Given the long history of portraying ancient battles in board games, it’s surprising that it took so long for historically faithful interpretations of the battles of Alexander, Hannibal and Caesar to hit the computer. Avalon Hill’s Alexander the Great portrayed the battle of Gaugamela way back in 1971. The same year saw SPI do a […]
Entries Tagged as 'Wargames'
Great Battles of History Series (1997-98)
April 8th, 2008 · 6 Comments · Ancients, Feature:Anc, Retro, Review, Wargames
Tags:
Encyclopedia of War: Ancient Battles (1988)
March 20th, 2008 · 14 Comments · Ancients, Feature:Anc, Retro, Review, Wargames
In 1988, Cases Computer Simulations and R.T. Smith released Encyclopedia of War: Ancient Battles, a game that was intended to be the first in a series of historical miniature games. The mid 80s was probably the high point of wargame dominance in the computer gaming market, and there were really no ancient wargames on the […]
Tags:
On Site Mini-Review: Guns of August
January 21st, 2008 · 10 Comments · Matrix, Wargames
Guns of August (Adanac Command Studies/Matrix Games) is a rare example of how to capture the seemingly uncapturable. Making a good game about World War I requires a design that forces the player to accept stasis on some fronts as a matter of course. It means creating rules that limit how much progress the player […]
Tags:
It’s Back
November 21st, 2007 · Comments Off on It’s Back · Matrix, Wargames
In their continuing effort to revamp, revisit and release every great old wargame from the past, Matrix Games has announced the arrival of Larry Bond’s Harpoon – Commander’s Edition. This isn’t the realistic and ugly Harpoon 2 and 3, it’s the classic Harpoon design with a few new bells and whistles. Harpoon was the first […]
Tags:
On the Origins of Species
September 13th, 2007 · 3 Comments · Design, Wargames
Via Scott Krol, Gamespy has an article from John Keefer about the wargames of the past and their connection to the cons we know and love. I was reading the article (and Krol’s fact checking) as I took a break from writing my review of Armageddon Empires. Then it hit me why wargaming and serious […]
Tags:
Combat Mission: Shock Force Review
September 5th, 2007 · 5 Comments · Battlefront, Review, Wargames
My long delayed review of Combat Mission: Shock Force is up at Gameshark. Apologies for the crappy screenshots. The 1.01 version I played was a significant improvement from the 1.00 version that I derided a couple of months ago, derision that led to an influx of visitors from the Battlefront forums. (“Few stayed to bowl.”) […]
Tags: