Möbius Front ‘83
I think this is my first Steam review; I watched a talk from Zach and he said that he takes feedback seriously so I figured, why not?
I love Zachtronics’ coding games, and I also love turn-based wargames, so I was pretty excited for this one. Unfortunately I think they’ve missed the mark this time. There’s a lot to like, but while it has the pleasing simplicity of games like Into the Breach (single-digit numbers for health, damage, range, and speed, grid map, etc.) it lacking some of the elegance.
– Real player with 53.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Alternate History Military Games.
Möbius Front 83 is a simple and good game. Yet to finish it, but played enough of it to say what I think.
PROS:
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Great presentation, graphics is aesthetically pleasing, great animations of units – I love how dust animation is used to indicate direction of movement of vehicles.
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Outstanding sound design. Muffled sound of weapon fire and explosion sound like you hear weapons firing in the distance or if, like I imagine it would be to hear sound of weapons firing while you sit in an armoured vehicle.
– Real player with 39.7 hrs in game
Great Battles of Carolus XII
PROS
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simple graphics
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easy to learn, hard to master
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price
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easy concept, for me better than Great Battles
CONS
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no settings (music disable, resolution settings, nothing)
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no save function - if you have no more time or game crash you have no chance to continue battle
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no minimap
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only a little content
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no army builder
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no “undo movement” button
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no “next unit” button
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infantry and grenadiers looks the same
BUG
- after winning battle “Continue” button does not work
Conclusion 6/10. It is fun for 5 Euro, but missing some basic functions.
– Real player with 5.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Alternate History Historical Games.
This game is great! It is easy to learn and simple but very engaging! I will spread the word and with you all the luck in its success!
Please play this game, folks!
– Real player with 2.5 hrs in game
Scythe: Digital Edition
I’m a pretty experienced player on the board game, so I know what I’m talking about: this game follow the rules quite well, except for a few mistakes (mill that create meeples WTF?!)
the board is exactly the same as the real game, and even if I felt a bit lost cause there is no infos about your mat type except at the very beginning of the game or somewhere I never found quite easily, it would be nice to have the name of the combo ( example : rusviet patriotic ) all the time, to me this can be quite important as there is some combos that are very OP (Rusviet industrial is already banned wich follow the rules of Jamey Steigmaier, crimea patriotic should follow) but those combos should remain open if you play a non ranked game or with one of your friends )
– Real player with 91.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Alternate History 4X Games.
Bought this game during steam sale.
I love the board version. Was pretty excited to test the digital version as well. Here is my review and why its pretty meh.
TLDR: good gameplay, terrible netcode/online games. Don’t bother buying the DLC (Invaders from afar) since factions are really bad and you will end playing them a lot more than people without the DLC. A bit expensive for the experience. Worth it for the $8 I paid during the sale.
1. Gameplay 7/10
Its pretty much the same as the board game. Works very well. It can be a bit troublesome at first to get a grisp on how to make a turn, read the boardstate etc but after around 30 games it feels really natural.
– Real player with 60.4 hrs in game
War of the Human Tanks
Battleships and chess with lolis.
Fantastic fun, interesting story with many twists and several endings, engaging gameplay that demands strategic thinking and an incredible soundtrack throughout.
The game’s story is told through visual novel format, which sets the state of affairs and the stage for the battle to follow. Battles are fought in real-time, but with a sort of turn-based system that runs on ticks, for example after giving a unit orders to move you must then wait for it to radio in asking for new orders before it can be moved again. Battlefields are presented as a grid of octagons, and before the round commences you must first place your units as in Battleships. Each unit has it’s own special properties and characteristics similar to chess, for example some may move 2 spaces at a time whereas others may only move 1, or one unit might only be able to attack horizontally whereas others must attack at least 2 spaces ahead of itself. The aim of each battle is to eliminate the opponent’s ‘Command Tank’ before they destroy yours which, regardless of how many units they have remaining, wins you the battle. The battlefield is covered by a shroud as seen in most real-time strategies with sight range varying between your different units, so early game tactics may usually consist of Battleships-esque artillery strikes into the dark hoping you’ll hit something, as your units gradually advance closer to the enemy, thinning out their ranks until their command tank is within firing range.
– Real player with 73.6 hrs in game
The first time I saw War of the Human Tanks, I was put off by how obviously low-budget it is; that was a huge mistake. Apparently, the art style just needed some getting used to, because once I got into it, I thought the graphics were actually pretty good. There’s full voice acting, fun animations and even some really catchy music that makes me itch to buy the soundtrack.
But what about the meat of the game? That, for me, comes in two packages (or perhaps Amasson boxes): the story and the gameplay. Let’s get this out of the way: The story is awesome. I loved it. This is definitely not a “skip-the-dialogue” kind of game; in fact, after a certain point, the story became the main appeal. It’s simultaneously lighthearted and grim, with a really interesting setting that ends up being much more detailed than you might suspect at first. There are four endings (two main paths, with two endings each) that all end up being pretty radically different and are all fantastic in their own way. I’m really in love with the setting, and all the little things you can learn about the rather disenfranchised battle-androids they call Human Tanks; the story really exceeded my expectations in every way. The translation is great, and the writing is clever, funny and serious when it needs to be; some of the big twists were huge gut-punchers. I’d definitely say the story was maybe the best part for me, and it’ll stick with me and inspire me for other personal projects for quite a while.
– Real player with 53.0 hrs in game
Combined Arms Operations Series
IMHO, I can recommend this game with two caveats. The first is that this product is not for players new to wargames. For those gamers, Panzer Corp 2 might be a better, albeit more expensive, choice.
For experienced players, the game comes closest to Matrix Games’ The Operational Art of War III-IV, although CAOS is much simpler to pick up and play.
Here’s the short-list of positives for this product:
1. The OOBs are exhaustive, and the historical units will be familiar to wargamers. The NATO symbols are a delight.
– Real player with 12.9 hrs in game
Very fun game, 10 times better with friends. Worth every euro.
Also the developers are active and extremely nice. They’re a role model for other developers.
– Real player with 12.7 hrs in game
Rise of Hegemony
Rise of Hegemony is a strategy game inspired by great games such as Civilization and Victoria. Triumph over your neighbours by successfully managing your country economically, diplomatically and militarily. The path to global hegemony is up to you.
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Subdue your enemies by pure military force.
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Forge alliances and diplomatic pacts to be part of an unstoppable coalition.
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Educate your people to eclipse your rivals technologically.
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Become an economic powerhouse and make other nations dependant on your resources.
In-depth economy
Rise of Hegemony features an in-depth economical system where every province contains a discrete number of people that all need resources to survive and thrive. Lacking access to sufficient amounts of critical goods such as food will cause your population to starve. Without access to weaponry your soldiers will be woefully unprepared to face enemies in battle. Trading with other countries is important, being dependant on them is perilous.
Build up your country
Starting as a fledgling country the way you want to conduct yourself on the world stage is up to you. Acting peacefully and benevolent has its benefits, but sometimes a more warlike approach is a quicker way to achieve your goals…
Randomly generated worlds
Even with the same strategy every game can take a vastly different course when the world looks different and countries will develop distinctively depending on their starting conditions.
Moddability
Rise of Hegemony leaves a lot of room for mods to expand on the game. Do you prefer to focus on a certain time period? Perhaps a fantasy setting is more to your liking? The possibilities for alternative scenarios are plenty!
War of the Human Tanks - Limited Operations
Warning: 1000+ word review from a guy that’s way too passionate about a trilogy that features chibi girls that shoot at each other and explode. Please read if you have spare time.
The first two War of the Human Tanks games are among my favorite PC-exclusive games I have played so far. So, I bought the third game on the same year it was released and… it wasn’t my cup of tea. What made the Human Tank games so special to me is the ability to break the game with overpowered tanks and pit those tanks against other overpowered extra stage enemies in a game of dark chess. This game takes that away and makes you play fair and square with the opponent in a normal strategy game.
– Real player with 34.1 hrs in game
I’m going to write a lot of words about anime tanks because I really like this series and I don’t think anyone else knows it exists. The last game in the series, Limited Operations, has been out for around 9 months and has about a dozen reviews. Here’s a really long one and consider this a review for the series in general.
The War of the Human Tanks series is essentially anime Battleship. Fights are real time and pause when you click a unit to choose an action. There’s always a large fog of war and most units are of the one hit, one kill variety. Tanks are of the mass-produced style, outside of a couple of special NPC’s, and are permanently destroyed when killed in action. Tanks can also equip modules that you can create which do things like increase shooting range and area, increase movement and so on. Limited Operations changes the last few parts up, though.
– Real player with 31.1 hrs in game
War of the Human Tanks - ALTeR
Welp, this certainly was a pleasent surprise. who would have thought that having a cute army of tank girls would be so interesting. The music is also interesting and I never tire of the battle/death cries of my, and my enemies, troops.
In the story there are acouple minutes of dialouge then a skirmish. For the battles, you must deploy a tank that acts like a king in chess, if she dies you lose (you can even have multiple). then you can make other units (if it is within the maps unit cap) like artillary (slow but long/wide range) shock tanks (fast/cheap/suicide explosion), assault tanks (medium speed, medium attack range) and much more. There is a fog of war, so you must proceed with care to find the enemy through scouting and prediction based on where you see them fire. You must build and upgrade your units by using supplies from winning or losing battles, so you may have to grind in the caverns or in free battles if you cannot preserve your troops.
– Real player with 70.0 hrs in game
This game… this goddarn game.
I’m not exactly sure where to start, so first off: this game is absolutely fantastic! I haven’t played EVERYTHING yet (still need to get Glitch-Heshiko and play the 2 or 3 optional Floor 90+ Battles), but still. The combination of Visual Novel and (Semi-)turn based Strategy game is beautiful and really well balanced, most if not almost all the tanks have their use and encourage players to figure out their favorite strategies and the Modules and combination of them just add to the fun (I still have fun giving my Peko-Peko a Tank Life ensurance and just making her explode, achieving absolutely nothing… I’m an Idiot.).
– Real player with 69.3 hrs in game
Unity of Command II
Late summer, 1944, north of Rome. This was meant to be easy: the Axis armies are in retreat after Cassino, and it looked like I had heaps of time to pursue them north to Rimini and Ancona. The Germans formations are depleted and in headlong retreat. How hard can it be?
But now I’m looking at the US 5th Army HQ, and can’t decide what to do. There are 2 blown bridges holding up my advance, each will take 2 “command points” to fix. Supplies are thin on the ground, and an autumn rainstorm has turned a chunk of central Italy into a morass of mud. I’m out of supply dumps, and it will take a week to redeploy service units up to where I want them. In the meantime, I can get emergency supplies through – but I need at least 6 command points to do this for 2 critical divisions leading the advance. And then there is a stubborn German rear-guard at a crucial mountain pass. I can bash away at them, and take heavy losses pushing through. But ideally I would unleash an artillery barrage and then a feint action first. That would probably reduce my losses to almost nothing… but you guessed it, 5 command points are needed for the special attack combo I would like to pull off.
– Real player with 721.9 hrs in game
As someone who has played over a thousand hours of Unity of Command 1, I went into this game with preconceived notions of what I’d find. UOC2 surprised me from the first scenario which I lost and had to replay. The same thing happened to me my first time in UOC1 but I thought my previous experience would carry me - I was wrong. My hubris aside, this is a much tougher game than UOC1 because of a couple of tweaks but I like it all the same. I’ve now finished the entire campaign and feel qualified to give a review.
– Real player with 574.5 hrs in game
HUMANKIND™
Loosing progress at the Dia de los Muertos Event??
I build a city with more than 300 population for nothing?
You are Not worth of my time and my money anymore!!
Mark my words. Look at the playtime at writing this review (213hours) … not a minute more, not a cent more for the many future DLCs.
DLCs that are necessary (but not paid once), as clearly the game is MISSING stuff to be enjoyed, to be recommended.
There are still games out there, You buy at release day, You play, You enjoy …. And You don’t feel fooled. Humankind is NOT one of them.
– Real player with 213.0 hrs in game
This is now my favorite Civ-like 4x game.
9/10
Cons:
-Its tutorialization GUI and tooltips leave something to be desired. For example, the fact that Fog environment (tile modifier) on the ocean stops line of sight units from being able to fire through. Some things you have to just learn on your own. I wish they could update this for as much as possible.
-This might just be a flavor thing, but the way the game is set up, you can transition to entirely different cultures as you enter a new era. You can go from Assyrian to Swedish within a campaign, without ever having dominated or assimilated any different culture-groups. Sometimes, I wish this had been handled differently, like you could only transition into culture-groups you had somehow been culturally involved with by neighbors or assimilation/domination. But gameplay wise it is still very fun as it is. Just hampers the immersion slightly.
– Real player with 155.4 hrs in game