Gratuitous Tank Battles returns to the beginnings of the war that has raged for more than two centuries with The Western Front expansion. Eight new maps form the terrain for a new singleplayer campaign, the first half of which limits technology to the metal monstrosities of 1914-45, removing the lasers, mechs and shields of future times. Thankfully, the Tigers, Shermans and other tanks added to the game will find themselves embellished with the weapons of tomorrow, with the second half of the campaign allowing the use of advanced technology. The trailer details the expansion’s contents very well and The Western Front is available now for less than a fiver, with a second copy available at a 50% reduction.
The point of Gratuitous Space Battles was that it was a fleet manager, not an RTS. So while you watched the space battles play out, you didn’t actually influence them – you were the admiral who had designed the ships and decided upon the tactics. And that made the actual battles gratuitous in terms of the gameplay. That, however, is no longer necessarily true. Cliff from Positech has sent word that he’s continued fiddling with the game, and has released a free patch to allow players to get involved with the battle-action. Cliff says: “It’s only an ‘optional’ feature, and only works in single-player offline games, but from patch 1.60 (which is now live, steam copies will be updated soon), the player can select ships and issue movement and fire orders mid battle, and even edit the ‘standing’ orders for ships in the middle of an engagement.” There’s a video, which explains it in a bit more detail, below. (more…)