A is for Alphabetised wargame and sim news. Every four weeks or so I hang up a streamer of industrial strength fly paper in The Flare Path dunny and see what wargame and simulation news stories stick to it. Below is this month’s bag – 25 bite-size stories involving virtual vehicles and surrogate slaughter. If you wince when someone calls a locomotive a train, and can put these three battles – Ticonderoga, Tarawa, Trebia – in chronological order, you should probably click where it says…
]]>Making bold statements about titles you've never played is a recipe for disaster in my line of work. I only do it when the risk of being wrong is infinitesimal. I can, for instance, tell you that waging war in Field of Glory: Empires is far more interesting than waging war in Imperator: Rome despite never having played the Paradox game. What I'm not prepared to do - not yet anyway - is tell you that Slitherine's offering is more interesting and flavoursome in peacetime too, although I suspect that may indeed be the case.
]]>A is for Another Automobilista. Automobilista, the sim that stormed to victory in the single-player portion of the inaugural Flare Path Grand Prix (a popularity contest for race sims) is to get a sequel in December and interestingly the sequel will rely on an engine last seen in Project CARS 2. As Reiza explained to www.racedepartment.com, the graphical prowess and “smooth as butter” fluency of Slightly Mad's engine were a major attraction, as was the prospect of unrestricted code access. From statements like "We didn´t actually have access to the rF2 code beyond information that Studio-397 would supply to us on a need-to-know basis to get our content to work in their engine." it sounds like the Brazilian devs weren't completely happy with their previous engine provider.
]]>Recently discovered, along with a silver-plated Luger, Shergar's noseband, and a 1940 copy of Razzle, in a hidden wall safe during a house demolition in Eastbourne, Neville Novichok's Wings Over the Reich memoirs were described as “vivid”, “utterly compelling” and “very cheap” by the bloke I purchased them from in the Dog and DUKW yesterday night. Though the few pages I've read thus far don't really justify such enthusiastic adjectives, they should make a passable Flare Path.
]]>The mighty Tirpitz spent most of her short life skulking in Norwegian fjords. Fuel shortages and Kriegsmarine caution meant she never braved the Denmark Strait or traded shells with a truly worthy opponent. To get a feel for what the Bismarck's sister ship might have achieved had she been employed more aggressively, you need a game like Command of the Sea.
]]>War-weary after fourteen days of communal Combat Mission battle reports? Today's competition and collection of news stories probably won't help. Apart from a bit of Deadstick pre-alpha footage, and a poor-quality phone snap of two de Havilland beauties I encountered on a recent excursion, everything in today's FP indirectly celebrates state-sanctioned murder.
]]>We asked a handful of our contributors to put together a list of their three favourite games from 2017. Their picks are running across the week while the rest of RPS slumbers.
Having just re-read all 51 of this year's Flare Paths carefully noting when and where words like 'lovely', 'compelling' and 'clever' were used, I now know for sure what my Favourite Games of 2017 are. It turns out that although Tank Warfare: Tunisia is 55% 'lovelier' than Steel Division: Normandy, Diesel Railcar Simulator is 113% 'nicer' than Train Sim World, and Venti Mesi is 33% 'more memorable' than Way of Defector, none of them have quite enough 'magic', 'charm' and 'personality' to displace the three evening-eaters described below.
]]>For the past decade GIANTS Software has had the farming sim sector pretty much to itself. None of the competing agri offerings that have arrived in the years since FS2008 first lowered a plough and spreadeagled a sprayer have succeeded in loosening the Swiss stranglehold. Might Cattle and Crops have what it takes? Now approximately a month away from a Steam Early Access release, C&C's not-so-secret weapons are physics, mud, and weather. Developer Masterbrain Bytes want to remind us why tractors are such stocky fellows and why they wear such big boots.
]]>Subtle slope textures and a lack of unit bases and battle replays make Field of Glory II a tricky wargame to After Action Report. I can't promise that today's aggro account will be easy to follow, but I'll be mortified if it baffles and bores. The fabulous FoGII is to tedium what Domestos, the Greek god of sanitaryware, is to all known germs. Any wargame correspondent that suggests otherwise deserves to be thrown to the lions.
]]>If ever a game demanded a 'II' rather than a '2' at the end of its name it's the fast-approaching Field of Glory sequel. Packed with legionaries, triarii, hastati, and velites, FoGII takes the engine last seen in Sengoku Jidai and Pike and Shot - an engine Flare Path rates highly - rethinks campaigns, removes gunpowder, and adds a sprinkling of chariots, jumbos, camels and ballistae. What could possibly go wrong?
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