{"id":581,"date":"2007-03-05T14:42:38","date_gmt":"2007-03-05T18:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/2007\/03\/05\/march-strategy-preview\/"},"modified":"2008-02-18T04:00:03","modified_gmt":"2008-02-18T08:00:03","slug":"march-strategy-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/2007\/03\/05\/march-strategy-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"March Strategy Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This will be my last post before I start packing and do all that other stupid stuff to prepare for my flight. I had some hassles pop-up over my arrangements, so if I look a little pissed off tomorrow, you can guess why.<\/p>\n<p>March is shaping up to be the month of &#8220;Weren&#8217;t you on an earlier list?&#8221; titles.<\/p>\n<p><strong>March 6<\/strong> &#8211; <em>Great Invasions<\/em> (Strategy First\/Nobilis)<\/p>\n<p><strong>March 13<\/strong> &#8211; <em>Sparta: Ancient Wars<\/em> (Eidos\/Playlogic), <em>Making History: Calm and the Storm<\/em> (Strategy First\/Muzzy Lane)<\/p>\n<p><strong>March 16<\/strong> &#8211; <em>UFO: Extraterrestrials<\/em> (TriSynergy\/Chaos Concept)<\/p>\n<p><strong>March 20<\/strong> &#8211; <em>Genesis Rising: The Universal Crusade<\/em> (Dreamcatcher)<\/p>\n<p><strong>March 23<\/strong> &#8211; <em>Frontline: Fields of Thunder<\/em> (Paradox\/N-Games) <\/p>\n<p><strong>March 26<\/strong> &#8211; <em>Command and Conquer 3<\/em> (EA Games)<\/p>\n<p><em>Pacific Storm: Allies<\/em> (Lesta\/Buka) has also been scheduled as a first quarter release, but so far no firm date. The latest GFW podcast said that I shouldn&#8217;t mention how we get yet another trio of WW2 games. Apparently that&#8217;s not original enough.<\/p>\n<p>This list, as much as any, shows the problems with release dates. <em>Ancient Wars<\/em> and <em>Great Invasions<\/em> have been in earlier monthly round-ups, and I&#8217;m pretty sure that <em>Making History<\/em> has been here before, too.<\/p>\n<p>And <em>Making History<\/em> is the title I&#8217;m most interested in. It started out as a Serious Game project, a strategy title for educational purposes. You would play as a leader of a great power in World War II and try to achieve certain historical goals. Somehow this would teach you something about the period and help you retain knowledge through fun.<\/p>\n<p>But now Strategy First is publishing it, and they aren&#8217;t exactly known for serious anything. Few of the recent previews have mentioned Muzzy Lane&#8217;s original design purpose, and it looks like it will be marketed as a grand strategy title like <em>Hearts of Iron<\/em> or <em>World at War<\/em>. When I get around to giving the game a whirl, I wonder if there&#8217;ll be a story here. Maybe time for another interview.<\/p>\n<p>I played <em>Great Invasions<\/em> when it first came out two years ago, and have zero desire to try it again. This is just SF padding its release calendar. I&#8217;ve played a little <em>Ancient Wars: Sparta<\/em> but will have to hold my commentary for a while.<\/p>\n<p><em>Command and Conquer 3<\/em> is, of course, the big title of the month and the second biggest title of the strategy winter (<em>Supreme Commander<\/em> was much more anticipated.) C&#038;C is not my bag, but FMV is apparently back. I&#8217;m one of those who skips through videos all the time, so I don&#8217;t know if I care that they aren&#8217;t terrible.<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully I will get a chance to post a hello from the Bay tomorrow afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This will be my last post before I start packing and do all that other stupid stuff to prepare for my flight. I had some hassles pop-up over my arrangements, so if I look a little pissed off tomorrow, you can guess why. March is shaping up to be the month of &#8220;Weren&#8217;t you on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5GFeQ-9n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}