Tally-Ho Corner

July 17, 2023

Truth and lies jostle in The Darkest Files demo

The video game industry’s obsessive interest in WW2 in Europe all but vanishes the moment Doenitz throws in the towel in May, 1945. Bringing to justice the architects of the war and hunting down the worst of their agents? Reconstructing a decimated and divided Germany? Sod that for a game of soldiers! Anyone who’s read about riveting subjects like the Nuremberg Trials, the Berlin Blockade, and Trizonia’s troubled gestation, will probably rue this blinkered view and appreciate Paintbucket Games’ unusual foray into WW2’s complicated aftermath.

July 17, 2023

Where am I?

Using the following clues (the map above is purely decorative) in combination with Street View, MapFrappe and other tools, work out my location.

July 16, 2023

The Lions of Lodowice: Turn #1

Engine roar bounces between ravaged building facades. Battered exhausts cough inky ectoplasm into frigid air. Caterpillar tracks claw at brown snow and frozen rubble… Tally-Ho Corner’s first PvP play-by-comment Combat Mission scrap is underway at last!

July 14, 2023

Friday Foxer #133

Every Friday at 1300 hours, 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.

July 14, 2023

RPG like it’s 1984 in Italia 1944

Had Italia 1944 been released forty years earlier, the daily post-school battles for control of the Stone family’s TV set would have been truly horrendous. Alessandro Grussu’s 2021 ZX Spectrum RPG has almost everything preteen Tim looked for in a digital plaything, and entertains his over-the-hill incarnation bally efficiently too.

July 13, 2023

Review Reprise: OMSI

I’ve written hundreds of reviews and previews 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, and involve titles largely forgotten today, now and again something from my archive may appear as one of THC’s daily posts. Below the jump you’ll find my take on OMSI, the 2011 PSV sim that singlehandedly turned me into a bus enthusiast.

July 12, 2023

Full Ace is properly ace

One of the advantages of spending my formative years in close proximity to two English manor houses (my Dad was a gardener) was my siblings, pals, and I were never far from a tennis court. When these courts weren’t in use, they were often invaded by scruffy infants clutching a variety of superannuated and warped ball thwackers. In fiction and movies, these clandestine sessions would have turned me into a formidable adult player. In reality, a lack of application and formal training, mean I’ve ended up a middle-aged mediocrity where tennis is concerned.

July 11, 2023

The Lions of Lodowice: Turn #0

All eight AFVs in Tally-Ho Corner’s first PvP play-by-comment Combat Mission game now have volunteer commanders and these commanders have randomly selected their initial positions. By chance most of the Soviet machines start on the eastern side of the Vistula and most of the German ones on the western side.