• Genre: Grand-Strategy/ Turn-Based Tactics/ Medieval Warfare
• Developer: AGEOD
• Publisher: Slitherine
• Release Date: 4th June, 2024
• Price: $39.99/ 38,99€/ £33.50
• Buy at: Steam
• Reviewed On: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.70 GHz, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 2080

Nuno: Before you read this review, know that it took me a while and a lot of effort to put this one together, so I split it into two pages to get the maximum amount of ad revenue possible for this effort. If you would be so kind as to not be mad and click the second page, I would highly appreciate it.

First of all, it’s probably best to describe Field of Glory: Kingdoms, how it plays, and what’s trying to do. Field of Glory: Kingdoms is a medieval grand-strategy game, played in turns, and these happen simultaneously, unlike something like Total War, whose turns happen one at a time for every existing faction. It starts in the year 1054, after the Great Schism, and it lasts for two centuries, the game taking place during a convoluted but important, formational period for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. As rulers, players must secure the perpetuity of their dynasty and domains, and increase their influence on the political stage by way of the diplomat or the sword.

If you’re thinking “That sounds really close to something like Crusader Kings”, you would be partly correct. However, I would argue that Crusader Kings 3 is leaning ever more so into role-playing territory and it just happens to be in the format of a grand-strategy game. In Crusader Kings 3 your focus is, above all else, on the progression of your dynasty, and then your domain. Field of Glory: Kingdoms strays too far from a character-focused game into more of a nation builder, with some very light dynasty management elements in between. In essence, while these titles might look similar, they play very differently, and Field of Glory: Kingdoms focus is also a lot more militaristic than Crusader Kings ever attempted to be. That’s in part because Field of Glory: Kingdoms does something fantastic, albeit with one major caveat.

Field of Glory: Kingdoms plays like a grand-strategy title, but if you own Field of Glory 2: Medieval (and given that it’s the best military medieval game ever created, you really should), there’s the possibility of exporting the battles from Field of Glory: Kingdoms and play them out using the Field of Glory 2: Medieval turn-based battle system. I won’t go into depth on Field of Glory 2: Medieval, and if you want to know more about that game, you can read my review where I explain, at length, why I think the battle system does a great job of successfully emulating real-world medieval battles. The caveat is, of course, that since Field of Glory 2: Medieval is a different game than Field of Glory: Kingdoms, you must own both to take advantage of this feature. Medieval usually goes for very cheap during Steam Sales, and with those happening constantly, you can probably pick it up for a fiver. The other main issue is that to play the battles you must export the file from Kingdoms, launch Medieval, duke it out, and export the results back to Kingdoms. Not the smoothest experience, but far from the worst, because, in all fairness, you’ll probably be better off just playing the important battles, instead of worrying yourself with small-scale skirmishes with a couple hundred units. In all honesty, while I really like the feature, I never used it in the Grand Campaign.

Now, with that out of the way, how does Field of Glory: Kingdoms hold on its own? How does it compare to Crusader Kings? And should you play one over another? Well, that’s going to depend on mainly one thing: do you play Crusader Kings 3 for the politics? If so, then Field of Glory: Kingdoms systems won’t be enough to satisfy you. If you wish that Crusader Kings were more streamlined in terms of nation management and find yourself longing for the thrill of sword slashes, lance trusts and cavalry charges, Field of Glory: Kingdoms might prove itself more worthy of your time and money.

Field of Glory: Kingdoms plays very much like your typical empire builder. You control a portion of the map (which ranges from small kingdoms to large empires) and in broad strokes make the necessary decisions to keep everything running smoothly: raise armies, build up your counties, and allocate your populace to get the most out of them. Field of Glory: Kingdoms is also set apart from other games of the genre due to its turn-based system. Unlike Crusader Kings, which takes place in real-time, or games Total War are “I go, you go” turn-based, Field of Glory: Kingdoms operates on a “We go” system, meaning that every action and move is executed simultaneously on the world map.

This “We go” system might sound weird to some of you at first, but in all actuality, it works great for the setting. Those of you who are more familiar with medieval military history will know that medieval armies rarely knew where their enemy was, which left a lot of locations open to be raided, exploited and looted even before the news had reached the local Lord or some regional power. The we-go system, by having everyone move all the armies at once doesn’t allow for “on-the-fly” adjustments to your actions, which is actually kind of realistic, given how slowly news and communications were. Once you plot movements for your troops and press the next turn button, things will happen, and it is out of your control: you might encounter a poorly defended province, or you might find the largest army the kingdom could muster, that in the last turn might have been close, but not close enough. This is, of course, still a very game-ish mechanic, but it does provide Field of Glory: Kingdoms with a sense of authenticity and makes the players ask questions that a real commander would: can you allow for some regions to be undefended? Where to strike to maximize damages and minimize losses? Can I sustain a prolonged siege with my massive army while my northern regions are facing societal unrest? Lots of questions, with lots of answers. That’s lovely.

On the same note as the paragraph above, don’t go around thinking that just because a unit is two regions away it can’t move to intercept you. Because the game’s terrain matters- and it matters in a big way. Each terrain type allows armies to march more or less distance, depending on how hard traversing it is. What also matters is your army composition, with a light army moving swiftly, while a more numerous and onerous one might find itself in trouble in both reaching its destination, as well as sustaining its own existence. Armies fight on their stomach, the old adage goes, and in Field of Glory: Kingdoms things aren’t any different. Armies must sustain their efforts, and they’ll do that by consuming the food they find as they go along with their campaign. March a big enough army along a location with little to no supplies and things will get hairy very fast.

As for armies, the game plays around with a couple different typologies: you can recruit regular army units, levy units, and mercenaries. All have their strong and weak points. The first ones gain experience but cost a bit more to maintain than levies. Levies are cheap but mostly composed of peasants hastily armed with whatever there’s available. Then there are the professionally equipped and experienced mercenaries, however these will tear open massive holes in your kingdom’s treasury. Every army needs a man leading, and Field of Glory: Kingdom highly incentivizes you to pick a character to lead the men into battle. Each of these commanders has their own traits, personalities, and strong and weak points. Sometimes they only have either strong or weak points. Their military acumen comes into play during their battles, actively boosting the troop’s performances. Their traits, however, are a bit more interesting, and if you pick the right one things can be rather chaotic in a funny way.

In my campaign starting as Portugal (I won’t get into the historical accuracy of this, but let’s just say that Portugal, in Kingdoms, exists in 1054, which it didn’t until, at least, 1139 or 1143, depending on which History book you read it from), I had a small coffer and even a small army. Early on I was surrounded by powerful Muslim armies of Badajoz and Andaluz, when war broke out between them and my Castilian liege, I was dragged into the fray. Realizing the need to strike fast, seize the initiative and be aggressive, at the helm of my small army I placed a noble lord called Guaspar de Castro (who isn’t a real person as far as I know). This noble boasted a 2-point offensive rating, giving his men a massive advantage against the enemy, and it accumulated a “psychopath” trait, so that with every battle won he accumulated 25% more victory points and would have a 35% chance of letting his men pillaging the region. Using him as the tip of my small kingdom’s spear, and his relentless and ferocious demeanour, battle after battle the enemy was defeated, and the enemy regions found themselves ever more depleted of resources. Fast forward two decades after Castile and Badajoz started their war and Badajoz fell after a 3 year long siege commanded by Guaspar and his captains.

In the abstract, this sounds great, but how do battles play out? If you have Field of Glory 2: Medieval and want to play every battle yourself, please do. You’re able to do it, except for siege and naval scuffles. I, however, have decided to auto-play my battles, mainly because the process of having to jump between games isn’t something I’m particularly a fan of, and because I play Field of Glory: Kingdoms to live out the fantasy of creating and ruling over a kingdom. In the end, let’s just say that it’s nice to have this feature, and I know a lot of people will love this, mainly because it turns Field of Glory: Kingdoms into a more “hardcore” and authentic version of Total War: Medieval, but instead of having real-time strategy battles, they take place in turns. Field of Glory 2: Medieval is a great game in its own right and as a strategy title, no other game can match its authenticity when it comes to medieval battles, so there’s that, if that’s what you’re looking for.

Battles in Field of Glory Kingdoms are quick affairs, that play somewhat similar to a tabletop game, armies have a go at each other, dice are rolled and the losses are applied. This all happens automatically, with no input from the player. Armies will use ranged weapons, engage in melee, perform cavalry charges, retreat, pursuit, and all that good stuff. A lot is out of your control if you decide to let the AI, and the results are pretty much cookie-cutter. As soon as you see both battles on the field, more often than not you’ll spot the victorious one right way. You have a surprise here and there, and win an unexpected victory, or snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but not that often. Terrain also has a massive impact in the battles since the size of the battlefield troops will be fighting on will determine the size of the amount of available space for armies to deploy. So, if you have a small army, favour locations where you can use choke points to deny that advantage to the enemy. There’s a whole lot to explore here, and I feel that I have barely scrapped the surface with the military systems, and so far I am enjoying it quite a lot. Now, let’s jump to the next page and talk about everything else that doesn’t involve spears and swords, at least for the most part.

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• Genre: Real-Time Strategy/ Real-Time Tactics
• Developer: Eugen Systems
• Publisher: Eugen Systems
• Release Date: 23th May, 2024
• Price: $39.99/ 39,99€/ £34.99
• Buy at: Steam
• Reviewed On: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.70 GHz, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 2080

Eugen Systems’ titles are either highly praised for the complex, high-level competitive multiplayer community, multitude of units and decks, beautiful graphics, and fast-paced high-level tactical battles. These games are, however, criticised in the exact same fashion: too fast, too complex, too APM dependent, and lack of single-player content. After spending a couple dozen hours getting the hang of WARNO and going back and forth comparing it to the Wargame series, I’m glad to say that if you have those criticisms of WARNO, these might disappear once you played a couple of hours.

So yes, let’s get this out of the way first since this is the question that everyone makes whenever I write about Eugen’s title: it does appear that the gameplay has been slowed down. It’s either that or the maps are bigger. But since I don’t have any metrics to present you with, it’s just “it feels slower”. And it’s either that or there are a lot fewer units on the battlefield. One thing I know for certain, there hasn’t been a single moment, when playing WARNO that I have felt overwhelmed by the amount of stuff happening all at once, no matter how large a battle was. Yes, you can also pause the battle if you would like, to reposition your troops and issue them orders.

This sense of control is further emphasized by the introduction of the line of sight tool from the Steel Division games. Now, at the press of a button and by hovering the mouse around the map you can see the line of sight of a specific location, allowing for much better positioning and the creation of ambushes, kill zones and overall advantageous lines of fire. In one of the available operations, called “Black Horse’s Last Stand” you’re tasked with holding against the Soviet Offensive that’s going to try and steamroll Bad Orb. Having identified clear lines of approach, using this line of sight tool I was able to position my units in such a manner that the 2 only possible ways to enter the town had the majority of my firepower concentrated: the main road north, and the industrial complex on the west. This line-of-sight tool also works great in helping you better position your sourcing troops. In the same example, my scouting unit on the eastern road never fired a single shot, but being able to spot the main road from afar allowed them to relay information to the mortar teams in Bad Orb that constantly pounded the road and nearby fields.

Another major improvement is the way the game handles urban combat. In the Wargame series, houses seldomly appeared on a map, and when they did, they were spread out, looked all the same and more often than not, they would be good enough for a couple of infantry units to hide, ambush an armoured vehicle and be promptly shelled by artillery. WARNO still uses the same system of blocks, instead of individual houses, but there are hundreds of those blocks across the maps, with urban areas having 30, 40 or 50 you can now use and move your units in between when they get spotted. Urban combat is tense and deadly, as it should be, and the number of buildings available makes levelling out a single location either impossible at worst or resource-draining at best. Add to that that destroyed buildings now offer protection to infantry, and even if whole blocks are levelled to the ground, the infantry will still be able to hold its own. This massive improvement in urban warfare and its environments means that holding and securing cities is as important as it should be and that single-player missions can be built around that concept.

Speaking of which, while WARNO single-player content is not overwhelming, it sure as hell isn’t lacking either. There are 20 tutorial scenarios to help players get going with the game’s mechanics. Having completed all of those, they are excellent at teaching you how to use the line of sight tool and the stealth mechanics. There are 8 operations- these are essentially missions- with varying degrees of difficulty and complexity. These scenarios are fun, custom-made and curated scuffles, with well-defined objectives and victory conditions. I just wish there were more of those.

The meat and potatoes of the single-player experience is going to be the Army General mode. If you haven’t played Steel Division 2, where this concept was introduced, it’s very similar to a lighter Total War experience, exclusively focused on combat, with none of the base building, empire management and diplomacy. As a commander of a sector of the front, players will be ordering around their troops-chits on an operational level map. If they decide to attack enemy formations they’ll be prompted to either auto-resolve the affair or take part in a real-time battle. There are currently 5 Army General campaigns, with varying degrees of longevity. The smallest one can last for about 4 to 5 hours (if you auto-resolve most of the battles), with the largest one lasting for over 30 to 40 hours. If you decide to fight every single battle, the largest scenarios will last for hundreds of hours.

Now, I wouldn’t say that the Army General mode is the most interesting thing around. Yes, it’s very barebones, and exclusively militarily. There won’t be any unit creating or reorganization of your order of battle. It’s basically a “make do with what you have” kind of situation, where players will mostly move units around trying to pick up the best fights and probing for weak spots on the frontlines. And that’s okay, for the most part, just not the most exciting of prospects when you play those campaigns one, two or three times. Instead, what I wish Eugen would do was to go for a grand-strategy approach with their Army General mode, and giving us control of everything. Yes, this is not fair criticism because that’s not what the game is aiming to be, but I sincerely believe that would be fantastic. Can you imagine a grand-strategy title with the real-time tactics battles of a game like WARNO? Absolutely glorious.

To round things up, WARNO is one of the most graphically impressive titles in the Strategy and Wargaming genres. Eugen has always been known for creating some of the most detailed battlefields and units around, and WARNO is no exception. Look at this direct comparison between the Abrams M1A1 and Bradley IFV between Wargame and WARNO.

Sound-wise WARNO has gotten a significant upgrade too. Every unit sounds very unique. Gunshots and tank rounds have that satisfying “thump”, and artillery shells land with impressive grandeur. The only complaint I currently have is that the planes sound a bit muted, but if I’m not mistaken, I remember them sounding absolutely deafening in the first Wargame Airland Battle and that annoying me as hell, so maybe being a bit quieter isn’t so bad after all.

Overall, WARNO’s presentation is fantastic, and if every strategy and wargame had this kind of graphical fidelity the world would be perfect. Still, on the presentation side of things, I don’t know what the community thinks of this user interface, but personally, I think it’s the best in the series (pretty sure this was lifted from Steel Division 2, but don’t quote me on that, and I’m not installing 80 GB to check it out when this review is one month behind schedule). There’s no need for hidden sub-menus, and unnecessary fluff information, everything needed to command your troops is on full display with simple buttons with text, and if you want to know more there’s a side window with a lot of bars and information. A great way of managing function and information separately. Love it. Also, the mini descriptions of the unit cards that say things like “anti-air”, “anti-tank”, and “support” go a long way to help players who can’t spot the differences between two similar-looking units armed with very different weapon systems make decisions under pressure.

Now, my main problem with the game: The AI isn’t amazing (but it isn’t terrible either), but I’m either too off with my knowledge of soviet doctrine in the late 80s (which is possible), but I don’t think that rushing down the same location of the map several times is supposed to be a valid tactic. I had this happening more than once, in both Operations, Army General, and even Skirmish battles. I don’t see the AI using combined arms tactics to overwhelm a position, and a lot of the time they would just go piecemeal into the kill zones I had prepared in advance, with specific locations like bridges being particularly problematic since you can hold the AI there and just pound that very small stretch of terrain with artillery. I would rather have the AI either rush to the other side of the bridge, suppress my forces, or use a counter-battery. Just having the AI doing something other than half-regretting and stopping the attack, and getting confused while being destroyed. Is it reminiscent of what we’re seeing from the Russian troops in Ukraine? Yes, yes it is. Is that something we want in our video games? Probably not. The AI could use some work, and sometimes just waiting to muster enough troops to push with an attack would be enough to make it look and feel more competent.

Final Score: 7/10

If you’re looking for a single-player experience set in the Cold War that’s complex, beautiful to look at, massive in scope and will keep you occupied for hundreds of hours, WARNO Army General might be the fix you’re looking for. Pair that up with the slower unit movement and more focused unit selection decks, and everything is easier to learn, manage and experiment with. I’m glad to say that after a rocky release in Early Access a couple of years ago, WARNO’s full potential is starting to show, and my only hope is that Eugen gives WARNO the same kind of post-launch support they gave all their other games.

Pros:

1. A lot of singleplayer content;
2. Slower gameplay allows for more intense battles, with more back and forth;
3. Beautiful graphics and animations alongside a simple and very intuitive user interface.

Cons:

1. Might still be too fast for some people;
2. Poor AI;
3. Army General mode might disappoint some players with its limited scope.

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Resultantly, when I discovered the joys of reading, I scoured the military history section of the Waldenbooks next to my first real job and read every book I could find and afford. While books like Body Count, A Rumor of War, Fields of Fire and then later on works like Chickenhawk and The 13th Valley are the only ones that I remember, I absorbed piles of paperbacks.

When I joined the Army National Guard I did so with an outlook on the military shaped by those soldiers and authors.  Much later in life, when I had discovered the joys of computer wargaming I bought the first copy of SSI’s ‘Nam and at the time wanted more, with more detail, and felt that ‘Nam’s grand tactical-ish, just south of operational level was a great gaming experience.  Calling in fire support of CAS with troops in contact was fun, even the rough “green splotch-heavy” way my ‘ol Commodore 64 presented it. 

Back then my playing buddy and I talked about all of the things we would like to see in the game, detailed coordinated combined arms and air assault missions, constructing night defensive positions, night fighting with muzzle flash and illuminating rounds, Artillery and close air support, and the ability to order units to perform the same actions that were historically performed, such as booby-trapping terrain and objects, requiring successful supply deliveries, and so on.

Since then I’ve played many of the computer games set in the Vietnam War.  I felt Matrix Games’ Vietnam ‘65 was a good representation of the United States’ first bloodying in a guerilla conflict in the modern era.  In that same period, I played and loved many of John Tiller’s fantastic wargames.  When they two crossed in the form of Squad Battles Vietnam and Squad Battles Tour of Duty, I was elated, played a lot, and while participating in an online SB: V gaming club I interacted with Miller Tiller’s team as much as they’d put up with me.

This review represents my first foray into writing something other than dry, practically-rote investigation reports.  It will be my first dry, practically written review.

So, anyway, I was hooked on Campaign Series: Vietnam when playing through the well-presented tutorial when my infantry platoon was air-inserted to an LZ, then patrolled to another location, fought in a brief firefight, secured the objective, then abandoned it, patrolled to a second objective, then cleared an LZ.  Units can also set up IEDs / booby traps, and they can be cleared.  VC and NVA units make use of tunnels and underground supply depots.  American units with a “tunnel rat” can explore them.  Engineers can collapse them.  The game features the full spectrum of units that fought in the conflict, available at specific times of the war.

The game scale is operational, with unit markers representing teams (e.g. RPG teams of several men), individual or platoons of vehicles, up to platoons of infantry.

Presentation-wise the 2-D maps have been improved greatly since release and are now quite eye-pleasing.  The artwork on the board wargame-style unit chits is so good it caused me to play with the stylized chits instead of NATO symbology.  The 3D map – meh – my note to the team would be to not spend any more time on it.  One can only do so much with rice paddies and jungle, and my tired old eyes can’t make out most of the units from the backgrounds.  Back to the 2D, elevation changes are discernable as are trails, streams, dense and light jungle, etc. 

The terrain of Vietnam is much more varied than rice paddies and jungles, and the game’s maps accurately present that diversity effectively and attractively.  Overall, despite going in caring more for the subject matter and gameplay and expecting poor graphics, I am very happy with how the battlefield and the units of all combatants are presented.  One note, both I and my opponent changed our computer’s graphics to 1920×1080 so that the map, units, and information screens can be seen properly.

My PBEM opponent and I have merely scratched the surface of battle types, but I can say that this is where the game truly shines and is worth the purchase.  As the allied player I have conducted combined air and sea-borne assaults of villages lousy with VC weapons stocks and bunkers – and a tunnel system that required an engineer platoon with tunnel rats to explore and deal with (Protect those engineers, while they can fight them are too valuable to risk losing as I have done).  At about the halfway point, in an area behind my front that I thought secured, a Marine AMTRAC was ambushed by a VC team as it moved between two small villages near a graveyard. The combat resolution notification told me that the vehicle had been destroyed, and one crew member was missing in action, the others KIA.  Fantastic moments of immersion are why CV has become my favourite computer wargame. 

Playing as the US I have come to relish the massive amounts of firepower I can unleash on those rare occasions I observe enemies that are not too close for artillery or CAS.  Naval gunfire, in-range fire-support bases, and a host of on-call A-1 Sandies as well as helicopter gunships and organic mortars are available.

My opponent and I have played scenarios in which patrols have been ambushed, compounds attacked, reinforcing columns themselves ambushed, and are currently fighting the Ia Drang valley battle described so well in the novel We Were Soldiers Once, and Young.  An amazing feature of CV is that many events in the scenarios are scripted to occur when something triggers them.  This has enabled the team to create scenarios with depth and tension.  The resultant wargaming experience is unique for this genre.

Combat resolution is indicated first graphically and then an informational box, which through the fog of war options can be adjusted to provide a realistic amount of feedback as to the damage your attacks have done.  The location and duration of the box are adjustable.  Opportunity Fire can be set for unit types (I’d love to be able to drill down to setting these for individual units as clearly and easily as can be done in the Flashpoint Germany games, if at all possible!)  Indirect Fire Support and CAS are brought up via button clicks and are executed in the following turns (Mortars during the player turn if they have a LoS).  

The game menu has been enlarged since release and presents all potential unit actions and map views (the ability to highlight various units/unit states).  It will be instantly recognizable to any of John Tiller’s game alumni, as it is based on his game. 

Campaign Series Legion’s Jason will energetically answer your questions on Matrix’s excellent game forums.  He helped me understand best practices for gun runs with helicopter gunships for example.  DLC covering the later part of American involvement is being worked on by the tiny design team.  I am very much looking forward to scenarios set in that period. 

I recommend CV to computer wargamers who enjoy games that look and play like board games, who want realistic unit performance and weapon effects, and who have an interest in French and American involvement in Southeast Asia.  If you are a wargamer who enjoys exploring the challenges of fighting in different eras it should not be missed.  The game is not currently available on Steam, but I hope to see it there someday, to be seen and appreciated by a wider audience.  It is available on Matrix Games’ site.  If you have not purchased from Matrix, once you have an account, you have access to all of your game installs there.  I can’t say enough good things about Matrix’s contribution to our hobby.

So that is my piece on Campaigns Vietnam.  I hope that you enjoyed reading it, I’d be happy to hear your notes, and better yet I’d be happy to hear if it swayed you to pick up this gem!

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Men of War 2 is a game that- while not great- isn’t terrible either. It’s a great singleplayer experience, but the team’s focus is clearly multiplayer. It traded its gritty, semi-realistic appeal for fast-paced, arcade World War 2 action, which doesn’t gel particularly well with the series’ inherent micromanagement. The presentation isn’t great, with outdated graphics and downright terrible sound. The campaigns and operations are, in fact, its saving grace. Is it worth the asking price of $44.99? Depends on what you’re looking for.

• Genre: World War 2/ Real-time Strategy
• Developer: Best Way
• Publisher: Fulqrum Publishing
• Release Date: 15th May, 2024
• Price: $44.99/ 44,99€/ £37.99
• Buy at: Steam
• Reviewed On: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.70 GHz, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 2080

Also, share this review on social media, email me, or comment down below, and I’ll give away one key for Men of War 2.

The Singleplayer Is Fun

I’ll start with the game’s only saving grace: The single-player modes aren’t terrible at all, and in fact, I would argue the campaigns are well made and the missions are varied enough that they put Homeworld 3 to shame. From desperate defences to the last man, massive assaults across open fields, escort missions and night-time raids, there’s no denying that Men of War 2 three campaigns are fantastic, and its other two operations are equally good. They were also nice enough to add 6 bonus missions. As you can see, there is a lot of content here. Fight on the plains of the Eastern Front and go all the way on D-Day in France, these scenarios are sure to please anyone who enjoys Men of War and is looking for a single-player experience only.

It’s Micromanagement Heavy

Every Men of War game is micromanagement-heavy, and Men of War 2 is no different. Every single aspect of the game can be controlled, every unit has its own inventory, with its weapons, ammunition and utilities. As their commander you can exchange their weapons mid-mission, scavenge for ammo if they’re running low, use your infantryman to carry shells for tanks and artillery pieces and, if you want, you can even exchange your troop’s helmets.

The same can be done with vehicles. Vehicle damaged? Repair them. Out of ammo? Have the crew or your infantry fill it up again. Tank empty? Crew them using your men. Every weapon has different stats and serves a purpose and it’s great to have this flexibility mid-mission. Some missions even depend on that: the first mission of the Allied Operations has you parachuting in Normandy, behind enemy lines, and with a team of 5 airborne folks you’re tasked with taking down two 2cm Flakvierling 38, and a smart tactician will immediately spot an opportunity to quietly take down the crew of the first flak, and then immediately turn it against the second, mincemeating its crew.

This has always been a staple of the Men of War series since the first game had you repairing tanks and laying mines half of the time. However, in Men of War 2…

The AI and Pathfinding Aren’t That Great

The Men of War series has always been rather inconsistent with its pathfinding, which is weird, considering the games are practically all the same and built upon the same engine. Some work great, and the units are very proactive. In Men of War 2 soldiers act like complete morons most of the time, or don’t act at all. When facing enemies that are clearly in range, they won’t shoot, look for cover, or even position to shoot at the enemy, and most of the time they’ll just be there until you move them so they can shoot. Tanks don’t have this problem, but that’s probably because they’re range is so big, they’ll always have targets available without moving to engage.

Add this to the number of things going on at once, and more often than not, you’re not even able to enjoy the small unit tactics to the fullest extent because you’ll need to be constantly babysitting what your units are doing. Also, the game terribly lacks the necessary alarms to let you know your units are being attacked. This is baffling, given that the game is clearly multiplayer-focused. My compliments about the campaigns still stand, but unless you’re willing to micromanage your units to the utmost extent, Men of War 2 isn’t the game for you.

It’s Multiplayer Focused

The multiplayer of Men of War 2 was the clear focus of Best Way since the beginning, and I can respect that. Even though I’m exclusively a single-player kind of guy, I can acknowledge the existence of a massive multiplayer scene for these kinds of games, and, normally, developers want to cater to an audience of pre-dispositioned individuals who are die-hard fans of a massive series. However, here’s what I’m not particularly a fan of: everything in this game is created to funnel players into the multiplayer.

You just finished and won a campaign mission? Congratulations, you just won a new unit you can use… in multiplayer. This isn’t bad, per se, but it’s not something that motivates a single-player kind of guy like me. And because of this progression system…

You Must Be Always Online

Be prepared to have your internet always online whenever you want to play Men of War 2, because the game requires a constant connection, even if you’re playing single-player. In my opinion- and the opinion of every sensible person on the planet who enjoys video games- this should never be the case. The usual suspects came out of the woodwork defending this with the “Well, don’t you have internet?”. To answer this, I’ll put forward my own situation: Yes, yes I do. However, I travel during the week for work with my gaming laptop, and the internet isn’t always a luxury I have available, and it sucks not being able to play because of an arbitrary decision. At least the Men of War 2 team is working on a fix and I commend them for that.

The Presentation Isn’t Great

There are a couple of rare things in the world: gold, diamonds, and a GEM-engine game with a good UI. Even Gates of Hell, that’s in every way visually superior to Men of War 2 has a very crappy user interface. For some reason, the Best Way decided to create some awkward diamond-shaped shape health-bars. Why? What’s the point? How the hell is this better than a simple, straight HP bar? If it works and you’re not able to improve it, just let it be. It’s simple, it’s conventional and universally understood. This is so annoying. If these HP bars were returned to their original shape, things would look a lot better, and you would be able to perceive them a lot more clearly.

Human animations look stiff and outdated, weapons and reload animations are not good at all, and most of the time it’s just a muzzle flash and a soldier wiggling his arm in the air to cock the bolt back and forward. Not a great look for a game in 2024, when its competition visual fidelity is at the top of their game. At least the tanks look sharp and well-animated. I’ve seen some online hate towards the more colorful graphical style and despite what you might be expecting, I actually enjoy it quite a lot. So there’s that plus on the visual department.

Final Score: 6/10

In the World War 2 Real-time strategy genre there are two dominating forces: The Arcade and Hollywoodesque Company of Heroes 3, and the more gritty, and semi-realistic Gates of Hell. Men of War 2 will, inevitably, be compared to these two titles. As of right now, Men of War 2 sits awkwardly in-between, not really excelling at anything: it’s not a great arcade game, as the GEM engine doesn’t lend itself particularly well to it. And it’s not quite at the level of realism that Gates of Hell strives for. To be honest, other than having some really single-player moments- that are undercut by the decision of having it tied to an always online experience- Men of War 2 doesn’t stand out in any particular field, even less so at the price point is going for. Men of War 2 was clearly aimed at the multiplayer crowd, a part of which I am not. If you’re looking for great single-player missions and don’t mind shelling out 40 bucks, then Men of War 2 is the game for you. The reason it’s getting a 6 is only because I sincerely believe that the amount of single-player content is absolutely worth it, and in that department, it’s an 8 or a 9. Everything else, from presentation to the always online stuff, it’s a 3. So we meet in between.

Pros:

1. There’s a lot of content in Men of War 2;
2. Singleplayer campaigns are excellent, varied and fun;
3. The team knows where the problems lie and they’re actively working to fix them;

Cons:

1. Always online;
2. Terrible pathfinding and even worse AI;
3. Outdated visuals and animations;

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• Genre: Medieval City-Builder/ Real-time Strategy
• Developer: Slavic Magic
• Publisher: Hooded Horse
• Release Date: 26th April, 2024
• Price: $29.99/ 29,99€/ £26.24 (-25% off)
• Buy at: Steam
• Reviewed On: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.70 GHz, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 2080

What is Manor Lords?

Welcome to your Manor, my Lord! I come as a bearer of great news! The realm rejoices with the release of Hooded Horse’s most recent addition to their catalogue: Manor Lords, the new definitive champion of medieval gaming realms. But the question remains: What is Manor Lords?

Manor Lords is a medieval city-builder with a pinch of real-time strategy. It’s more Anno than Total War. Less Crusader Kings and more Banished. It’s really hard to find other titles to compare it with. If it had less combat, I would say it was more closely related to Anno 1800, for example. If it was more real-time combat-focused, I would point out to something like Age of Empires.

In my Top 10 Things to Love About Manor Lords, I concluded that what Manor Lords is, to me, is “a refreshing mix that reminds me a lot of the Impression games of yore, but with combat done right”. Now, I’m more certain that Manor Lord is a more elaborate and realistic version of Stronghold- a big focus on town building and economy while spicing things up a bit with combat elements.

Manor Lords Gameplay Mechanics

Set in late 14th century Bavaria, as Lords of the Manor, you’ll be spending most of your time in-game trying to build up your small hamlet into a thriving village/town, overseeing your folk’s need for continuous economic and population growth. Overall, Manor Lords is a relaxed, slow-paced experience about creating the perfect town.

This is one of Manor Lords’ most striking features from the get-go: its deliberate slow-paced gameplay, which expertly captures the slow and steady rhythm of medieval life. Buildings take time to construct, as your villagers need to transport the necessary materials to the building’s location, and some other villagers need to go there and work on it. More complex buildings take longer to build because more material needs to be carried over and a lot more manpower is necessary to complete the task.

In this vein of keeping things slow, but steady, the construction tab might seem rather underwhelming at first, with little more than a couple dozen buildings. No not- I repeat- do not be fooled by this. You see, in Manor Lords, things work a bit differently than other games of the genre. While Anno and Frostpunk have specific buildings for each step of the production chain, Manor Lords’ buildings can serve several purposes.

Take houses, for example, while they, of course, fulfil the basic needs of giving your peasants shelter. As your settlement develops and becomes more complex, houses can be levelled up, and a lot of the game’s economy happens in the back gardens of your denizens. A big enough burgage plot will allow them to build small gardens and chicken coups. Maybe even grow a small orchard, or forge weapons. A lot of the game’s economy happens here, and not only is this highly realistic (even today people have small plots of cultivated land if they have enough space in their gardens), but it’s also really freaking cool. Larger burgage plots with carrot farms on them will output larger quantities of carrots. It’s the kind of system that encourages you to make the most of your space and optimize at every step of the way.

Speaking of optimization, the game uses a system called “Burgage Plots” for laying out new housing units. This system wasn’t created for the game, but instead, it gets its name from a medieval city-planning (if you want to call it that) strategy that allowed every house to face a street. The reasoning behind this is that in medieval times (and before and after medieval times), the front of the house also acted as the shop. This culminated in houses and plots there were thin, but long. This is just another example of how a game designer can pick up subtle things in history and turn them into gameplay mechanics, as long as the game is consistent enough with every other mechanic.

The beating heart of a medieval town was its market, usually situated right at the centre of the village, where everyone would get together and buy, sell and trade whatever they had, for whatever they needed. This system works pretty much as you expected it to. The huntsman will sell meat, a baker will sell bread, the woodsman will sell firewood, etc. I still haven’t figured out how much of this is just visual fluff and how much is happening, and that’s because there’s a global supplies meter. Maybe I need to dive a bit deeper into this. Nevertheless, even if the market serves only has a utility dispenser, it’s a beautiful way to implement it. You can make the market any size you’d like, and place it anywhere, again, making you optimize or just decide on what visually pleases.

Production chains require careful management and planning, but Manor Lord’s slower pace natively ensures that you won’t be overwhelmed, and things end up developing naturally. To be completely honest, I believe this is one of the game’s best-selling points, and we need more games that organically introduce new mechanics or let you play around with them instead of constantly throwing new stuff at you, to the point it looks like you’re juggling so many things at once and a decision made a couple of hours ago with information you didn’t interiorize means your production chain is always at risk of going belly up.

Take farming, for example: planning your town’s harvests is a game in its own right. Fields need to be large to produce worthy yields. Ploughing, seeding, and harvesting work on a yearly rotation, and the game has a fertility system that greatly impacts every field’s output. From time to time, following the fields is necessary to let them recover their nutrients to yield better results in subsequent harvests. This system is so complicated and intricate, that only with time will you learn how to make the most of it. And let us not forget that the game also features things like soil fertility, subterranean rivers, weather damage, diseases, and region trading.

As if all that wasn’t enough, there are a lot of different resources to juggle: from wood planks to beasts of the wild, from tools to honey, apples, spears, bows and shields, Manor Lords has a huge array of material to keep track of. Each portion of the map has limited resources you’ll need to specialize in obtaining to get the most out of the land. You’ll also have to choose just how much of some resources to gather. Hunt every wild animal in your forest and how will they reproduce? Even that has to be taken into account. This abundance, or lack thereof of resources will force you to specialize to make the most of the cards you were dealt at the beginning.

This measured approach might go against conventional game design, but in here it just ends up working great, both from a gameplay standpoint and a thematic perspective.

Perfect Presentation

Visually, Manor Lords is nothing short of breathtaking. From the intricately detailed architecture to the bustling activity of its inhabitants, the game’s vibrant world teems with life and authenticity. Each action, no matter how small, is rendered with precision and care, culminating in a visual feast that is sure to leave players spellbound, and closely watching every little action.

Of course, there are visual bugs, some small artefacts, and cumbersome animations here and there, but these are so sparse, and in my long hours of gaming I can recall no more than a couple of visual spoofs. For a game that looks this good, and it’s still going into Early Access this is so rare my memory fails to come up with another title that did this.

Yet perhaps the most immersive feature of Manor Lords is its seldom-seen third-person mode, which allows you to explore your burgeoning town from ground level. This unique perspective brings every detail of the game world to life. Despite this being a cool feature, your character cannot interact with anything, and there’s nothing to do other than walk. so don’t into it expecting more than a simple walk-around mode.

Every Lord of the Manor needs his banner, and this might be my geeky side coming out, but I love the idea of having a Banner creation menu. The reasoning behind this is rather simple: Banners and heraldry were of extreme importance to everyone in the Middle Ages. Heraldry served as a system of visual identification that was prevalent throughout all of Europe and was of massive importance in everyday life. Heraldry could be found everywhere, armour, shields, coins, seals, banners, on castle walls, these symbols of authority and legitimacy were ubiquitous.

Creating your coat of arms is simple enough: pick a shape, some patterns, and a couple of symbols that might and done! I’m sure imaginative folk will be able to create some fantastic and true-to-life stuff. I’ll always go with Portugal’s first royal coat of arms: a blue cross on a white background.

Manor Lords is a game coated in small, very subtle details that make its world come to life: weather effects like snow and rain look fantastic too, with the snow melting when spring arrives. Villagers take animal carcasses and hides from one place to another, the farming groups change with each action, and the combat animations. There’s a lot of love and passion behind this project, and I cannot commend it enough.

Combat

Combat is, probably, going to be one of the game’s biggest draws to a larger, more bellicose audience. This over-fixation in this aspect of the game prompted the developer to come out of the woodwork and say that “Manor Lords is not a Total War competitor”, clarifying that its focus was very obvious on city building, with battles being a bonus, and won’t happen as frequent as gamers might expect. He also said that “It’s not an Empire Management style Grand Strategy Game”, and that “it’s not an RPG either”, so do go in expecting to play Crusader Kings, Mount&Blade or even Medieval Total War.

However- while I can appreciate his honesty- I believe that Manor Lords achieves with its not-as-large-but-still-big-battles what Total War has failed to, and that’s to trade width for depth. Yes, battles in Manor Lords rarely surprise the hundreds. The real question is: what’s the difference between commanding 500 men split into 20 units with 25 each, with battles that will go on for a very long time, moving forward and backwards? Or command 5000 splits into 20 units with 250 each and have the battle end in less than 5 minutes? To me, the answer is as clear as a summer day in medieval Bavaria.

Manor Lords being a smaller-scale title inevitably leads to having a very special recruitment system, and it reminds me of something more similar to Stronghold rather than traditional real-time strategy games. I mean to say that the economic side follows the basic Stronghold tenets. Weapons, armour and shields must be forged and readily available in the town’s stockpile. The main difference is how you recruit units. No idle peasants are hanging around a campfire to instantly turn into soldiers. What happens is that when you raise your banners, men will be pulled from existent families in the village, equip themselves with whatever you assigned them to, and then march to war. There’s also the ability to hire mercenaries to bolster your ranks.

So, instead of pulling guys from an endless pool of human beings, there’s a real impact here in every other aspect of your town. Men going to war inevitably means that your production capability halves, and so does your economy. The decision to go to war is a lot more complex in Manor Lords. Is your economy strong enough to hold for a while? Or will it succumb to famine? Are your stockpiles robust enough to supplant the lack of productivity? This is a cool system that brings a lot more decision-making to the table than other games of the genre usually do.

Now, not only is your martial prowess at stake in a big battle but also the future of your small hamlet. All this rambling to say that with that Manor Lords does a lot of stuff with its battle system that goes beyond what happens in the field. Win a major battle with tons of losses and you’ll quickly learn how price wins equal a long time lost for both your opponent and yourself.

As for the battles themselves, armies will meet in the field and charge, hold, stab, punch and kill to get the upper hand. A lot of things can have a huge impact on your soldier’s ability to fight a good fight: their positioning, stance, equipment, conditioning before battle, terrain, and so much more.

There is a lot to experiment with, even with the game’s limited roster of units. Yes, don’t expect to see 5 or 6 sub-types of infantry. The units you’ll be fighting your battles with will mostly come down to whatever you can equip your men with, and how much you can pay to mercenaries. If you enjoy the typical Total War massive 30-unit roster to mix and mash forces from, you won’t find it here. The game’s website let us know that this, however, is a far-from-finished state and that several more units will be added during its Early Access roadmap. Not only units but also fortifications!

The only thing I wish the game had was the ability to create my skirmishes. Currently, this is my major complaint about Manor Lords, and I believe that this might be a deal-breaker for some. I cannot understate my disappointment in not having been able to just experiment a bit with this. In the end, if you find interesting and challenging battles will come down to how well your campaign pans out, and it’s just not worth it to put 20 hours into a game and always get underwhelming battles.

Final Score – 10/10 – Manor Lords Is The Best Medieval Game Of All Time

It’s easy to shower Manor Lords with praise for its multiple, intricate systems and how well put together it is as a videogame. However, the significance of this title is the perfect combination of a high-profile (dare I say, even mainstream) release that sets new standards for the Strategy gamer.

Manor Lords isn’t only a spectacular video game but I genuinely believe it’s the best medieval game ever made, and one of the best strategy games to see the light of day.

In conclusion, Manor Lords stands as a triumphant achievement in medieval gaming, offering a rich and immersive experience that is sure to captivate a lot of us for hours on end. 

With its stunning visuals, deep city building and combat mechanics, as well as an unwavering commitment to historical authenticity, Manor Lords sets a new standard for the genre. Whether you’re a history enthusiast or a strategy aficionado, Manor Lords is a must-play title that deserves a place in every library.

Despite ticking every single box and being a game I fell in love with and will be regularly playing from now on, Manor Lords isn’t without its shortcomings: it’s in Early Access, so it’s going to be feature incomplete for a while; If you joined the hype train expecting something combat-focused disappointment is sure to follow; And if you’re the kind of person that loves faster-paced games, this might come off as slow and frustrating.

Pros:

1. The most complex and complete medieval game of all time;
2. Complex city-management perfectly balanced with real-time strategy combat;
3. Excellent visuals and cohesive artstyle;

Cons:

1. The appeal city-building during the medieval age might not be the most appealing thing if you don’t know/enjoy the time-frame;
2. Still barebones in terms of customization, no skirmish or battle mode, for example;
3. It’s still an Early Access title (even though its substantially more complete than other full release titles), meaning that it is feature incomplete;

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• Genre: Turn-Based Wargame
• Developer: Starni Games
• Publisher: Slitherine Ltd.
• Release Date: 11 April, 2024
• Price: $35.99 | 35,09€ | £30.15 (-10%)
• Buy at: Steam
• Reviewed On: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.70 GHz, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 2080

Slitherine’s newest wargame Headquarters: World War 2 is a visual delight, and it’s shaping up nicely to be the new entryway for newcomers to the genre. Despite being competent, and easy to get into wargame, I have to be honest, as I don’t consider myself to be entirely convinced by Headquarters: World War 2 just yet, so take my words here with a grain of salt. I believe there’s a lot to be enjoyed here if you’re looking for a Battle Academy replacement. Is Headquarters: World War 2 going to replace other, more realistic wargames? Of course, and I don’t think it’s aiming for that. 

First things first: The game is really easy to just pick up and play. I played the tutorial a couple of months back during some Steam Fest and I didn’t remember a damn thing, but Headquarters: World War 2 is that simple and intuitive. Everything you need is on full display. So far I have only found a single submenu, and that’s if you really want to go and look at every stat and perk of a specific unit.

Visually speaking, it’s undeniable that Headquarters: World War 2 is one of the best-looking wargames ever made. Every vehicle model is meticulously crafted, and coated over with equality expertly designed texture work. The terrain and environment are filled to the brim with detail. Heck, just look at the image above. Some first-person shooters don’t put that much effort, and you have to look at things up close.

The beautiful presentation of Headquarters: World War 2 is ruined, in part, by the lacklustre animation work done on the infantry units. The tanks are fantastic, and the animations are top-notch on every vehicle. But if the unit has two legs, then things quickly go downhill. The movement is floaty but stiff. It just feels wrong, and it’s a damn shame because everything else is top-notch in terms of presentation. As someone who enjoys watching turns play out, working a bit on these animations would go a long way toward making watching turns going by way more enjoyable.

The Friendliest of Wargames

The game is played on a square grid, instead of the more traditional hex-based one. It plays similarly to Battle Academy in almost every regard. Units can move a certain amount of squares depending on terrain and take a couple of fire actions every turn. In fact, it plays precisely like Battle Academy. If you played one, it’s pretty much the same thing. And that’s far from a bad thing. In fact, Battle Academy was in dire need of getting an update, now nearly a decade after the release of its second (and last?) title. Call Headquarters: World War 2 Battle Academy 3 and no one would raise an eyebrow. 

On another nod to Battle Academy, Headquarters: World War II also has active abilities. Now, if you like these or not might vary depending on the kind of game you’re looking for. Some are fine, like morale boosts or airstrikes. Others fall absolutely outside the realm of reality and don’t click with me, with the worst offender being the ability to instantly reinforce a tank crew.

Each unit has its own stats and perks, and the game might actually have a lot more underlying mechanics than it originally leads you to believe. Infantry units have the capability of taking cover in destroyed buildings, some carry anti-tank grenades, and others are harder to spot. As for tanks, some can destroy wrecks, others will specifically target and destroy enemy tank tracks, some others might be able to damage buildings. There are a lot of perks to memorize. Now multiply that by what looks like it could be about 100 different units, and there’s a lot to learn and memorize here.

Final Score: 8/10

To round things up, I like the way Headquarters: World War 2 plays, and I don’t doubt that it’s going to be a fabulous entry in an already packed library of other great World War 2 titles. It’s a title with solid foundations, clearly loves its inspirations, and it carries with it a lot of content, both in units and in well-designed single-player missions.

The persistent campaign is interesting and might actually keep me engaged and caring for my men instead of constantly throwing them into a meat grinder without care.

The only thing left to figure out is where it’s going to stand when facing against its more direct competition, like The Troop and Battle Academy. Only time and your personal taste will answer that, but I can see Headquarters: World War easily taking over Battle Academy as the easy to get into and go-to beginner wargame. As for the Troop, while the two games might look similar at a glance, spend enough time with them and the experiences cannot be compared. The movement is different. Anyways, if you’re curious about The Troop, you can read my review.

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• Genre: Zombie City-Builder
• Developer: Jutsu Games
• Publisher: Games Operators
• Release Date: 11 April, 2024
• Price: TBD
• Buy at: Steam
• Reviewed On: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.70 GHz, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 2080

The Last of Us, Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Left for Dead, State of Decay, Dying Light, Project Zomboid, Resident Evil, Project Zomboid, and They Are Billions are just some of the hundreds of games that use the Zombie as their archetypal enemy.

It’s fascinating how malleable the creature is to different kinds of genres, be it real-time-strategy, action, shooters, or survival-horror, chances are if you’re imaginative enough as a game designer, you’ll be able to cram Zombies as an enemy almost anywhere.

Infection Free Zone does almost nothing new with Zombies and with its mechanics. However, a stroke of genius, a feature so incredible it turns Infection Free Zone from a generic survival-management-strategy game into an absolute gem well worth buying into. That feature is the game’s capability of letting you play anywhere in the world you want. Imagine Microsoft Flight Simulator but with Zombies.

It’s one thing to play in a fictional world, with fictional locations, but it’s a whole other experience to play in a known location, with streets you walk by every day, businesses you shop at, and parks where you exercise. If you want to be really nerdy, think of Infection Free Zone like this: Have you ever wondered “What would I do if a real-life zombie apocalypse happened?” and then proceeded to mentally design your plan? Infection Free Zombie is the “What would I do if a real-life zombie apocalypse happened” simulator.

The game uses OpenStreetMap’s real-world data to generate its maps. Similar to Microsoft Flight Simulator, the maps aren’t 100% accurate, but they’ll do their best to make it, at least believable. Buildings aren’t one-to-one recreations of their real-life counterparts, but if you know the location, your imagination will fill out the blanks, I know mine did. Given this OpenStreetMap-based system, Infection Free Zone is a videogame that will be at the top of its game when you’re playing in locations you know and are familiar with.

The game starts by challenging you to pick a location on the world map. Me being me, and since I live in Porto, Portugal. Of course, I was going to play my hometown. When choosing the playable area, my first question was: OK, here’s where I live, where would I realistically be able to go? Well, since Porto faces the Atlantic Ocean on the West, my best chance for survival might actually be having my back facing towards the sea, where no zombies could attack me.

How does Infection Free Zone play? Well, it’s very much like a real-time strategy/city-builder mixed with survival and some horror elements. It’s a mix that comes to its own when it’s paired up with this city creation system.

That’s what I did on my first playthrough, got a base set up with my back turned to the ocean, and focused on what was ahead of me, no need to spend extra resources building walls and watchtowers. The game eases you in with some guided and basic story elements. During the day your folk are gathering resources and erecting fortifications and utilities. At the same time, your armed squads are scavenging, looking for food, medicine, weapons and whatever else they can find (I’m not going to spoil any more). At night, the hordes come out and wander around the city, so it’s advisable that after 5 to 6 PM, everyone is back on the base and ready to man the defences.

Combat is simple enough. Your units will fire at the horde, slimming it down, and it eventually fails. Let them get too close and they’ll damage the buildings you’ve erected until they are basically useless and will be back again once you repair them. Each one of your squads can have up to 4 elements, and each can be equipped with a gun. These guns consume ammunition, so you better stock up before nightfall.

This night-and-day system doesn’t mean that things are uneventful for half of the time you’re playing. The zombie hordes will occupy buildings, and you might enter, because unless you saw them going in, there’s no way to know where they’re hiding from the sun. If the weather is cloudy enough, and the sun is covered, the infected will start roaming during the day. Raiders and other people roam the street, and you’ll only know they’re friends or foes once you’re close enough to talk to them. Again, basic systems, but they work and behave exactly as you would expect them to.

The graphics are servisable, at best, and downright horrible at worst, but I get it. A randomly generated map will never be perfect, and since I’m playing locations I know deeply, it is rather easy to suspend my disbelief at what I’m looking, at and imagine that that building isn’t how it looks in real life, but that’s the way I imagine it to be.

I would love to see some more details about the buildings I adapt. Say I build a cookhouse, maybe the building will change slightly to feature a small chimney, barrels of stuff outside, and a wooden board on the door saying “cookhouse”. Small things like that make the world feel more lived-in and end up being way more immersive. Imagine a living location with clotheslines outside, windows boarded up and figurines moving inside. There’s a lot to do to make things feel “lived in”.

Add this to things the game already has, and the world would really pick up a charm of its own. This is a lovely example of this: early in the game, you’ll be tasked with acquiring the knowledge necessary to build an antenna. Where did Infection Free Zone send me? To my local university. Gather more weapons and ammunition? To my local police station. To gather food? To local groceries, I know and visit. Where to get medicine? To my neighbourhood pharmacy.

Just you case you haven’t realized by now, I really enjoy the real-world Open Street Map map feature.

Now that I lured you in with the great stuff, it’s time for some disappointment. Have in mind that the game’s still in Early Access, so maybe, a lot of what I’m about to write is going to be fixed in a couple of weeks/months: The unit pathfinding is in dire need of some work. I’m not one to usually nitpick this kind of stuff, but when your game hinges so much on the path your units take when walking around the city to either avoid confrontations or get into them, this needs to be fixed ASAP. The worst offender of this is the location towards which your units enter buildings. In more cramped locations, they’ll go all around entire neighbourhoods just to get in, on the side, for example. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially when the door for a said house is clearly facing the street, for example.

The worst offender, to me, is how, for some reason I’m not able to understand at the moment, is that the infected can go trought some walls, but not others. This is very weird, and there seems to be no consistency in this. Sometimes they walk right on by, and your units too. Sometimes they don’t. It’s all really weird. I hope this gets fixed, as soon as possible because, as you can imagine, this is terrifyingly game-breaking in a game that’s all about building your base against the zombie hordes.

Jutsu Games, the developer of the game came out and said that the full story and all the faction’s events won’t be available on the Early Access launch. The same goes for map elevation, explosives, infected animals and a law system. These systems are still in the works but “due to balancing issues we have decided to prioritize other systems and focus on the list above once the game is released in Early Access”

Final Score: 8/10*

When all is said and done, Infection Free Zone doesn’t do anything novel with its systems, but what it manages to do is execute one unique feature extremely well, and the amount of gameplay variety that feature brings just by itself is going to be enough to keep me coming back time and time again. I cannot wait to see what the team does going forward, and I sincerely expect Infection Free Zone to be a success. It’s a great game, with a ton of potential I cannot wait to see expanded upon. If you like zombies, and turtling gameplay, and would like to see how you would fare in a zombie apocalypse, this might just be the videogame for you.

*This score is only applicable if the zombies going trough walls bug is fixed.

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Classified France ’44 is my favourite game of 2024 so far. A fun and well-crafted turn-based strategy title in the vein of XCOM that’s teetering near excelency. It’s filled to the brim with personality, all the while still packing some solid turn-based mechanics and perfectly designed missions. It’s only drawbacks are the apparent lack of replayability and stiff animation work. Get over some of the clunk, and Classified France ’44 is a massive golden nugget waiting to be discovered.

• Genre: Turn-Based Combat
• Developer: Absolutely Games
• Publisher: Team17
• Release Date: 5 March, 2024
• Price: £34.99/$34.99/€34.99
• Buy at: Steam
• Reviewed On: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.70 GHz, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 2080

Classified France 44 has the look of a dollar bin videogame or one of those weird discount boxes from the early 2000s. The graphics are… well, not great, and the animations are stiff, However, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks engrossed by its delectable varied, and custom-built turn-based battles. I’m nearing D-Day, and dreading the end of this adventure.

After the success of 2011’s XCOM, a game that singlehanded revived the turn-based-strategy genre, a World War 2 adaptation seemed like an obvious step. Years went by and, to my knowledge- and outside of the more traditional wargaming space- WW2 turn-based strategy games that exchange alien busting for kraut hunting don’t really exist. Until now, as 2024 marks the year that not only Classified France ’44 launches but also the release of Forgotten but Unbroken, until I’m convinced otherwise, its Steam Fest Demo a couple of months back failed to captivate.

Laying down the groundwork for D-Day

The year is 1944, and the date is D-Day minus 50. The Germans have their backs against the wall on the Eastern Front, are on their back foot in Italy, and suspicions of an Allied invasion plague the high command of the Wehrmacht. A group of 3 operatives are dropped behind enemy lines to link up with the French Resistance and cause as much damage and mayhem before the Higgins ramps finally drop. Similar to the games it draws its inspiration from, Classified France ’44’s gameplay is split between the tactical, turn-based battles, and its strategic layer.

You’re introduced to the game’s mechanic like every other game evolving parachuting into the French countryside: inside a barn, with Germans looking about. You’ll figure out that a silent knife in the dark is as effective as a shotgun blast. Shank enough Germans and get rewarded with an ambush turn.

These stealth mechanics are… barebones. Well, barebones but functional. The typical: enemy can see these as far as these squares, enter on it and be seen. A stab will make X squares of noise, if an enemy is inside, you’ll be heard. Kill an enemy, and their body disintegrates, so no need to worry about hiding them, it’s weird and strange at first, but it works. And that’s the great thing about this game, it might not excel in any particular slice of gameplay other than its mission design (but more on that later), but everything just works, and it works well. I can’t say I would mind having the possibility of making simultaneous kills, but that would be a bit unbalanced.

Classified France ’44 does a great job of conveying information to the player, highlighting the dangers and warning you before entering the enemy field of view, allowing for a last-minute change of plans. Some missions are built around stealth, but it isn’t necessary for success. Go guns blazing if you will, but 20 nazis are a tougher fight than 5. Stealth is usually part of some optional objective: say “kill 4 Luftwaffe ground crew”, or “infiltrate the warehouse without getting noticed”. The game also goes out of its way to reward optional objectives by giving the player more supplies.

Grand Strategy and the Bigger Picture

Supplies are the currency of the game and can be used for all sorts of things: weapons are acquired through the expenditure of said supplies. Want to heal a squad mate? Supplies. Want to assign an operative to help out a resistance faction? Supplies. Did I just describe how things work on the strategic map? Well, basically, but let me clear some things up. Time only moves when a battle is fought, and each battle moves the calendar a certain number of days closer to D-Day. In between every fight, you’ll be tasked with equipping your men, listening to their banter at the campfire, upgrading their abilities and choosing who gets to rest and who will be facing the gauntlet. It’s all very simple, but the limiting decisions you’re allowed to make also make them meaningful because you can only do one action at a time.

The Germans, however, won’t take your shtick lying down. They’ll be sending the Feldgendarmerie to take down your operations and punish your incursions. How the game handles this is by segmenting the map into areas. Do missions for the resistance faction that dominates the area and you’ll increase your control in that area. Reach level 3 and you’ll be granted some bonuses like increased supplies per mission or time reduction for certain actions. The Feldgendarmerie will occupy some areas and reduce your control of it, removing the bonuses. There’s always this interesting back-and-forth between your and the enemy’s efforts. Later down the line, you can fight back these punishment actions by hiring resistance fighting forces that will delay the German actions. It’s really cool and concise, but this leads me to what is probably my biggest gripe with the game: I don’t think there’s a whole lot of replayability here. The press-release for the game says that there are about 15 different endings, however, I don’t know if I would feel motivated enough to pursue them all, especially since all the missions almost surely repeat in every campaign. If they don’t, then I would be pleasantly surprised.

I’m only on my first campaign (and loving it), but all the missions I’ve played are too well-made to be randomly generated. If they are random, then Classified France ’44 has the best mission generator I’ve ever seen. However, the missions I played are the same as some of the trailers I’ve seen, so they appear to be hand-designed. And how well-designed they are. Each objective is different, and each secondary objective varies wildly from mission to mission, forcing you to adapt your tactics and the team you choose to deploy.

My second major complaint is how simplistic the mechanics of the resistance factions are. All you’re doing is filling up a meter and unlocking new cool toys to play around with and some fighting forces. There’s so much more that could have been done here: special units to recruit, call in reinforcements to help in the turn-based battles, unlocking special abilities, special characters, unit stat boosts. Maybe, choosing a faction over another would have negative consequences and they would make your job harder in some ways. There’s a lot that could have been done. As it stands, the factions act mainly as glorified shops.

Tough Fight On The Hedgerows

Classified France ’44 scuffles are tense, tough, and long-lasting. The basics are similar to XCOM, Gears Tactics, Xenonauts and other games of the genre: you have a certain number of action points to spend on movements, shooting and abilities. Use them all, and the turn ends.

Classified France ’44 innovates with its morale system. It acts as a parallel stat to health, Every time an enemy is shot at, or it shoots at you, the morale of the unit lowers. Get it below 50% and a unit is surpressed, and their action points are reduced. Destroy the whole bar and the unit becomes broken, and unable to act on the following turn. This means that, even if you miss, every shot taken has some kind of impact on the battlefield. It also adds another layer of options to consider: do you risk moving out of cover for a higher hit chance this turn? Or do you suppress the enemy and try to flank it the following turn with the help of another comrade? A single machine gunner can suppress 2 to 3 soldiers as long as they’re in their line of sight, making them more useful than they usually are in this kind of game. Keep in mind, of course, that this goes both ways. I think it’s a great addition, and it’s well-implemented. More often than not, I would actually take low-percentage shots just to deny the opponent the ability to move in the next turn and grant me a higher level of flexibility.

Successfully finish a mission and your crew will be stacked with experience for you to spend. Each class (there are 5 in total), can be specialized even further. Take the image below: the support class can specialize into a medic, tinkerer, corpsman or shotgunner.

To round this review up, compliments must be given to the creative ways the design team took generic army units and gave the Germans their very own playstyles and personalities. You have your Wermach grunt that dies with a burst, but a couple of missions in, the Feldgendarmerie show up and their toughness will put you to the test. The Fallshmijer will chuck grenades and try to close the distance, sometimes resorting to melee attacks. The Gestapo will really keep you on your toes, but I won’t ruin their appearance, as I think that learning how to deal with each enemy type is an important part of what makes Classified France ’44 battles so fascinating to engage with. There are way more units than the ones I listed, but it’s up to you to find out more about them.

Final Score: 9/10

Some might look at the score and consider it rather generous. My first impression would agree, but Dwelve deeper into Classified France ’44 and you’ll find plenty to be pleasently surprised by: the unique setting, the expertely put together turn-based tactical fundamentals, the carefully curated missions, the in-depth squad management, and the impressive enemy variety make Classified France ’44 the first standout game of 2024. I cannot wait for mods and DLCs.

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• Genre: Naval Combat Simlite
• Developer: Tabbing Tabby
• Publisher: MicroProse Software
• Release Date: 2 August, 2022
• Price: 20€/ $19.99/ £15.99
• Buy at: Steam
• Reviewed On: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.70 GHz, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 2080

It took me a couple of tries to get into Boat Crew, and I immediately came to the realization of why. This game has one of the hardest tutorials I’ve ever seen, and while it’s probably trying to set the stage for what’s about to come next, it really doesn’t help new players a whole lot if you immediately throw them under the unrelenting waves of zeros fighters and enemy ships while still learning the ropes. This really needs some rework and I fear some of the less experienced players might bounce off right here, even before the game starts, and that’s a shame because, behind the tough tutorial, there’s a really good dynamic campaign, seldom seen in other titles.

Another point that might put some people off are the graphics. While the ships exhibit impressive detail, the crew members have a quirky appearance with buggy, wide eyes, and blank expressions, resembling stuffed cloth toys. Bomber Crew had a similar feel, but Boat Crew’s less cartoony approach makes it more awkward-looking. Nevertheless, the enemy ships are distinct and recognizable from a distance, allowing players to make informed decisions during engaging naval combat scenarios.

This is especially important because Boat Crew is the kind of title where mission success starts with a primary decision: Is this battle worth fighting? Things will either go very well or very bad quickly. Pick a fight with a bigger ship without some kind of upper hand and it won’t be long until your crew is joining the search for Davy Jones Locker.

As expected, the preferred tactics for a PT Boat commander involve lightning hit-and-runs. This approach aims to maximize damage and chaos inflicted upon the enemy while minimizing the chances of retaliation. So it’s imperative to mix and learn the art of strategic decision-making and hit-and-run tactics to navigate the challenging waters of Boat Crew’s campaign skirmishes.

The game really comes to life as soon as you realize that you don’t need to work alone, and the game allows you to build your squadron of heavily armed Elcos. Get enough in-game doubloons and you can add up to 5 other PTs following you around the strategic map and helping you fight the good fight in the tactical battles. While you cannot manage their equipment (a missed opportunity, if you ask me), the available choices provide more than enough variety to fit your needs for armament.

Alongside your mates helping guns there are call-ins available that include artillery strikes as well as fighter and bombers.

Now, despite its excellent campaign and heart-pounding fights, Boat Crew isn’t without its flaws, most of them minor, but others quite more substantial. I’ll start with the one that bugs me the most: the directions from which you approach fights in the campaign map don’t affect your starting position on the battle. Now, in some games, I wouldn’t mind this being the case, but when your main tactics should be hit and run, I would argue that the ability to start a battle from the enemy flank is important. For example: an enemy task force is currently attacking a port, and you rush, full speed ahead, to lend a helping hand, with the intent of approaching from the back of an already engaged enemy. The perfect opportunity to sneak and strike, you think -Problem is the game will spawn you on your port, facing the enemy head-on, negating every possible advantage you might have had.

To add to this frustration is the fact that there’s no way to previously assign crew members to existing weapons if said systems require more than two gunners. Say that, like me, your PT is equipped with two M2 Machine Guns, a M3 anti-tank gun, and 40mm Bofors. Having only two gunner slots available means that for every battle you start, you’ll need to juggle your crew around so that you’re able to man the guns you need for that battle. It’s not the worst thing, but having the ability to prepare this before the battle would be a good quality-of-life option to have.

The final thing I would love them to increase the defences because it so happens that once you have the M3 anti-tank gun there’s nothing the enemy shore defences can do to stop you from snipping them at length. Planes will come out, from time to time, but they’re as rare as a genuine pearl.

Even despite all this, the game’s campaign is the definite highlight that will keep you coming back for just one more mission. The basic gameplay loop is to rest at a port, go out, scout enemy ports and engage in bit-sized skirmishers, come back to the port, rest, rearm and reequip before going out again. Attack a port enough times and the friendly AI will send in an invasion force to try and capture it.

The enemy won’t stay still, and will try and fight back, capturing your ports in turn.

There’s also a list of targets you can strive towards destroying that will net you a hefty pouch of coin to upgrade your boat with.

PT Boats are highly customizable, and currently, there are more than enough options to keep you constantly on the grind for more advanced equipment. From Lewis machine guns to torpedos, mortars, depth charges and even rockets, there’s no lack of arsenal to choose from.

The battles themselves are quick affairs that won’t last for more than a couple of minutes at a time, and most of the time the focus is on manoeuvring the ship and prioritizing targets for your gunners. But unlike bomber Crew, Boat Crew makes you control some of the weapons systems, as you’ll be the one aiming and firing the torpedos, manning the anti-tank gun and the mortar as well as the one dropping the depth charges. Do all that at once and you’ll soon be aware of how hectic and exciting battles become.

Final Score: 7/10

Boat Crew, despite all its flaws still manages to keep my attention extremely well, due to an excellent dynamic campaign that’s certainly its highlight, to the point that whenever I have 10 or 15 minutes I’ll always boot it up, fight a mission or two and go back to whatever needs doing. It’s not going to be the PT Boat simulator you’re probably hoping for, but it’s a good take on an aspect of war rarely seen, and one very competent at that.

Pros:

1. Interesting concept and well executed just needs fine-tuning;
2.  The dynamic campaign is easy to get into and will last you a couple dozen hours;
3.  A large amount of PT Boat customization caters to different tactics and playstyles;

Cons:

1. The tough tutorial might put you off from the get-go;
2.  The approach direction to a skirmish should matter more than it does, and it makes no sense that every battle starts as a head-on fight;
3.  Human sailors look like stuffed cloth toys whose eyes refuse to blink, and will stare straight at your soul;

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As the deadline for this review approached, the intention was to dust off my reliable IBM Model M keyboard and type the entire piece for maximum immersion. However, fate had other plans, and writing this review on a modern keyboard somehow feels out of place. On the other hand, a modernized version of Stronghold does not share this sentiment.

• Genre: Real-Time-Strategy
• Developer: FireFly Studios
• Publisher: FireFly Studios
• Release Date: November 7th, 2023
• Price: 14,99€/ $14.99/ £12.99
• Buy at: Steam

If you missed the era when Stronghold first hit the scene, let me paint the picture for you: it was 2001, and I was just a tiny 9-year-old, captivated by games such as Age of Empires II: Age of Kings. But there was something that boggled my mind – a game all about the Middle Ages, kings, knights, and archers, yet it didn’t let you place units on the walls. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Back then, I didn’t have internet access, and game guides (remember those?) were pricey. So, for a good chunk of my life between 1999 and 2001, I was living in confusion, wondering why the walls couldn’t be manned, especially when that seemed like the primary purpose of having a wall in the first place.

This game entered my radar at a local tech store (FNAC) where they had gameplay on loop 24/7. I was immediately hooked. Fast forward a few months, and my cousin and I finally got our hands on a copy of Stronghold. Since then, it’s become one of my all-time favorite games (alongside Crusader), and I still play it religiously every year without fail. Merging these two classics, it’s pretty clear why Stronghold: Definitive Edition will continue the tradition of being installed on every system I own for the next few years. It offers a lot of the same magic, but with the new campaign and a low price of just 15 euros, it’s a no-brainer if you were into the original title two decades ago.

A Strategic Classic From Day One

Stronghold is a real-time strategy game set in medieval England where players assume the role of a Lord or King, overseeing a county or kingdom. The primary objective usually involves developing massive medieval fortifications to defend against enemy attacks or serve as a staging ground for counteroffensives. Essentially, it’s a castle simulation that blends elements from traditional real-time strategy games for combat with tycoon-like aspects, emphasizing the impact of building placement and production chains on the castle’s economy. The game’s charm lies in the myriad possibilities to create the castle of your dreams, incorporating modular walls, stairs, towers, siege equipment, tar-filled pitches, guard dogs, spikes, and more. The Definitive Edition maintains all these features, for better or unfortunately, for worse.

Stronghold: Definitive Edition brings two key updates to the table: new graphics and a fresh campaign. If you’re a die-hard fan of the original game and these are the features you’re after, especially with all the quirks of early 2000s game design, then there’s no need to read on. Get ready to notch your arrows and let them loose!

The original 2D sprites have been replaced by beautifully rendered new models. While the changes from the originals are subtle, they are so well done that they are barely noticeable. In essence, the visual improvements make Stronghold look as good as you might have imagined it to be. You know that feeling when the memory of a game is slightly tainted by nostalgia, and you remember it looking a certain way, but when you boot it up years later, it looks nothing like you imagined? Well, Stronghold: Definitive Edition manages to match exactly how the Stronghold from 2001 exists in your memories. It’s sharp, bright, clean, extremely detailed, and filled with delightful animations that bring every corner to life—the bakers taking bread from the oven, the woodsman flexing when idle, the fletcher diligently crafting the finest longbows. These animations make the game feel lively and visually fulfilling at every turn.

One thing I’m not a big fan of, however, is some of the work done with the unit models. For the most part, they look decent, and the animation smoothness is fantastic. But the macemen, for some reason I cannot explain, just rub me the wrong way. Everyone gets it that the macemen are the Pig’s unit of choice: big, bald, and burly, armed with wild flails (yes, those aren’t maces) and sporting brigandines, they’re a carbon copy of their overlord. In the original, the abstract nature of the unit model left a lot to the imagination, but in the Definitive Edition, it’s so clear that every maceman’s face looks somewhat deformed. It’s a minor complaint, for sure, as everything else looks stellar.

Quality of Life Improvements

Stronghold: Definitive Edition is all about quality of life improvements. Not only did the game get a massive facelift, but the control scheme was adapted for more modernized standards, with the possibility of always using the classic controls if you so choose. As someone who must always use the keyboard and WASD to control the camera, this was a life-changer. The scribe now has a small arrow on the popularity status that allows players to track how happy or discontent the population is with your rule. Maps are bigger, and the unit limit was doubled from 1500 to 3000. Add to this Steam Workshop integration, ultrawide support, other miscellaneous bug fixes, and Stronghold: Definitive Edition is the way to play the game.

One aspect the design team confirmed they would not touch was the game’s AI, and I can only look at this as a missed opportunity. Boot up the original title, command your units to dig a moat, and watch them struggle to shovel dirt at the right location before scattering like recently beheaded chickens. It wasn’t rare, in some campaign missions, to find enemies standing idle while being shot at. And, of course, everybody’s largest Stronghold pet peeve, the lack of any meaningful unit formations and the dreaded single-file of doom.

One other shameful aspect that’s missing is the lack of any skirmish mode. This omission will be a deciding factor as to a big slice of the player base will acquire the game at all, given that the lack of any at-your-disposal and easy to set up scuffles with the artificial intelligence will limit the game’s replayability a lot.

As for the new campaign, it is unapologetically hard and follows the difficulty curve the original campaign had set out. So, if you struggled to defeat the Wolf in the last mission, the first of the new campaign will beat you into submission. It’s a hard nut to crack, and one that is better enjoyed if you have already played the original to get your bearings on the game’s mechanics.

Final Score: 8/10

Stronghold, even nearly a quarter of a century later, still stands as a great strategy game that every enthusiast of the genre should, at least once, experience. It remains a highly enjoyable and timeless game with design decisions that have proven to withstand the test of time. I have little to no doubt that Stronghold Crusader: Definitive Edition is sure to closely follow in its footsteps, and I couldn’t be more excited for it.

Pros:

1. It’s the Stronghold experience impacted and improved in the most fundamental aspects;
2. The new textures are very reminiscent of the original and look amazingly authentic, and the new unit models offer much-needed detail;
3. A new and challenging campaign.

Cons:

1. There’s a fatal lack of skirmish modes;
2. Unit pathfinding is still horrible;
3. AI was not improved, with units sometimes sitting around getting arrows flung at them. They also seem to have a particularly hard time dealing with moats.

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