A is for Alphabetised wargame and sim news.

Every four weeks or so I hang up a streamer of industrial strength fly paper in The Flare Path water closet and see what wargame and simulation news items stick to it. Below is this month’s bag – 25 stories, most of which involve virtual vehicles and surrogate slaughter. If you’ve visited a transport museum or heritage railway in the past twelve months, or can put these battles – Kohima, Katzbach, Khe Sanh – in chronological order, you probably won’t regret clicking where it says… (more…)

I pride myself on being able to spot game flaws lickety-split, but it took me two whole days to put my finger on Ultimate Admiral: Age of Sail’s key shortcoming. Game-Labs’ new surf-and-turf RTS is horribly, unforgivably>, short of dinosaurs. Compare and contrast:

A) Having landed on a small tropical island to gather fresh fruit and fill water barrels, the crew of HMS Vortigaunt run into a party of Spanish sailors engaged in the same activity. A fairly dull skirmish ensues.

B) Having landed on a small tropical island to gather fresh fruit and fill water barrels, the crew of HMS Vortigaunt run into a Tyrannosaurus Rex busy tearing the throat out of a wounded Ankylosaurus. A flipping ace skirmish ensues. (more…)