By Adam Smith on December 15th, 2011.
‘Tis the season to report that many a thing is on sale. The latest discounts to come to my attention are over at Matrix Games, eminently serious-minded purveyors of complex strategic delicacies It’s not often that these grizzled veterans emerge into the wilds – they hate breaking cover – so the only hope for a discount is usually when Matrix have their own sales and this year, the holiday sale includes everything released before 2011, as well as a few from this year. Head over and take a look.
By Adam Smith on November 23rd, 2011.
I conceal my love for Distant Worlds quite well by never actually mentioning the game but I do love it, very much. If I actually owned a physical copy rather than a digital download, I’d probably give it a hug occasionally. Now, the gigantically scaled but manageable space strategy behemoth has received a second expansion pack, following last year’s Return of the Shakturi. The core appeal of the game is its representation of a living universe, with the masses of information made vibrant by effective visuals and customisable automation levels. It’s easy to build an empire and then sit back and watch it function in meticulous detail. The Legends expansion should add to that appeal. Details below.
By Lewie Procter on July 11th, 2011.
World War II strategy game Panzer Corps is available right now. You can get it from either Slitherine here or Matrix Games here. It’s priced at £26.99/$39.99 for a download or £33.99/$49.99 for a download + shiny plastic disc edition. For your money, you get four hundred different types of unit, including Tanks, Planes, Cars, Guns, Boats and all sorts. I’ve embedded a trailer underneath for you to have a nosey at. Read the rest of this entry »
By Brendan Caldwell on June 23rd, 2011.
Alas, my headline puns can never beat Quinns’. But never mind that. Panzer Corps, Slitherine’s homage to hexagonal, historical Herr Hitler simulator Panzer General, is due to be released July 11, it’s been revealed. At this point I would like to apologise for the absurd amount of H in the preceding sentence. Would you like some quite dull-looking but probably very unrepresentative screenshots? Go on. There’s tanks.
By John Walker on May 24th, 2011.
Kieron and Quintin‘s excitement about Mode 7′s Frozen Synapse has been somewhat infectious, which means it’s safe to say there’s rather a lot of people looking forward to the imminent release of the fast-paced simultaneous turn-based action strategy-em-up. It’s so soon! This Thursday! And it’s found itself a publisher in Matrix Games. There’s some new pictures, one of them moving, below.
By Jim Rossignol on May 9th, 2011.
Hello. Do you like commanding Panzers? I bet you do. And you’re in luck, because tankcentric wargame Panzer Command has a demo out for Ostfront, its new iteration based on the full breadth of landwar action on World War II’s Eastern Front. As I understand it, there’s a significant amount of commanding Panzers involved, as you can see by watching the trailer which I’ve posted below. The full version of Ostfront includes previously released Kharkov and Winterstorm releases, making up ten preset historical campaigns and fourteen randomly generated scenarios. That’s a lot of tank commanding, yes sir.
By Kieron Gillen on August 5th, 2010.
No demo yet, but the just released Battlefield Academy does seem at least its own thing, which is always intriguing. Well, if not totally own thing, a continuation of something which was its own thing. Battle Academy was a 2004 webgame for the BBC – which is still available – and Slitherine has made a stand alone expanded commercial re-imagining with the aid of John Buckley, Military Historian at the University of Wolverhampton. Multiple theatres, accessible style, lots of details, multiplayer and modding – full feature list on the site, where you can also buy it. A little footage showing some basic tactics follows…
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By Tim Stone on May 27th, 2010.
A wargame dev can disappoint his customers in thousands of ingenious ways. Getting the armour thickness wrong on a Panther glacis plate usually works, as does neglecting to model Russian anti-tank dogs, Polish cavalry, and Bren gun tripods. Strangely, one of the least used methods is steep pricing. Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge a game I talked about excitedly earlier in the year has just vaulted out of its halftrack and sadly, the initial hubbub seems to be more about the price than the promising AI advances.
By Kieron Gillen on March 31st, 2010.
The forums have been all over this. While I’ve yet to play it – it doesn’t have a demo – Distant Worlds seems definitely worth a plug. It’s from Code Force and is a real-time 4X game, basically. Bar all the scope of the genre, its defining feature is how much can be automated beneath you. As in, the empire’s civilians will go about and create their living little empire while you control the high-scale strategy. Reading around threads and AARs – try this ship design one – make me suspect this could be well worth digging into. Footage follows. Anyone played it?
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By Kieron Gillen on November 26th, 2009.
I appear to be coming over Tim Stone. And before a horrible image is conjured in the communal RPS-reader mind by that sentence, I better progress to the point quickly. A demo for Operation Barbarossa – The Struggle For Russia is now available. There’s over 150 upgradeable units in the full game and prominently features hexes – which will be a theme for my blogging today. If the demo takes your fancy, you can buy it from Matrixgames’ site. As per-usual for wargames, there’s no video available. Instead, let’s show some colour footage of the actual Barbarossa invasion, which is disturbing for at least two reasons. Firstly, it’s footage of the invasion, complete with lingering shots on corpses. Secondly, the Nouveau nazis in the video comment threads.
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By Kieron Gillen on October 29th, 2009.
I’ve been easing into the morning with a demo of Matrix-published Niels Bauer Games-developed turn-based space-exploration thing. It’s basically Elite… but turn-based. Get missions, screw your reputation, shoot mercenaries and similar. At least with the equipment in the demo – they stress there’s a lot more in the full version – the combats are pretty repetitive, but it basically seems like a more-complicated long-form version of Strange Adventures In Infinite Space, with some role-playing-game-esque skill-trees. To be honest, with the right implementation, I’d almost rather play an Elite clone like this rather than something like X. The interesting thing is the choices, not the flying. You can find more info here but there’s no video online, so instead I’ll link to Reel 2 Reel (feat. the Mad Stuntman)’s I Like To Move It instead. The “It” in question being “resources from a low-price planet to a high-price one”.
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