“Train Sim World, Train Simulator Classic, Diesel Railcar Simulator, Derail Valley, Railroader, SimRail… when it comes to rail sims, my polystyrene Travellers Fare cup already runneth over. Do I really need another one of the blessed things?”. This heretical thought crossed my mind as I waited for the surprisingly compact (2.53 GB) and fairly affordable (£18) Running Train to download. A week on I have my answer: ‘Yes. Indeed I do.’
“Time’s up, Mr. Stone.” After glancing at his PMN pocket watch and calling a halt, the geezer in the crumpled corduroy suit removes his spectacles, and starts packing up his stuff. Into the satchel goes the half-finished Battle of Kohima tapestry, the dented tartan thermos flask, and the copy of The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills. I could beg for an extension – explain that I only need a few more months of peace and quiet to finish Tally-Ho, my unripe aerial-wargame-with-a-twist – but I know there’s no point. Under that corrugated breast pocket beats a…
J is for June no-show? Tally4: Operation Mary, a Hawaii-based “military aviation thriller” promising simmy FMs, sizeable dogfights, and constantly evolving AI pilots (“The more people play, the smarter and more unpredictable the opponents become.”) was meant to enter Early Access this month. Nothing about the Steam page and forum suggests an imminent catapult launch. Maybe the lack of news is a consequence of a nascent publishing deal; Tally4 looks like just the sort of project that would pique MicroProse’s curiosity.
E is for Errors are always punished in Strategic Surge. I’m really not sure what to make of one of the latest hex wargames to hit Steam. Currently available in two-scenario playtest form only, Strategic Surge looks to be inspired by the ongoing war in Ukraine, and appears to cast the player as the invader. From the Steam blurb: “Excessive aggression will trigger high-tech Lend-Lease support for your enemies, flooding the front with advanced Western weaponry”.
A is for Abiding memory. Watching the latest Korea IL-2 trailer (see below) reminds me of the Airfix F-86 model that dangled from the ceiling of my boyhood bedroom for many years. The can of silver spray paint that gave this shrunken Sabre such a striking look was later used on a fictional scratch-built spacecraft constructed around a ginger beer bottle. As 1980s polystyrene cement wasn’t designed with pliant pop bottle Polyethylene Terephthalate in mind, said starship shed its scrap-box greebles with depressing alacrity and fairly quickly found itself serving as an air rifle target.
W is for Will WARCOM: Fortress Europe need interesting battlefields and solid AI to realise its full potential? While it’s impossible not to be excited by Broke Protocol’s vision and ambition (the dev aims to fuse traditional WW2 hex operational wargaming with turnless tactical 3D battle orchestration) the simplicity of the scenery visible in Warcom’s trailer raises the spectre of tactical insipidity.
V is for Very hexy. Today’s round-up is heavy on the honeycomb. All four games mentioned below either insist military units capable of moving due North and South are incapable of moving due East and West, or military units capable of moving due East and West are incapable of moving due North and South. As commentators that harp on about this distracting genre quirk have a nasty habit of disappearing without trace or perishing in mysterious accidents, I’d like to point out, personally I have no problem whatsoever with hexagonal movement.
U is for Unlikely combination of UBOAT and Papers, Please. Of the three sub games mentioned in today’s dispatch, False Echo is the hardest to classify. An in-development solo project from a dev who previously worked on franchises such as Blitzkrieg and Men of War, FE will cast us as U-boat cryptography officers in a not-quite-WW2 conflict. Inside the game’s side-on convoy molesters, the Kapitan might call the shots, but as it’s the player that decides, with the help of an Enigmatic cipher device, which incoming orders end up in his hands, it sounds like we’re going to have considerable…