If you start yapping about how realistic or un-realistic a war game is you are out of your mind. There is no such thing as a realistic war game, as you're sitting on your ass whilst soaking up dopamine hits playing a game. This, along with NAM, may be the closest thing to war games. It's absolute chaos, nothing makes sense, but if for some odd reason you're still alive when it's over you'll take a deep breath and move on. If Doom 1 and Hexen are your jam, go for it. If you need some sort of expectation to be fulfilled, there are plenty of games for you out there.
This is one of the examples of indie gaming done right. What an odd little gem. Clearly, if you are into graphics, move one, even though it is wildly creative with its colorful text based graphics. If you are interested in a verrryy quircky, laugh out loud little kingdom sim, this is well worth your money. It is very low brow, a bit of Montey Python sprinkled in throughout, and for a text based game the writing can be a bit bare bones at times, but is still effective. It has a bit of crusader kings, as you are running your little kingdom, interact with visitors and surrounding kingdoms and indepentant bandit groups and such, expanding your empire, enjoying all the riches that come with it. But there is definitely a large dose of chaos thrown in as well. You can go to your arena and watch\wager on bets, or you can get a force together and just invade the arena and burn it all down. Suddent catastrophic endings are around many a corner. The adventuring is nice, as your run into all sorts of situations, illustrated with colorful little text drawings, and can basically act in any way you see fit at any given moment, laughing as it all burns down if you choose. If you like toung in cheek humor, quirky indie developers, text game nostalgia, and\or rather clever little kingdom games, absolutely check this thing out. The developer is very active and communicative, the game is very moderately priced, and it is the type of thing you can have a blast with just putting an hour or two into, yet clearly deep enough to suck you in for a longer haul. Enjoy.
Strategic Command is the war game series that brings joy to my heart. The system is simple, but always has enough angles to keep you engaged, and generally takes multiple play throughs to wrap your mind around. It's a great way to dip your toe in the genre, and most agree that even when you move to a more difficult series, you will still come back and buy each and every Strategic Command game. This one is no different, we get to throw down in North America now.. joy! But.. Blast! This is the most sandbox heavy entry of the entire series, no doubt. It is also the most abstact, and perhaps the very first where it doesn't always feel like you are fighting the war at hand. When we think of the the civil war we think lines of men at key battles, which take months to prepare for, with swift climactic endings. This plays much more like a WW2 game taking place on a civil war map. And yet again they are putting way too much emphasis sea battles, which was the biggest problem in their WW1 game (one of my favorite games of all time). To look back on the American Civil War or WW1 and say that about 15-25 percent of the events should be hex based sea battles is ridiculous. I get it, blockades decide the outcome of wars.. but find a way to abstract it away from the hex warfare. And please... add one more visual level to the map.. aside from up close.. 5% less up close... and then the world map. These are basic things that hardcore fans speak with every release. We love your games! This game continues to grow, and is very fun to tinker with. The added decisions are helping with immersion, no question. If you want a fun sandbox strategy American Civil War game, or love the SC series, buy this and enjoy. Just a bit frustrating to see the same problems pop up yet again.
The original release of Icewind Dale and Riven are my favorite games of all time. This one comes in close behind. Put 140 hours in the playthrough.
If you play war board games, this will be one of the best deals you could imagine. Along with the rest of the Gary Grigsby catologue. If you don't, you probably wont understand what you are dealing with here. If you only like little games for children and the main stream, you will probably troll this game without even playing it because of the price. This is one of the great wargames of all times on any platform. Go check the reviews and game time on Steam, then buy it over here. Children beware.
I love this game, it has gotten me into Axis & Allies like never before... and it's trash. The online play is quite solid, but there is no way in hell I am going to let Beamdog put the word "Online" at the end of the title to excuse the worst AI I have ever seen in a strategy game by far and it's not even close. Beamdog... the fellas that have been cashing in on other peoples games for some years now. Funny, if you go to steam, this game is in development... here, its "finished". I would give this game 5 stars quickly if they did the work to elevate this product from Money Grab, to..... Game. Just stop beamdog... stop... everything you touch dies, regardless of some nice profits. Write a proper AI, bring in another senario or two, put some love into it and boom - 5 stars. I only put 3 because I know yall ain't gonna do any of this. Please.. prove me wrong. Or better yet, make a game of your own some day.
This game is a blast, great level design, insane comical action (feels like your in some 80's action movie), fast paced fun. It just oozes early 2000's. Absolutely, you need to jump through a hoop to get it running, which is unfortunate - but very much worth it! Google SoFPlus, unpack the mod into the game folder - even go a step farther and Copy/paste the SoF.exe into a new file, rename it MOHAA.exe.... sounds a bit annoying, but it really only takes a few mins then tadaaa!! SoF action packed extravaganza
