Month: April 2015

04/8/15

Quick & Dirty! First Impressions of Battle Academy 2: Battle of Kursk Expansion

We’ve got a full review coming later, but we wanted to tease you with some first impressions from Slitherine’s new Battle Academy expansion.

Vance Strickland, 8 April 2015

The newest offering for Slitherine’s Battle Academy 2 is an expansion pack containing 2 new campaigns.

Each campaign takes place during the Battle for Kursk in July 1943. Players take on the role of the German attackers in the northern fighting and the Russian defenders in the southern pincer fighting.

Germans fight in the north.
Germans fight in the north.

Continue reading →

04/4/15

GrogHeads Reviews Total War: Attila

By Lloyd Sabin, 4 April 2015

Click images to enlarge

Developed by Creative Assembly and Published by SEGA

System: Intel Core i5-2400 CPU @ 3.1 GHz, 8GB RAM, 64-bit Windows 7, NVidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti

A Love Story for the Ages

Oh Total War series, how I have loved thee.  From our initial flirty glances with the initial release of Shogun in 2000, to our lusty jaunts through the historical sheets in Medieval and Rome in 2002 and 2004, respectively…to our exchanging of vows with the release of Medieval 2 in 2006…probably one of my favorite games ever.

And then the rough days of our relationship: the release of Empire and Napoleon in 2007 and 2009. Highly ambitious, I stuck with the series through these more ‘trying releases,’ to be rewarded with Shogun 2 in 2011 – arguably the best Creative Assembly game as far as technical polish, artwork and AI are concerned. And then…well…Rome 2.

Hmm, Huns look like an interesting faction choice. Until players experience how drop-dead difficult they can be to play. I will try again with the Huns once I get some more experience.
Hmm, Huns look like an interesting faction choice. Until players experience how drop-dead difficult they can be to play. I will try again with the Huns once I get some more experience.

Continue reading →

04/3/15

The GrogHeads Reader Feedback Survey

3 April 2015

We want to know what you think about us.

GHFBBanner

We’ve got a quick-and-easy 10-item feedback survey here, on a few different pages.  We want to know what you think about us, and a little about your game-playing and -buying habits, to help us align some of our coverage to better match our audience.  Take 5 minutes and give us some feedback, please.  Thanks!

Create your own user feedback survey

Discuss this survey below, or in our forums >>

04/2/15

AARsday! Playtesting Warfighter: Asian Thunder

2 April 2015

What does the game development process look like?  It’s not always pretty.  There’s a lot of hand-scribbled work along the way, as these pics from an old playtesting game of Warfighter: Asian Thunder from BayonetGames demonstrate.

Game1Setup

The setup:  The Iranians are closing on Salyan, their first objective on the road to Baku, Azerbaijan.  “North” is to the left on this map.  The Azeri civilians in Salyan might offer some resistance to the Iranians, as the Azeri reinforcements come charging toward the city.  An American company has landed at the airport, but is not prepared to advance into Salyan in between the Azeris and Iranians until the situation develops.

One player is controlling the Iranians, the other has the Azeris and Americans, and the civilians.

Continue reading →

04/1/15

GrogHeads Announces Sale of Website

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

1 April 2015

 

GrogHeads is pleased to announce the sale of our URL to the American Rum Manufacturers’ Association (ARMA), for the purpose of hosting their newly-announced club for fans of heritage brews of the “pirate era” (1650-1840).  GrogHeads anticipates a smooth transition of content from game-focused material to greater alcohol-focused articles, including mixology, sourcing, and recovery tips.

“We are thrilled with the acquisition of the GrogHeads brand” stated ARMA’s CEO, Cordwainer Bird. “Not only is the ‘Grog’ term already strongly identified with the focus of our material, but the forum conversations of the current membership of the site indicate they already spend much of their days deeply inebriated, putting them squarely in our core demographic for the new Grog Heads club.”

“We are excited about the new direction of Grog Heads,” remarked Chief Check-Cashing Officer Craig Handler.  “Especially since my direction is now ‘South’ toward the private island I was able to afford.”

“Honestly, I don’t expect to see many changes,” noted Brant Guillory, former content manager.  “The forums will still be a mixture of insanity, debauchery, and bad puns, and no one will ever notice the front page is something different.”

Among the new features planned for the forums are an “auto-ignore” criteria that members can set to filter posts from other members based on a lengthy questionnaire of previous media consumption (such as classic movies and TV shows), musical preferences, knowledge of obscure comic-book continuity trivia, or preference for real-time vs turn-based games.  Thus when a previously-deficient forum members reclaims his man card by eventually watching Saving Private Ryan, for instance, his posts will now appear in your forum view, as they would be above your auto-ignore threshold,

Watch for the new website rollout over the next 72 hours.  Or don’t.  Since you’re not likely watching the front page anyway.

 

Discuss this article in our forums, since that’s where you’re headed anyway >>