Diceless combat, an invincible super unit, and a solitaire variant that’s very different from the two-player alternative… Archie’s War: The Battle for Guadalcanal, a fast-playing 2023 board game from Worthington Games has three pretty striking features. Oddly, the £7 PC port that hit Steam a couple of weeks ago only inherits two of them.
Old Town Roads, the Bus Bound add-on released last week, won’t help repair Saber Interactive’s damaged reputation. Your six quid buys a remarkably bland minibus, and a rural map extension made by people (?) who’ve seemingly never set foot outside a city.
After those unfortunate events in the St. Gotthard Pass and the so-called ‘River of Tears’ incident in Calabria, I thought it wise to mothball Tally-Ho Corner Tours for a spell. Now the press has found new whipping boys, and memories of frostbitten children and handcuffed gondoliers seem to be fading, I feel it’s safe to recommence operations. For the first post-hiatus trip I’ve chosen a TSW6 rail journey in the southeast corner of England. Quietly humming to itself on the other side of the jump is a three-car Class 375 ‘Electrostar’. Hop aboard if you fancy a fact-filled trundle from…
I reconnoitred the imminent* Steel Wolverines: Modern Armored Combat demo yesterday and liked 95% of what I found. TboneWargames’ debut release might hexagonalise a fictional, near-future clash between NATO and Russia, but there’s nothing imaginary about the conflict that its trial scenario vividly calls to mind.
Corner Confessions is for sharing guilty gaming secrets. Secrets like… I yearn for the days when graphics options screens consisted of nothing but a resolution selection, and a detail slider with three choices: low, medium, and high.
Want to turn a green lane into a brown lane, tow a Gulaschkanone across a snowy field, or roam the Western Desert trashing Axis airfields? Get a 4×4. Want quick introductions to games of interest to realism relishers and old fogies? Read a 3×3. Prior to penning one of these articles I’ll play three tempting titles for at least three hours each. While it would be cavalier to call the reports that result from such brief auditions ‘reviews’, it’s conceivable they might lead to more prolonged playtests, and prompt or prevent the odd purchase.
Dagger Directive is retro done right. I came to this conclusion weeks ago, but last night’s gripping airfield infiltration mission underscored it. Between me and my goal – a Prighozin-type mercenary leader and a batch of nicked Novichok – were dozens of armed-to-the-teeth goons and a kilometre or two of North Caucasus countryside. Vigilance, an M24 sniper rifle, and an occasional quickload, got me to the airbase fence. A silenced Colt automatic, an OICW assault rifle, and an invaluable recon drone, took me the rest of the way.
Corner Confessions is for sharing guilty gaming secrets. The series will, I promise, contain the odd bombshell, but I’m going to kick it off with a thunderflash: Although I’ve been playing truck sims for nigh-on twenty years I’m still pretty hopeless at reversing HGVs.