Rock, Paper, Shotgun

General Gillen dropped the turn-based strategy goodness of Unity Of Command behind RPS lines and hoped that it would conquer hearts, minds and hard drives: “PC-gaming everyman Alec would like it. I suspect Adam has already played it, and I equally suspect he likes it. But I suspect its poise isn’t enough to get the Jims of the world on board.” Well, hear this – upon the flip-side of this hastily composed billet-doux to my lost love, I have composed a charge of two unfounded suspicions, General! Jim hopped on board later in the year and I was entirely ignorant of Unity of Command, although I did later learn to love it. The Red Turn DLC came out in December, but I noticed that it had cropped up on Matrix Games today, priced £6.99, so I took a look.

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I hadn’t played Unity Of Command until last night, and wow, was I missing out. “Hexed-based World War II wargame” doesn’t usually add up to a crowd-pleaser, but this one has me (and even Mrs Me) completely engrossed. It’s one of the strategy games that is relatively simple in its construction, and yet complex enough to demand lateral thinking about how your moves will impact on supply lines, and the ability of your enemy to punch through your armies and surge into undefended territory. I also think part of the joy of it is just how difficult it is – its rock hard at times – and every victory feels like you’ve personally wrestled a bear into submission. Have it, bear. What I am trying to say is: it’s a brilliant operational-level strategy game that completely colonised my brain from the first click.

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