G is for Green Tree Games gird their loins. Announced in the year the RAF retired its last Hawker Herbert, and the Pope described hula hoops as “Satan’s bangles” in his Easter address, Burden of Command has a precise release date at long last.
H is for Handsome and hexy
Visually, Frontline: Assault Corps WW2 puts me in mind of Sudden Strike and Blitzkrieg. Mechanically, it appears to be a cross between Panzer General and Battle Academy. If all goes to plan, I’ll share some thoughts on this new budget wargame’s early missions, later this week.
I is for Impressive cockpits and improbably intricate infantry
If you’re the kind of combat flight simmer who hates pristine panels and loves low-level hellraising, ‘Project Korea’, the upcoming MiG Alley replacement from the IL-2 Sturmovik: Great Battles people, should suit you down to the ground. Recent dev blog entries from 1CGS reveal some remarkably detailed models and animations.
J is for Just turned five
Both my favourite Charles Games creation and its predecessor are heavily discounted at GOG at the moment. The Czech studio’s freebies, Beecarbonize and Velvet 89, are also well worth trying if you’ve not already done so.
K is for Know which game this is?
The first person to correctly ID the mystery game in the above screenshot wins the right to pen a one, two, or three-paragraph game recommendation for THC. Your mini review doesn’t have to be of a wargame or sim and will appear, with a credit, in next month’s A2Z.
LOL . Always enjoy your wit even if it cuts slightly deep 😉
And actually we first announced before the Congress of Vienna so please get your history right!
Thanks Tim!
Luke (lead)
Burden of Command
I feel like that Frontline: Assault Corps WW2 art and imagery looks distinctly AI generated.
One of the few places I struggle to condemn the smear-gen outputs is small developers who’d otherwise struggle with assets.
What do we say hive mind? Better to have something than nothing? Or better to encourage humans hands regardless?
I use AI art for prototypes, the way we used to make our own “programmer art,” just now instead of blue and red circles and triangles we have something vaguely resembling the intended assets.
But for a finished game I believe studios should pay artists, either through salaries, art marketplaces, or with some form of equity or profit share. If a studio isn’t willing to pay developers directly and also isn’t willing to give devs a cut of future revenue, then they’re just exploiting peoples’ work and I don’t want to support those studios.
On the one hand, wargames are notorious for incidental art that looks like it was done by the MD’s shiftless nephew.
On the other, what they’ve got in the video doesn’t look wholly better; running from just-as-bad (the faces in the lower left of the cover screen) to something’s-a-bit-off (2 seconds in with the arm patch chevrons pointing different ways). Even the bits I presume are human choice can seem weird: the scale of humans v vehicles v buildings at 45 seconds in.
On the third hand, I’m not sure how IP was dealt with in the past if you borrowed a black-and-white WW2 photo and drew a colour version of it.
On the fourth hand, writing prompts that gets AI to spit out usable material is going to be a skill / job in it’s own right.
On the fifth hand, AI or no AI, humans are responsible for what gets pushed out of the door as a ‘finished product’.
Is that Ship Simulator 2008?
I went down quite the rabbit hole with that picture… but I figured it out. It is Marine Radar Simulator by eNav.
It’s the newer one with ARPA but you are right: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3047330/ARPA_radar_Simulator/