Old Gamers Never Die: A Look at My World War II PC Game Collection

© 1990 MicroProse Software/MPS Labs and Retroism 

Hello there, Constant Reader! It's Wednesday (Hump Day), November 20, and it's a chilly (by Florida standards anyway) morning in my corner of the world. Currently. it's mostly sunny here, with the temperature at 51℉ (11℃); per the forecast on my Weather app, we are expecting no rain and a high of 72℉ (22℃) later today. This is as fall-like as we've gotten so far in 2019, and after a long hot summer and a tense hurricane season (which, by the by, ends on November 30), it's literally a breath of fresh air.

I was going to try and write a review today, but I woke up a bit too early and I don't think I can pull that rabbit out of my hat, so I'm going to give you one of those "lightweight" list-type blogs till I can get my shit together as a writer.

As a regular reader of A Certain Point of View, you know of my fascination for the Second World War. You also know that this interest in the largest and bloodiest conflict in human history overlaps with another passion of mine: computer gaming.

I've never had either the time or cash to buy a lot of computer games; even now as a middle-aged casual gamer I am choosy about the games I invest time and money into. And because I'm so picky and prefer strategy games and simulators to straight action shoot-'em-ups, my PC game collection is modest.

Right now (late 2019), I only have 19 games installed on my PC. Back in my Golden Age of gaming, I used to have more games than that in floppies. Then, too, I only played games from a few genres, and at least two of the 19 games on my Lenovo PC are either reissues of games I owned in my late 20s and early 30s or (in the case of Sid Meier's Civilization V and VI) sequels.

Of the 19 games I own, 12 are set during World War II. One – Silent Service II – is a simulation of U.S. Navy submarines in the Pacific; the rest are either turn-based strategy games or, in the case of Axis & Allies 1942 Online, an adaptation of a classic board game by Milton Bradley/Avalon Hill.

What follows, Dear Reader, is not a review. It's a list of those WWII-set games I currently own. (Whenever possible, I'll add relevant YouTube videos...if I can find them.)

Across the Rhine (armored warfare in Northwest Europe, 1944-1945): MicroProse Software, 1995:

This was one of the last strategy games that MicroProse produced in the 1990s; I found out about it in one of the last catalogs I received from the company through the mail, but didn't get it until last year through Steam. It's a strange mix of map-based strategy and vehicle simulator, and I rarely play it because it's not as easy to play as its World War III counterpart, M-1 Tank Platoon.

Axis & Allies 1942 Online: a computer version of the classic board game; Breamdog, 2019:

 Battle Academy: a tactical level turn-based game by Slitherine Ltd./Matrix Games, 2010

Gary Grigsby's War in the West: an operational level strategy game that covers WWII from Operation Torch (November 1942) to Operations Overlord, Market-Garden, and beyond (1944-1945); 2by3 Games/Slitherine Ltd., 2017

Hearts of Iron II-IV: From the creators of Europa Universalis, the Hearts of Iron series of grand strategy games set before, during, and shortly after World War II can be described as Civilization meets World War II. Developed by Paradox Development Studio of Sweden, the game allows you to take charge of one of 130 or so nations and guide it through a decade full of conflict; Paradox, 2005-2016

Order of Battle: World War II: A turn-based tactical simulation of World War II, this game from Slitherine/Matrix Games starts out with a free-to-play Boot Camp game, but if you want to play the war itself, you have to pay for additional scenarios. Developed in 2017 by The Artistocrats, the game allows players to play through several campaigns in the European and Pacific Theaters.

Silent Service II: I've reviewed this 1990 World War II sub simulation from MPS Labs/MicroProse before, but I didn't think about adding a YouTube gameplay video. So, to correct that oversight, here you go:

Task Force 1942: Surface Naval Action in the South Pacific: This is another MicroProse game from the 1990s (published, I believe, either in 1992 or '93) that I learned about from brochures and in-game promos in F-15 Strike Eagle III but didn't buy when MS-DOS/Windows games were my go-to form of killing time. I bought it late last year on Steam, but I am not fond of it. I like to have print manuals for this sort of game, and a PDF version is not a good substitute.

Strategic Command WWII: World at War: This game is relatively new; it was published last December by Slitherine Ltd./Matrix Games and developed by Fury Software. I reviewed it last month, so you can read all about it here:

And finally, we have Unity of Command II, a brand-new game from 2X2 Games and developed by that publisher and Croteam, a Croatian software studio. It just came out, and after watching YouTube's thehistoricalgamer play it on his channel, I decided to get it for myself. As the title indicates, this is the sequel to Unity of Command, a turn-based game set on the Eastern Front. This game, though, takes place on the Western Front and includes the North African, Mediterranean, and Northwest Europe campaigns. 

I only bought it yesterday on Steam and I have only completed the tutorials, but as you can see from the video below, it looks cool and is fun to play. (My only quibble is that like most games these days, it's mostly controlled by mouse clicks.)