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 love letter to Aces of the Deep, the 1994 U-boat sim that put the ‘happy’ in Happy Time.
I’d love for the ‘Funded by UK Government’ claim on the Parliament of Hell demo title screen to be true. If some of my tax quids are going to be spent financing video game development then the games in question really need to be as amusing, handsome, sharply written, and steeped in obscure British history as this one.
According to Combat Mission: Afrika Korps’ unforgiving internal adjudicators, history’s first parallel PvE play-by-comment CM contest ended in ‘minor defeats’ for both teams. I need to turn to the less judgmental bespoke scoring system laid out in the launch article to determine which team gets the gold gong, and which the silver.
In the final turn of the 2024 CM Olympiad neither team lose AFVs to FPV drones, do battle with undead Berber warriors, or unearth, with mortar bombs, the northern entrance to a fabled trans-Saharan tunnel.
Using the following clues (the map above is purely decorative) in combination with Street View, work out my location.
Last night, Uncle Steam, noticing I was at a loose end, whispered in my shell-like: “Players like you love Black One Blood Brothers”. After I responded with a sceptical “Is that so?”, he realised he still had work to do. Grabbing my lapels and pulling my face close to his, with a hint of menace he urged me to “Imagine Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon with modern graphics, drones, amazing weapon customisation, and an absolute gem of a mission generator”. This I duly did.
This week’s handmade co-op puzzle won’t defox itself. If you’re a dab hand at quizzes, lateral thinking, and search engine sleuthing, why not help out.
If you played the original Radio Commander, the Radio Commander: Pacific Campaign demo is sure to stir memories. Unfortunately, not all of those memories are likely to be happy ones.