04/16/18

What’s Gus Playing? Endless Space 2, part 2

The famous fun-sized phantasm of flight fights fearlessly ~

Lloyd Sabin, 15 April 2018

I totally forgot that I was supposed to focus on the combat of Endless Space 2 last week when I wrote up House of the Dying Sun. It happens. Our own BayonetBrant had to ask me ‘WTF happened to the 2nd part you said you were going to write up on Endless Space 2 combat?’

My response? ‘Well f– me, I totally forgot.’ Until now. Even if it is a dayweek late.

Endless Space 2 combat is liked by some, disliked by others. I enjoyed it because it had a lot of options that I had not seen it 4x games before, like your force’s offensive/defensive disposition, formations, etc. And again, I only scratched the very shallow surface of this game, including the combat component, and will be back for much more in the near future.

Battle engaged!

Continue reading →

04/14/18

GrogHeads Reviews Underrail

Airboy dives into the bowels of Underrail to see if it’s worth taking the plunge ~

Avery Abernethy, 14 April 2017

Computer RPGs often have an excellent design concept but poor execution. Other RPGs have a great design and good execution, but play balance goes off usually later in the game. Your characters become so powerful that almost nothing presents a challenge. Very few RPGs have a good concept, and game mechanics while retaining challenging (but not impossible) play throughout the game. Even fewer RPGs manage to do this while enabling different effective play styles. Underrail is one of a handful of games I’ve ever played which hits all of these benefits. Continue reading →

04/12/18

Gaming Nostalgia – TWERPS M.E.C.H.I.-Tech

#TBT at GrogHeads!

TWERPS was a semi-tongue-in-cheek RPG/adventure game in the early 90s that was a very flexible system for whatever adventure goodness you could want.  Different wordbooks expanded into specific genres, and their take on ‘Mechs was a solid parody of Battletech, but a decent game in its own right, too.

click images to enlarge

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04/7/18

Raiders of the Deep – First Look!

Michael… ahem, “dives” into the Compass Games sub warfare box ~

Michael Eckenfels, 7 April 2018

It seems that the solitaire wargame market for submarines is picking up steam (a harr a harr) in the last few years. Silent Victory, Silent War, Target Bearing 023 Degrees, Operation Drumbeat, The Hunters…there’s plenty of options, including this title, Raiders Of The Deep from Compass Games.

Based on the same system that The Hunters and Silent Victory use, Raiders Of The Deep puts you into the role of a German submarine commander in World War I. This is a very intriguing prospect to me, being based in World War I, when submarine warfare really came into its own. Some of the German submarines at the outbreak of war were tiny things that could hold maybe 15 sailors and two torpedoes, but they evolved quickly over the following years of The Great War. Continue reading →