Demo Disc
A minute’s silence in memory of the demo disc, if you please. Coup de grâced by broadband, the wafer of wonders* that once clung limpet-like to the front cover of almost every games mag is no more. Denied these monthly…
Category Wargames
3×3
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…
Trench Warfare and Trenchant Views: Thoughts on Early Access All Quiet in the Trenches
When Ignatius, my hard-to-please shoulder gnome, says All Quiet in the Trenches “lacks teeth” I know he’s thinking about the gruesome sawtooth Seitengewehr 98 that we occasionally handled as youngsters. Why my father owned a WW1 ‘butchers blade’ I couldn’t…
A2Z
A is for Alphabetised wargame, sim, and site news. Now and again, assuming I can persuade Austerity’s Blackburn Cirrus Bombardier engine to perform the miracle of internal combustion, I spend a few days scouring Simulatia and Grognardia for stories with…
3×3
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…
Year Three
In your face, gypsy soothsayer! The tea-leaf reader Roman and I consulted at this summer’s Appleby Horse Fair said Tally-Ho Corner wouldn’t see its third birthday. There was mention of a white stag with bloody hooves, a “troubled troubadour”, and…
A2Z
A is for Alphabetised wargame, sim, and site news. Every so often, assuming I can persuade Austerity’s Blackburn Cirrus Bombardier engine to perform the miracle of internal combustion, I spend a few days scouring Simulatia and Grognardia for stories with…
Introducing Ignatius
One of the advantages of being completely independent is that I no longer have to persevere with games I’m not enjoying. Back in the days when I wrote for PC Gamer I would have had to play Last Train Home…
This and That
I’ve decided to give Angola ’86 some space. Publicly grumbling about bugs and interface imperfections a week into its Early Access puberty, feels a tad unfair, and I don’t want frustrating situations such as the one I described yesterday to…
Angola ’86 diary (Day 3: Battle Group Befuddlement)
Endless village visits, supply runs, and thoroughfare minesweeping… Angola ’86 refuses to sex-up counter-insurgency ops. Unleavened, the daily grind of keeping the land now known as Namibia free of SWAPO troublemakers/freedom-fighters could start to drag after a while. Fortunately, whenever*…
Angola ’86 diary (Day 2: Shape Up or Ship Out)
Halfway through my last play session, a concerned Angola ’86 metaphorically took me to one side and said “Tim, for heaven’s sake, pull your socks up!”. On reflection, I deserved the wake-up call. At the time it came I was…
Angola ’86 diary (Day 1: Bookish Beginnings)
I think I learned almost as much from Angola ’86’s fact-stuffed loading screen (see above) as I did from the game’s bare-bones tutorial. Brief, text-reliant, and awfully short on ‘learn-by-doing’ interactivity, the latter isn’t brilliant, but, backed by a good…