As Tim Stone spent his week knee-deep in virtual fishing holes, pouting at carp and tickling their barbels, it falls to me to report than serious strategy and wargame folks Matrix Games have launched their traditional holiday sale. You won’t find discounts as ridiculous as other sales, but they are cutting prices perhaps a touch deeper than they usually do. Boxed copies are on sale as well as downloads, so you can slip Gary Grigsby into your loved ones’ Christmas stockings.
Some wargames attempt to reconstruct a single battle in detail, be it Agincourt, Waterloo or the Somme Offensive. Some attempt to recreate an entire conflict or theatre of warfare. Norm Koger’s Operational Art of War series covers all of 20th century warfare, utilising a flexible set of mechanics and design tools. Today, Matrix announced that The Operational Art of War III, the sixth entry in the series, is receiving its long-awaited final update. On top of that, the development team behind the game have begun work on a sequel to this most intricately flexible of wargames prepares to enter the modern era.
RPS Feature Simulation & wargame blather
The appeal of trains: Rhythm. Racket. Clatter. Squeal. Sway. Jolt. Hiss. Bellow. Thrum. Gleam. Glint. Grime. Rust. Musk. Power. Precision. Toil. Stoicism. Blue-collar heroes. Uncomplaining beasts of burden. Giant steampunk millipedes. Countryside cleavers. Smoke wreathers. J. M. W. Turners. Midnight diadems. Tortured troglodytes. Reminders of a vanished world. Childhood’s branchline. Life’s express. Speed. Anticipation. Departure. Arrival. Exoticism. Mundanity. Predictability. Personality. Possibility. Peace. Pace. Onwards. Onwards.
The appeal of Trainz: A New Era: Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Simulation & wargame blather
Grigsby, Billings, and Brors are to PC wargaming what Stock, Aitken, and Waterman are to pop music… what Freeman, Hardy, and Willis are to shoe retailing… what Rock, Paper, and Shotgun are to outdated Anglocentric intro references. They started making hexagonal militaria in the days when Tyrannosauri and Triceratopses grappled, and dragonflies the size of Dragonflies dragonflew. Their latest release, War in the West, is their biggest and most elaborate design yet. Suitably intimidated, I spent Monday and Tuesday eyeing the colossus through fieldglasses, and Wednesday and Thursday prodding it with a long stick. Read the rest of this entry »
My first thought on watching Gary Grigsby’s War in the West‘s launch trailer was “Who the devil is Gary Grigsby?” My second was a curious, vague disappointment that all the black and white archive footage wasn’t accompanied by Laurence Olivier’s dulcet tones orating sombrely about World War II. It wasn’t until some nifty hex-based picture editing appeared that I remembered I was watching a game trailer.
In a world where it’s increasingly likely that game bundles will soon be given away with Happy Meals, people are often flabbered right down to the gasts when they see the prices over on planet Matrix. The wargaming/strategy publisher doesn’t discount its back catalogue as often as some companies discount their front catalogue, so when the annual holiday sale rolls around, it’s worth paying attention to. Lots of titles are discounted by 50%, including the excellent Unity of Command and its expansions. The Gary Grigsby titles are also on sale, as are many others, listed here.
I’m expecting to be crushed beneath an avalanche of trailers at any moment as the E3 machine grumbles into action. There will be spectacle, there will be slaughter, there will be Molyneux Santa Claus. There is a trailer in this post but it has very little in common with the noise of E3, being the last of the veteran Close Combat series to utilise the ageing engine that has driven the tactical games for many years now. Gateway To Caen is out now and watching the video plucks at my nostalgia nerves as if they were a cherub’s harp.
