Close Combat: Last Stand Arnhem
TL;DR:
A fun nostalgia trip for those who enjoyed the Squad Leader board game series, or the original Close Combat games. However, it still possesses many of the same flaws from the originals with few original elements, and $40 dollars for a slight remaster of a 22 year old game is absurd. Buy it on sale.
I grew up playing Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far (for brevity, CC:ABTF), and I loved it. Close Combat: Last Stand Arnhem is an incredibly faithful recreation of A Bridge Too Far: literally. This is both a positive and negative; the best aspects of CC: ABTF, such as it’s grueling difficulty and necessary mastery of basic military tactics are beautifully preserved, as are the worst elements from the 1997 game. Needless to say, I was excited to see that the game had been remade, even if it was given an absurd, $40 price tag. Happily, I was not disappointed.
– Real player with 335.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Artificial Intelligence War Games.
Started playing Avalon Hill Advanced Squad Leader in late 70’s early 80’s, so I’m an old Grognard. Have the first Close Combat game and all the other ones in the series. So my opinion may be biased. This is a slow moving, very tactical type of Infantry combat. What works in real life works in this game. You better make sure your advancing troops have an over watch and you are suppressing the enemy or you will get cut up good. The realism factor is high. A 60mm mortar or heavy MG will not take out a Tiger, but will do some damage on personnel carriers. Line of Sight is tricky. Not everyone in the squad can see the enemy, so placement of units is vital. Of course the opposite is true. If you can see the enemy he can see you. It is a game of timing. Know when to expose yourself and when to hide. Know when to rush the position and when to stay covered. Although human realism is also factored into your units. If a unit is getting pounded pretty good some soldiers will head for the hills or surrender. And they sure won’t get out of that ditch and rush the position. But as with war and realism and based off of the ASL model you must keep your Platoon and HQ leaders close to your infantry units. And sometimes a hero will rise up and save the day. It’s random and no scenario plays the same way twice. All the soldiers have names and gain experience as the campaign plays out. Was being real careful with some units and gaining experience thru a campaign when they got trapped by three Panthers and just destroyed. They were screaming to get them out and cries of Medic were ringing in my headphones. I swear I had tears in eyes in the absolute frustration of listening to their pleas not being able to do anything but watch. I could only imagine what that had to be like in real life. Watching your friends get slaughtered. But I think that is one of the reasons that a game like this resonates with a true wargamer. To become emotionally involved with digital and fictional characters is a high endorsement for any game. Spoiler alert: I cried in Red Dead Redemption II when Arthur’s horse died in the end too. Yeah I’m an old sap.
– Real player with 143.5 hrs in game
Starship Troopers - Terran Command
Starship Troopers - Terran Command is a thrilling real-time strategy game set in the Starship Troopers movies universe. Take command of the Mobile Infantry and do your part in the war against the Arachnid threat. Build, develop and control your armies to strike an effective balance between tactical superiority and strength in numbers. Ensure that human civilization, not insect, dominates the galaxy now and always!
Story Campaign
The population of the harsh desert planet Kwalasha needs our help. Their daily lives of hard work in the mining industries has been disturbed by a new danger that they cannot face alone: the Arachnid.
The Mobile Infantry will swiftly move in, take back control over the planet and smash everything that has more than two legs. Take part of this exciting military campaign, meet unique characters, see amazing locations and experience the heroic war against the Bug - all presented live on FED NET!
Tactics & Numbers
While the Arachnids can rely on virtually limitless numbers, the Mobile Infantry must develop effective tactics to overcome this imbalance. Deploy your units at strategic locations to cover vital choke points and gain superior firepower through tactical use of elevation levels. Be wary, however, that battle mechanics such as True Line of Sight and True Line of Fire also allow Bugs to lay ambushes around every corner, as they are well known for their use of surprise attacks and deception.
Units & Abilities
An expansive range of unique units, weapons, and special abilities are at the disposal of M.I. commanders. Infantry squads armed with Morita Assault Rifles and MX-90 Fragmentation Grenades form the mainstay of your forces. Rocket Troopers deliver deadly payloads with pin-point accuracy while Engineers are vital to shore up defensive positions with MG turrets, barricades, and minefields. As a campaign progresses, technological breakthroughs unlock the true potential of the Federation’s arsenal with E-Pulse rifles, TAC Fighter airstrikes, heavily armed Marauder mechs, and many more developments optimized for spraying Bug ichor across the battlefield.
Key features
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An immersive storyline campaign featuring unique missions, characters and a lot of Starship Troopers flavor
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Dozens of unique unit types, each with their own special abilities.
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Terrain elevation, True Line of Sight & True Line of Fire provide deep tactical gameplay.
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Manage a fleet of dropships, expand your base infrastructure and capture strategic positions to strengthen your forces and unlock new weaponry
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Heroics, explosions, gore, and Bugs. Lots of Bugs.
Read More: Best Artificial Intelligence Tactical Games.
Counter Terrorist Agency
This is my revised and final review now that I’ve had a fair bit more time with it.
CTA is a game I’ve wanted for a long time, which is why it comes as such a disappointment that so little thought was put into its design. I love the idea of tracking terrorist groups, deciding how and when to strike, collecting intelligence, and ultimately trying to prevent attacks. Unfortunately, it’s let down by shallow and often unclear mechanics. The devs were active in the beginning, responding to criticism and quickly putting out an update that greatly increased the quantity of scenarios in the game, and more have been added since. However, they seem to have been silent for just over a month now, and the Steam forums have been completely dead for over a week. They claim to be working on a pair of updates that would add a sort of “free mode”, as well as a much-requested re-work of the case file system. Unfortunately, I’m not convinced these will be enough to solve the fundamental problems this game suffers from.
– Real player with 18.8 hrs in game
Overview
Counter Terrorist Agency is what the old game Covert Action would have been if the player were in a higher-up position, not every troublemaker had a name of a Spanish or Arabic origin, and relations and resources of nations were an issue. Things usually start out with suspicious behavior making the news, threats made to reporters, or just an intercepted phone call in which two people may say something suspicious, and from there, the player orders agents to go to work by having a suspect’s phone tapped and their social media accounts hacked, then waiting for more conversations in which the suspect’s role within an organization can be verified depending on the contents of the conversation. (The player may be able to guess at the role of the person they’re speaking to if that person infers they have any authority over the person the player tapped/hacked.) Once enough suspects have been identified, it’s time to stop the terrorists from acting by either arresting or killing (preferably) confirmed members. Arrested terrorists can possibly be interrogated revealing more people involved in their plot. (Interrogation can possibly even reveal a leader’s identity.)
– Real player with 9.1 hrs in game
Angle of Attack
Battlecruiser 3000 is a game in which you control a gigantic battleship managing every aspect of it, building and upgrading its capabilities as you travel across the galaxy fighting in a war of truly epic proportions.
Angle Of Attack is a poor and simplistic version of that.
Instead of an entire galaxy to play around in, you have a single planet. Instead of a complex and intricate upgrade and management system, you just increase numbers and none of the upgrades really change how the game plays and instead of taking part in an organic conflict you just kind of cruise around, rarely if ever seeing a friendly.
– Real player with 31.3 hrs in game
Angle of Attack is yet another variation of Derek Smart’s Battlecruiser 3000 “franchise”. It started as a comprehensive simulation of a starship command, down to crew and food, and weapons, and trading and planets and fleet that starships moving all around you, doing their own things, and you can help your own side in the war effort. In Angle of Attack, you are down to one planet, with jump gates that takes you to other parts of the planet, and you can attack or defend as you wish against the humankind’s nemesis, the Gamulons.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
Ancient Go
Early Access Day 1 review:
Edit: Thumbs up because it looks promising. (I’d hold off getting it until counting method issues are resolved, hopefully.)
Project seems promising. It includes basic tutorials for rules and scoring, a VS. AI mode and an Online multiplayer mode.
The AI is not particularly strong on any setting (Hard is when it starts playing slightly better moves, maximum tends to take a bit more time to play moves, but not a LOT of time.) So (at least at this stage) the AI is really meant for beginners. It would be nice to get a stronger one later down the line, but I’d rather see good multiplayer added than the focus be on AI.
– Real player with 20.5 hrs in game
“Ancient Go” aims to be an app for total beginners to Go, which is great. Currently, outside of “Ancient Go,” the only other app out there on Steam is “Crazy Stone Deep Learning -The First Edition-,” which is $79.99. However, “Crazy Stone” is arguably meant for committed Go players, who are much stronger at the game. So, “Ancient Go” is a cheaper alternative for “Crazy Stone” that allows the Steam community to start playing Go at a cheaper price. That said, “Ancient Go” has its strengths and weaknesses.
– Real player with 20.0 hrs in game
Close Combat: The Bloody First
Do I recommend this game? Yes, If your looking for a classic close combat game.
However, I still have to bring up the fact that this game still feels pretty bare bones. After playing through the entire campaign with the US, I tried to play a campaign as the Germans. And, well, I know its a game about the American division and the fighting it encountered, but if you’re going to include the ability to play a German Campaign then you should be at least pretending that the same unit was fighting the whole time.
– Real player with 146.7 hrs in game
I really wanted to like this game, i may in the future if the game breaking issues are fixed but for now I would Stay away from this game. I ignored the fact that the graphics look terrible for 2019-2020 thinking i was going to get the classic feel of cc with the detailed platoon and company creation and in depth map navigation giving it a realistic feel during combat and in some cases they did do well with keeping those aspects in the game but the game itself is so bugged and poorly optimized that its design ruins almost all of my game attempts, i was able to complete the grand campaign with few bugs that caused me to restart the game but when going back through and playing the Italian campaign and again on the African campaign I ran into such terrible problems that I felt I had to say something, for one the AI is terrible, LOS fails to spot enemy literally 3 feet away, troops fail to load or fire at all when given fire orders, or will just wander out into the open and get shot, or fail to find cover when ordered to do so, troops will run up to enemy tanks when they get close and throw grenades at point blank range killing themselves without orders. The bazookas, mortars, all artillery, and air support accuracy is a complete joke and honestly feels like a complete roll of the dice when using them. Enemy tanks can glitch into each other creating impervious bunkers that your troops just fail to comprehend when it happens and kills almost anyone who gets near them, HQ teams do not feel like they give any kind of bonus, vehicles and troops navigate terrain terribly and cause you to click on multiple locations before they stop saying, “no clear path”. Some missions would end with me taking all objectives and breaking enemy morale and even though that should progress you to the next mission I ended up being forced to repeat them. Also, after experiencing these issues, if you choose to quit a game you will be greeted by chicken sounds, I guess the devs thought that would be funny but with the experiences I had with this game that little addition just makes me dislike this unfinished product even more. This game was never worth 40 bucks, it feels like an upgraded version of sudden strike 3 and i cant even remember how old that game is… I would say $20 is even too much for this game in its current state, that said, i still hope the devs stick with it and fix its issues because it is a game that has great potential but as a consumer I just dont advise others to buy this game right now but would say to check back some time later.
– Real player with 131.9 hrs in game
Moduwar
Moduwar - The Modular RTS is a unique take on Real-Time Strategy.
Take control of a Modu - an alien creature with the ability to grow different organs, split and merge them, depending on your personal playstyle.
Grow your Modu starting with the heart, the most vital organ, you can expand your Modu by growing tiles and then other organs on those tiles.
Split tiles and scout your enemies to give yourself the strategic advantage! Split multiple tiles to build your armada and send them to war or merge your tiles and
stand your ground!
Explore Arkadia, a magnificent and mysterious alien planet in a Single-Player story driven campaign.
Enjoy additional various play modes including skirmish and monster arena.
Play against your friends in Multiplayer mode with 2-4 players in a match.
The Moduwar Story:
The Modu are native to the planet Arkadia - an untamed paradise. They lived on Arkadia peacefully for a millennia, changing and adapting their modular bodies to suit their needs.
Their peaceful existence came to an end, when two warring races brought their war to Arkadia.
The invaders enslaved the Modu, using them as biological warfare.
You will take the role of a Modu serving the ERE - Earth Repatriation Expedition.
Will you fight under the ERE, or break the shackles and set yourself free?
Your choices will determine the fate of all life in the galaxy and the Moduwar!
Crest - an indirect god sim
Its… Okay… Thats kinda the problem.
You start off with a single location with followers and the ability to use 2 commands. That tends to be “gather food” and “make babies”. Make babies is important as you get screwed over very easily early on. Note that even in easy mode, this game is hard at times and if you can’t gather metal, you might as well start again, it leads to a dead end. Once your first town is 4/4 big at least, you need to push migration, finding a new town. The trouble is the command will result in followers following between the two towns. Once the new town is at 4/4 and the old town is at 4/4, with each having babies available, you then got to push to create another town. And you have little choice… At 2 towns it can go wrong.
– Real player with 23.3 hrs in game
It’s not very good nor is it very well thought out. The core principle is intriguing but it’s incredibly frustrating when you tell your starving people - who are supposed to follow your every command at high enough faith - to gather food and they simply ignore you only to starve to death. I’ll go over a few reasons why you shouldn’t buy this game (even on sale):
- The AI is quite simply terrible more often than not. Sometimes I’ll issue the same commandment multiple times before my people do what I want them to do (because the commandment either ran out or the original commandment has now become something else due to interpretations). (And yes my cities had high faith.)
– Real player with 16.8 hrs in game