Computer + Video Games - Commodore Is Awesome

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Bastogne
road-block
during the
battle of the
Bulge. The player
takes either side
aginst a computerised
or human opponent, and a
handicapping system allows
beginners the chance to win.
The key to successful
command at this level is
''thinking two down" — the
Corps commander gives orders
through his two or three
divisions to the regiments
underneath.
The program allows access to
reports on the state of the
regiments at the end of each
six-hour move (one in four of
which is normally spent
asleep!) by a simple menudriven
system which takes an
hour or so to master.
After that each of the
scenarios can be got through in
two or three hours for six to ten
game days. The Corps
commander learns how to
judge the state of his regiments
from information on casualties,
supply arid fatigue, and to give
air support and extra divisional
resources where they are
needed,
The game is strong on
realism, keeping the player t(J
his own view point while
occasionally reminding him
that the troops on the ground
may not agree with it!
The game's one weak point is
its graphics, which are horrible.
The map is an almost
meaningless jumble of hexes
and hard-to-read symbols
(printed black-on-black in
places) which scrolls in a
manner guaranteed to cause
the user headaches.
Also, while the two island
scenarios are good the others
have the problem of Corps
command, artificially restricting
movement within the area of
the map while important things
may be happening just out of
sight. But, if you don't like these
games, design your own!
As with Carriers at War, the
program allows the player to
construct his own scenarios,
adding scenery to the map and
specifying the strength of each
battalion. The possibilities are
endless,
Sea war and air war are,
largerly, matters of machines.
Land war has always been even
more a matter of terrain and
people, and so is very much
harder to model on the
computer. Battlefront is a very
good attempt, but it is not the
perfect game that it might have
bee
-
GRAPHICS
4
PLAYABILITY
7
11. REALISM
Ir. VALUE
8
CARRIERS AT WAR
P. MACHINES: CBM 64/APPLE
le
SOFTWARE/STRATEGIC
,
STUDIES
GROUP
SP.
PRICE: E29.95
Ulo•
VERSION RESTED: CBM64
PYour
Japanese carrier task force
Pbears
down, through the
darkness L before dawn on 7th
December 1941, on the
I
E
NOUMEA
clear
S i r
b
e rSELECT
unsuspecting American fleet at
Pearl Harbor.
You check the intelligence
plot — they are still at Pearl,
nothing reported in the other
harbours, nothing at sea or in
the air. The weather is clear,
although there is cloud to the
east and the prediction is for
squats, You check the course
and speed of your carriers.
Three hours before dawn.
You order the aircraft to arm,
and 15 minutes later reports
show feaverish activity on the
T
R
A
T
E
G
I
C
P
L
dirdem
*
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-
Vt.
1.
1
1
.
a EMERY
t7
"
SASE
hanger decks_ Af first light to
give the target and launch the
strike. The ticking clock shows
its progress, but you can only
guess until the first aircraft
return wth tales of sinking
battleships. How accurate are
they? You order a second strike,
and redirect part of it to the
American airfields. Finally, as
1the
last strike is recovered, you
turn and steam for home.
This in itself would be an
excellent wargame, but it is
only the teaching scenario for
Carriers at War, from the
Australian design team of
Roger Keating and Ian Trout.
The player takes either side
against the computer or
another player not only at Pearl
but at Coral Sea, Midway, the
Solomons, Santa Cruz and the
Philippine Sea.
TOBRUK
CLASH OF
1011150NE:AMSTitar'
le SUPPLIER: PSS
PRICE: f9.95
his member of the i'SS
Wargamers series runs on the
Amstrad only. It is mis-named,
since it deals with Rommel's
offensive against the Gazala
line in May 1942, with Tobruk as
the final objective.
The player has only the
choice of German forces
against the computer, but two
can play with linked Amstrads.
The game is good in its
handling of strategy problems,
The Germans are given variable
air support and moving supply
dumps to stress the importance
of supply for this kind of
warfare,
The graphics are among the
best I've seen for representing
military formations in the
desert. The problem is that it's
ever too soon. You can only
take one side in one battle of the
war.
The reason for this is that all
the extra program memory has
gone into an optinal feature a
-• • • • • •
we n
GRAPHICS
▪ PLAYABILITY
lb. REALISM
▪ VALUE
Merr 1
NAPOLEON AT WAR
P. MACHINE: SPECTRUM
le SUPPLIER: CCS
le. PRICE; EL%
Ken Wright, author of Waterloo
and Austerlitz, has moved from
lothlorien to CCS for his latest
Napoleonic battle, the littleknown
draw against the
Russians at Eylau on 8th
February 1807.
It uses similar mechanisms to
his two previous games, but is
improved by a few extra
features. Artillery is represented
separately this time, and on the
big battlefield of Eylau the
devolved command system, by
which the player leaves Corps
commanders in charge of their
own forces, works rather better
than in previous games. At
least, the Marshals of France do
fewer stupid things.
But the game is still very
limited, and rather poor value.
You get no choice of scenario,
no choice of terrain, no choice
of side, no choice of starting
position, and no re-run facility,
All you have left is the chance
to give the French side orders.
Unfortunately, the combat
mechanism seems to involve
such a large random factor that
whether they win or lose has
almost nothing to do with the
You need a disk drive
and your own disks, and the
game isn't cheap, but neither is
a Rolls Royce. The designers
say they have somehow
crushed 80K of machine code
into the program, and the result
is a naval wargame such that I
have seen nothing to compare
with it.
IA. GR APH I C S
7
st• puyAsitiry
9
b. REALISM 10
VALUE 8
THE
ARMOUR
tank simulator. The designers
call this an arcade option, but
it's more than that.
Nor is it as out of place as it
seems in a strategy game —
Rommel frequently left his
headquarters with plans for the
battle and led from the front in a
command tank (although I
doubt if he personally fired on
as many British tanks as this
game allows!)
Attempts to mix strategy and
shooting in games usually don't
work very well — this is one of
the better ones.
ID. GRAPHICS
11. PLAYAS-WM
11. REALISM
VALUE
orders you do give them.
One result of this is, oddly, to
make Napoleon at War slightly
more playable.
Eylau was a confused battle,
with re-inforcements for both
sides arriving at odd moments
throughout the day (this is not
represented in the game, by the
way). At the end it was a messy
and hard-fought draw, which
amounted to a strategic defeat
for Napoleon, who needed to
keep on advancing. The
arbitrary nature of the combat
system means that while
Austerlitz, Napolion's greatest
victory, is virtually unwinable,
Eylau, a battle he virtually lost,
stands quite a good chance of
being won.
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