My brief preview of Panzer Tactics
Anyway, the parallels to ye olde Panzer General are obvious and not original with me. The tiny tanks take some getting used to, but it will probably fit in well with the rest of the titles for Nintendo’s small machine. The handheld console has already built up an impressive strategy line-up.
Worms, Age of Empires, SimCity, Settlers…. All available on the DS. (SimCity, by the way, is nearly impossible to play in my experience. Too little screen real estate to see your lakeside real estate and my roads never draw straight.) Plus Advance Wars has made its way from the GameBoy. A Warhammer 40K game is on the way. And soon, reportedly, Civilization: Revolution will make the DS the handheld platform of choice for strategy gamers.
On the other side of the phony war, the PSP has a few strategy titles. Worms and Warhammer, again. Strategy RPGs like Final Fantasy Tactics and D&D Tactics. (Can we just drop “Tactics” as a subtitle, guys? Thanks.) But beyond these RPG games, there’s not a lot of unique strategy stuff.
My DS is new, so I don’t have a lot of games to go with it at the moment. Any recommendations would be appreciated. Will Settlers make me lose my eyesight from the strain?
I have lots of games that I like. But if I were stuck on a desert island forever, I’d take Advance Wars.
I’m excited about Panzer Tactics, so it’s nice to hear that it still exists. :D
Jon
Woot! Unfortunately the release date has shifted around so much I don’t think it’s coming out tomorrow.
I haven’t heard anything good about The Settlers so you might want to avoid that. Age of Empires: Age of Kings is a surprisingly good title and is only $20 so it’s a good starter. 1701 is supposed to be good, although I don’t think there’s been a US release yet. Worms 2 is good, and you can’t mention the DS without bringing up Puzzle Quest (although now it’s all over the place).
It’s funny how Panzer Tactics DS has now created a buzz with strategy gamers that it’s now pretty common to see on forums people you never thought would be interested in the DS wondering similar thoughts to you.
Oh, you may want to add the 40K to the end of Warhammer in your piece, since WH40K *is* different than regular WH.
You still have your eye sight? I’m starting to doubt your nerd credentials.
Advance Wars DS is really very good, and of the DS strategy titles I have, it’s the only one I still play regularly.
The DS version of Anno 1701 is a fantastic port of the PC game.
Anyone know the status of Warlords and Disciples for DS? Or if they really existed? I’ve seen them mentioned before but have never read concrete proof that they were in development. Doesn’t help that they would be coming from Strategy First, a company that the less said, the better.
Avoid Settlers like the plague! I haven’t played the PC version but the DS version is terrible. The interface design is really poor, which is hard to do on a platform as intuitive as the DS. And it’s crippled by bugs.
If you are looking for some simcity/civ-like action then Anno 1701 is great… a little lightweight on the strategy compared to civ but keeps it just about right for the short play sessions you tend to have on handhelds.
Also, as mentioned by many others, Advance Wars and Age of Empires are both must haves.
One that hasn’t been mentioned is Battles of Prince of Persia. It’s a CCG strategy game, a little budget in terms of presentation etc, but quite deep. Not a great game but worth checking out if you are interested in tactical CCGs.
My must-have DS games are Puzzle Quest and all of the GBA Fire Emblem games. Hoping to add Panzer Tactics, Civ, and the WH40K title to that list once they get released. I may have to get 1701 based on the recommandations here.
Re: Infinite Interactive (Steven Fawkner’s) other games for the DS, check out their website: http://www.infinite-interactive.com/index.php
There’s some info on the next two games in the Puzzle Quest line (Galactrix and Deathbringer), as well as a few tidbits about Warlords DS. Regarding which, Fawkner recently (09/17/2007) posted on their forums:
“It is delayed, but we only found out very recently… We don’t want to make any announcements about the delay yet – because… well… we don’t have anything to announce about it really. When we have some news about exactly what is happening, we’ll make an announcement here.”
The DS has some great nerd titles: Clubhouse Games, NY Times Crosswords, Chessmaster, Brain Age, etc.
At the moment I’m really enjoying the new Zelda (which is funny, because I HATE zelda) when I’m not playing Civ, which will indeed rock when it comes out.
Oh, and at EforAll I confirmed that the warhammer game for PSP and DS is TURN BASED.
w00p.
And guess what else joins the DS strategy line up?
Populous!!!
Releases in Japan in February, probably makes a US version coming in mid or late year.
Populous? I’m in for that.
I’d feel silly doing crosswords on my DS when I get two newspapers a day.