Review Reprise: Agricultural Simulator – Historical Farming

I’ve written hundreds of reviews, previews, and retrospectives during my twenty-odd years as a games inspector. As many of these appeared in the British version of PC Gamer magazine and nowhere else, now and again something from my archive may appear as one of THC’s daily posts. Below the jump you’ll find a short caveat emptor aimed at prospective purchasers of Agricultural Simulator: Historical Farming, a 2012 tractor sim heavily caked in nostalgia.

Read More
Luck is important and Hougoumont is MIA in RBM Studio’s Waterloo

Where have Hougoumont, La Haye Saint, and La Belle Alliance got to? The hexagoned bit of Belgium you fight over in this new low cost, low complexity wargame, may disorientate at first. Because developer, Hexes of War, has decided to truncate the name of the 2019 board game it’s ported, some bedroom Bonapartes may purchase expecting a cosy battle sim when, in fact, this is something much broader.

Read More
Rogue Conflict risks being overlooked

As Advance Wars’ fictional setting and bland title didn’t seem to handicap it commercially, I guess there’s no reason why Rogue Conflict’s should. That said, I can’t shake the feeling that this demo-blessed upcoming wargame would have benefited from a better moniker and a bit of history.

Read More
X is for Xcavate, xtract, xtend, and xtemporise

My colleague, Roman, takes a keen interest in road construction methods and materials. When, last year, I gave him permission to fill the potholes in the THC drive, I should have realised he was going to to use it as an opportunity to conduct an elaborate tarmac-versus-hoggin-versus-bonded-rubber-mulch experiment.

Read More
V2Z

V is for Vertical slice by the end of Feb. Red Orchestra-style multiplayer FPS ’83 should be sample-able by the end of next month. A project from the team that created Rising Storm and Rising Storm 2, this Cold War shooter has been nudged closer to the finish line by a new investor with a passion for tactical shooters.

Read More
Friday Foxer #213

Every Friday, Tally-Ho Corner’s cleverest clogs come together to solve a ‘foxer’ handcrafted by my sadistic chum and colleague, Roman. A complete ‘defoxing’ sometimes takes several days and usually involves the little grey cells of many readers. All are welcome to participate.

Read More
Q2U

Q is for Quick fag card. I can’t look at card no.33 in Wills’ 1935 set ‘The Reign of H. M. King George V’ without thinking of a bizarre murder that occurred in Essex during WW2. At 1.45 on the afternoon of 23 July 1943, a sound like a thunder-clap rattled windows in the sleepy village of Rayleigh. The noise was generated by a Hawkins anti-tank grenade detonating beneath the seat of a bath chair occupied by disabled WW1 veteran Archibald Brown. As this excellent account of the Bath Chair Murder explains, the device had been put there by a…

Read More