10 Things To Do While Waiting For...

...The HistWar Demo

Originally commissioned by an ecstatic Lord Liverpool the day after the Battle of Waterloo,   HistWar: Les Grognards - wargaming's Duke Nukem Forever - is now so close you can smell its pungent musket-smoke-and-baccy odour. The demo has been promised for today. How should a groggy fellow fill these last tense hours?

1. Refresh

2. Dig out that mouldering copy of Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Battle and revive your Napoleonic ardour by playing some of the fine mods that are still being crafted for it.

3. Refresh

4. Spare a thought for Battlefront, the publisher who waited yonks for HistWar only to lose patience/get shafted on the eve of victory.

5. Refresh

6. Nose around the Scourge of War site. If HistWar turns out to be pantaloons, Nineteenth Century warfare grogs still have this faintly controversial follow-up to MadMinute's 2nd Manassas to heap hopes upon.

7. Refresh

8. Raise a glass to the inimitable Peter Turcan, the last developer to do something truly bold with a Napoleonic strategy game.

9. Refresh

10. Resign yourself to the fact that HistWar isn't going to look or sound this splendid...