SSG and Matrix Games have released Kharkov: Disaster on the Donets, the latest game in the developer’s Decisive Battles series. I haven’t played it yet, but Kharkov is an interesting battle. In spring 1942, the Red Army tries to take some initiative in response to the German offensive and ended up getting trapped in a […]
Entries Tagged as 'Wargames'
Where Do Ideas Come From?
July 25th, 2008 · 13 Comments · Design, Electronic Arts, Wargames
Last year, Irrational’s Ken Levine famously said that the problem with most game designers is that they’ve read one book (Lord of the Rings) and seen one movie (Aliens). It was typical Levine exaggeration, but the point was clear – game designers (and, I would add, games journalists) take their entertainment cues from a small […]
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Ironclads
June 3rd, 2008 · 2 Comments · Civil War, Wargames
The Russian developer Totem Games has announced a new naval war game, Ironclads: American Civil War. The developers posit an alternate history where the Confederates secure help from Europe to develop a navy that can compete with the Union forces on the high seas. If game process is under construction on exact conformity of history […]
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A Love Letter to a Dying Form
June 1st, 2008 · 16 Comments · Blogs, Wargames
If you don’t read Soren Johnson’s blog, you should. Today he writes a love letter to wargaming, and neatly segues into a promo piece for Hexwar. But this was the paragraph that got me: It’s hard to say what effect wargames had on me. The ratio of time spent reading rules/collecting games compared with time […]
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XIII Century Review
May 13th, 2008 · 4 Comments · Medieval, Wargames
My review of the medieval war game XIII Century: Death or Glory is up at Crispy Gamer. I didn’t like it all that much, which puts me at odds with the only other review online, Brett Todd’s positive review at Gamespot. It’s interesting how two reviewers can come to such different conclusions. Where he sees […]
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Hey, It’s Free
April 16th, 2008 · 1 Comment · Matrix, Wargames
Matrix Games has released War Engine into the wilds of the internet as a celebration of tax day. The only reward I need is the security that my money is being well spent on a well-managed war that makes America safer from its enemies. But since that’s not happening, I guess this will have to […]
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