There’s arguably not much point in analysing General Staff’s AI at the moment as the code that ensures the game’s Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century soldiers soldier sensibly and believably is still under the rasp. What I can do, having toyed with the current beta build, is give you an idea of what purchasers of Ezra Sidran’s singular tactics game will and won’t get.
Although the stiff throttles annoyed, and the mooring tutorial tied itself in knots after I accidentally skipped a stage, the time I spent with the Professional Ship Simulator demo yesterday passed pleasantly enough.
The Crimson Banner: War of Liberation demo is quite something. Deftly translated, lavishly tooltipped, and unusually generous (including tutorials it boasts fifteen scenarios), it does exactly what trials are supposed to do: illuminate, entertain, and pique interest.
Two tram sim tasters have appeared on Steam during the past week. Both The Tram and Elektronka: Bratislava centre trundlers produced by Czech firm ČKD Tatra. If you’ve ever visited a city in Eastern Europe there’s a good chance you’ve seen or ridden a Tatra product.
It’s an exciting time to be a bedroom bush pilot. Troubled Deadstick seems to have weathered its developmental difficulties and be maturing nicely, and Lakehopper, a boat-bellied rival, has, since entering Early Access in March, been quietly garnering praise and winning-over sceptics. Sceptics like me.
Assuming Riverview Artificial Intelligence grant me beta code access and give me the go-ahead, on The Corner later this week there’ll be some thoughts on, potentially, one of the most sophisticated wargame AIs ever made.
Deservedly popular WW2 FPS Easy Red 2 plummeted in price last week and gained a new front. Until July 29 the sizeable base game is a piffling £4. An additional fiver buys you Blood on the Danube, a rich, late-war DLC focused on Operation Spring Awakening and the Budapest Offensive.
A few telling moments from my fourteen-hours-and-counting BULT odyssey. Moment #1. It’s roughly three hours since I first set foot on the sim’s soggy Yakutian map. Yet to slay a single duck, I chance upon a promising pond in the midst of a pine wood. Surely there’s a target or two lurking here. Stealing closer to the rippled mirror, a boot-snapped branch blows my cover. There’s a kerfuffle beyond the reeds and suddenly the cruciform silhouettes of two spooked fowls flash across the patch of darkening sky overhead. Instinctively I raise and pan my 12-gauge. Tracking the shrinking shapes, I…