Tag: WWII

05/4/13

Battle of Coral Sea – A Carriers at War AAR

carriers-at-war-box

Developer: Strategic Studies Group (SSG)

Publisher: Matrix Games

Author: Sean Drummy

Carriers at War is a classic game, and I’m not even talking about the original from way back in the day, I’m referring to the remake by Matrix Games. Most wargames require a substantial investment of time to complete a scenario, let alone a campaign, but the brilliance of Carriers at War is how succinct and utterly merciless the gameplay is. Depending on how brilliantly (or stupidly) you perform a scenario the game could be played through in as little as five minutes before a decisive victor is declared. In many ways this is a very wise design decision. If I just spent an hour setting up my weapons loadouts and task groups only to find five minutes in my ships are spotted and then bombed into oblivion I may be a little disappointed (read: infuriated).
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04/27/13

Small General Eastern Front

GrogHeads is pleased to induct Small General Eastern Front into the Order of the Hex for Excellent Depth in Mobile Gameplay.
GrogHeads is pleased to induct Small General Eastern Front into the Order of the Hex for Excellent Depth in Mobile Gameplay.

Review by Jim Zabek, 27 April 2013

Publisher & Developer: Victor Reijkersz Games

Great gameplay on the go? Believe it! If you’re on an Android phone, you’ve got a new ‘must-play’ game.

About a year ago Grogheads published a review of Small General. Set in a generic World War II-ish environment it to offered a non-historical operational wargame to players with Android-powered devices. Developed by VR Designs, the same development house that recently won an Order of the Hex award for great historical gameplay and Third Place in our Readers’ Choice Awards, it should come as little surprise that a more historically-focused game for Android devices would soon follow.
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01/23/13

Crisis in Command I: Battle of the Bulge for iPad

Developer: John Butterfield • Publisher: Shenandoah Studios

Reviewed by Jim Cobb, 23 January, 2013

Click images to enlarge

Will a staple battle of wargaming look any differently on an iPad tablet? Jim Cobb jumps into the Battle of the Bulge to find out.

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New media do not initially bring new gaming paradigms. The first wargames for computers were ports from board games; the first wargames for tablets have been ports from mainstream computer games. Other than tapping instead of mousing, play hasn’t changed that much. With Shenandoah Studio’s Kickstart-supported Battle of the Bulge, a new paradigm may have been developed.

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11/1/12

PC Game Review of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy

Reviewed by Boggit 1 November, 2012

Developed and Published by Battlefront.com

How does the latest Combat Mission game stack up? Charge on, intrepid readers!

Fortress Italy is the latest incarnation of the Combat Mission 2 Series developed and published by Battlefront.com. For those unfamiliar with the series, it is a 3-D real-time tactical squad-level wargame set in Sicily 1943 during World War II. For those familiar with Combat Mission Shock Force and Combat Mission Battle for Normandy, the gameplay is essentially similar, albeit that new features have been added to the game engine and front end and that the battlefield terrain now reflects an Italian setting as opposed to the Near East or France/North West Europe.

The game plays in either of two modes, pausable real-time, and WEGO, where a player plots his/her moves and then watches the moves play out in real-time, rather like watching a film. It’s actually a very nice option to have in the game since it holds appeal to those who like to plot and consider their moves and to those who like the excitement of immediate action and reaction from the moment time is running. It’s quite fun to play one battle in one mode and another in the other mode since although it is the same game, you do get a very different feel to the gameplay.

I had already cut my teeth on Combat Mission Shock Force and Combat Mission Battle for Normandy, so I felt right at home with Fortress Italy. If you’re not familiar with the gameplay then you’ll need to invest some time and effort to get to know the intricacies of the game system. It isn’t that the order system is not intuitive, but the game is quite unforgiving when the pixel bullets start flying and knowing the likely effect of your orders and how things take effect is at first as important as whatever tactical plan you have to achieve victory… (not that mine ever survive contact…).

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10/14/12

GrogHeads Reviews Bomber Command

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Designer: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood

Publisher: GMT Games

Left Hand Reviews, 14 October, 2012

 

How closely can a boardgame come to simulating the Allies’ strategic night bombing raids of World War II?

 

In an effort to cripple the German war machine and bring the 3rd Reich to its knees, the British Royal Air Force conducted countless night raids in the late stages of the war, 1943-1945. The targets included military manufacturing facilities, populated cities, as well as critical supply routes. Despite the extraordinarily high mortality rate of the bomber squadrons, they continued to fight bravely and eventually succeeded in forcing the German High Command to shift to the defensive.

Bomber Command is a tactical wargame in which one player will control the British bombers, attempting to take out key objectives, while the other play represents the German night fighters and flak batteries desperately trying to infiltrate the Allied bomber squadrons and prevent the destruction of not only brick and mortar targets but the morale of the people as well.

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