effects not clearly explained
Dust, Fantasy Flight’s new “big box” game, is based on the comics of the same name, in which history was altered by the discovery of alien technology on a polar expedition early in WWII. You now know more than you need to know about the backstory of the game in order to play it. But don’t let that get you down, because Dust is a great game, regardless of the story behind it.
Players are trying to gain victory points by controlling power sources, conquering their opponents, and dominating certain numbers on the map. They do so by marshalling their armies, and balancing the manufacture of forces with the usage of them.
Tuesday Screenshot – Saints Row 3
The dark nights of Saint’s Row 3
Click to enlarge
Bad time to bail out
On a joyride down dark city streets
Lamp posts rarely give
Image: Chris Beck
Haiku: eh, who cares, right?
GrogHeads Reviews World at War: Blood & Bridges
World at War: Blood and Bridges, Published by Lock ‘n Load Publishing
Review by Michael Eckenfels, 13 July 2014
INTRODUCTION
The fascination with the hypothetical balloon going up in Europe in the 80s doesn’t cease to amaze me. I think this is mainly because I am a child of the 80s and during that time, as I was getting into wargaming, a conventional NATO vs. Warsaw Pact ground war was a very real possibility. Gaming it out to bloody completion was compelling and riveting for me. And now, about a quarter century after the Berlin Wall fell and communism (more or less) has left Europe and Russia, it’s still something of a hot gaming topic. Whether you play it out on your PC or on your dining room table, there’s commie tanks looking to grind outnumbered Westerners under their treads, somewhere. 
Blood and Bridges is a Lock ‘n Load game that captures a slice of the West vs. East “war” in the 1980s. It is not a grand strategic game, but rather a tactical one, that focuses on platoon-level combat. If you’re looking to decide the fate of the entirety of Western Europe, you’re going to be disappointed. However, this game delivers, in a way, something better: a focal point battle (or series of battles) fought over the Rhine River Valley in the western part of West Germany. The premise is: the Soviets have taken something of a beating from NATO ground forces, but have doggedly ground their way forward, and are making a final, massive thrust towards this all-important geographic feature. In their way is the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR), making a steadfast final stand of sorts – a very British thing to do!
GrogHeads Reviews Piercing Fortress Europa
A Flash Review by Boggit
Developed by Adanac Command Studios and Published by Matrix/Slitherine
Click images to enlarge
When I saw this operational level game I was very motivated to look at it, as it claimed to emphasise logistics as a key element. I like this dimension, since in reality operations are usually dictated by the ability to supply. Many operational games deal with this only at a very simple level to avoid bogging the game down, so it is interesting to see whether Piercing Fortress Europa gets the balance right between reality and playability. I looked at the game under release version v1.2. The update improves things over the initial release, and adds sound which the release version lacked. In terms of scale each hex represents roughly 12 km across, each turn four days in the summer, up to six days in the winter, and three days for the Sicily Campaign. Units are divisions, brigades, or commando units.
The game menu gives a choice of 6 campaigns, handicap settings, game type (for example single player for either side, hot-seat, or play by electronic mail (PBEM)), and screen resolution. The game screen is windowed, and doesn’t support a full screen mode, which is a bit odd for a game released these days but is not a big deal. I have Guns of August from the same developer, which has been out for a while now, and that game displays similarly, so I’m not expecting any further screen mode changes from the developer.
The menu screen is functional
The PBEM option is pretty basic, and it is a pity it doesn’t take advantage of Matrix/Slitherine’s multiplayer lobby, which is user friendly and a good source for finding opponents. Instead it’s a question of entering a password, saving the game, and sending it by email as an attachment, or by a memory stick. To be honest I wasn’t very impressed, especially since most recent Matrix/Slitherine releases use the excellent Matrix/Slitherine multiplayer lobby. I’m hoping this feature will change in a future update.
Pre-landing planning in Sicily. I have a free choice as to where to land, but pre-invasion recon has been a disaster!
