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Showing posts with the label Strategic Command WWII: World at War

Old Gamers Never Die: I Played Through a 'Regiments' Skirmish as a Red Force Commander - and I Feel Weird About It!

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Sometimes it's interesting to play a wargame from the "enemy" side's perspective. Graphics and game design elements from Regiments are ©2022 Bird's Eye Games and MicroProse  One of the hardest things for me to do as a gamer is to take on the role of an “adversary power” in computer games. Whether the game is single-player (my preferred mode) or multiplayer, and no matter if the setting is historic – such as in Game Labs’ Ultimate General Civil War , MicroProse’s Crusade in Europe, or Killerfish Games’ War on the Sea – or fictional – as in MicroProse’s Regiments or LucasArts’ Star Wars: Rebellion – I tend to avoid playing as the faction generally accepted to be the “bad guys.” In many of the games I own, including the single-player Regiments and Killerfish Games submarine simulation Cold Waters, I can – if I so desire – take on the role of an “enemy” power’s commander. In Cold Waters, for instance, the game allows you to command submarines from the U.S., Sovie...

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

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© 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 a...

Old Gamers Never Die, or: Victory at Last in Strategic Command WWII: World at War

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One down (Germany), two (Finland, Japan) to go: the Allies defeat the Axis' most powerful nation-state in Europe in 1944: Triumph and Tragedy. © 2018 Fury Software/Matrix Games and Slitherine Ltd. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I finally did it: I played a complete scenario in Strategic Command WWII: World At War.... and won. Nemesis: The Western Allies and the Red Army overrun Nazi Germany in the fall of 1945.  ©  2018 Fury Software/Matrix Games and Slitherine Ltd. Yesterday was Sunday; I didn't have any good ideas for a blog post, and because my latest script is now in the hands of the director (Juan Carlos Hernandez), I also didn't have any pressing outside obligations to fulfill, so I took the day off from writing. Even though I used to play computer games when I was younger, I don't devote too much time to gaming as I used to. Yesterday I had plenty of options as far as entertainment was concerned: three new books to read, lots of movies and old TV s...

Computer Game Review: 'Strategic Command WWII: World at War'

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Screenshot of Strategic Command WWII: World at War main menu screen. © Fury Software/Matrix Games/Slitherine Ltd.  On December 6, 2018, British PC game publisher Matrix Games released Strategic Command WWII: World at War, a turn-based grand strategy wargame that depicts the Second World War on every major front from Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1939 to the end of the conflict in the summer of 1945. Developed by Toronto-based Fury Software for Matrix, Strategic Command WWII: World at War (or WAW) is part of the rebooted Strategic Command series that includes Strategic Command WWII: War in Europe, Strategic Command Classic: Global Conflict, and this year's Strategic Command: World War I.  Fury created this long-running series in the late 1990s, publishing its original game, Strategic Command: European Theater in 2002 through Battlefront. WAW is the fifth game in the series and it was designed by Hubert Cater and Bill Runacre, Fury Software's president/lea...

Bloggin' On: Update for Monday, October 28, 2019

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Photo Credit: Pixabay Hi, there, Constant Reader, and welcome to another edition of Bloggin' On, my "random thoughts" corner of A Certain Point of View. It's Monday, October 28, 2019, and my morning is about to make the transition into noon here in my little bit of the Sunshine State. Currently, the weather here is still summery. Outside, it's hot; the temperature is 85℉ (29℃), but a limp easterly breeze and humidity levels at 80% makes it feel like it's 96℉ (35℃). With Halloween only three days away, these high temperatures certainly do not feel seasonal at all, not even for Florida. So, last night Donald Trump and his entourage, including his trophy wife Melania, attended Game 5 of the World Series at Nationals Park in Washington, DC. Ordinarily, this would not be newsworthy since most modern Presidents often attend pro sports games if they take place in Washington or adjacent cities. What makes it worth mentioning here, folks, is that Trump rece...

Bloggin' On: My Fall Reading List & Not-So-Random Thoughts

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Image by Lubos Houska, Pixabay Hello again and welcome to another installment of Bloggin' On, an occasional feature here in A Certain Point of View where I'll just prattle on about stuff that doesn't fall into the established categories of my blog (namely, reviews, political commentary, or updates about my literary or film projects). It's Friday, October 25, 2019, and it's a typically warm and muggy "fall" morning here in my corner of Florida. Currently, the temperature outside is 82℉ (28℃) under partly sunny skies. The humidity level is 85%, giving us an "endless summer" feels-like temperature of 91℉ (33℃). I' should try to get out and get fresh air and sunlight, but I'm not fond of humid heat, so I'll just stay indoors in the cool confines of my current domicile. So, what am I reading this month, you ask? Take a seat, relax, and enjoy your favorite beverage while I share my October reading list. Okay, so recently I finis...

Bloggin' On: Autumn 'House Cleaning' at A Certain Point of View

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Photo: Pixabay Hello again and welcome to A Certain Point of View. It's a nice Wednesday afternoon here in my corner of Florida; currently, it's 79℉ (26℃) under sunny skies. We may see the temperatures rise a couple of degrees (81℉/27℃) by late afternoon, but it's definitely not a bad day to go out and get a bit of sun and fresh air. I had hoped to have that long-promised review of Strategic Command WWII: World at War at least half-way done by now, but I haven't played the game in a couple of days and I don't believe I could give you a decent review based on my experiences to date. So if anyone out there is eagerly waiting for my opinion about Strategic Command WWII: World at War (or WAW ), please be patient. I'll write a review as soon as possible. I also don't have anything to offer on the political commentary side of the blog. I used to find inspiration for my political "stuff" at Quora, but I stopped writing there last week and now co...

Weekend Update, October 19, 2019

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Main menu screen from Strategic Command WWII: World at War. © 2018 Fury Software/Slitherine Ltd. Hello again and welcome to another edition of A Certain Point of View. It's Saturday, October 19, 2019, and it's a cloudy afternoon here in my little corner of the Sunshine State. Well, I had hoped to have a new review of either  Strategic Command WWII: World at War, a World War II-themed turn-based strategy game that was released by Slitherine Ltd. last winter, or Douglas Brinkley's book  American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race.  However, while I have played World at War in dribs and drabs, I still don't feel confident that I can write a review that will do the game justice. I've played a few rounds as Germany (letting the game's artificial intelligence play Italy and Japan for me) in the scenario titled 1939 World at War ; in one instance, I managed to play well into the summer of 1941 and the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. Yet, even...

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You: Upcoming Posts for 'A Certain Point of View'

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Screenshot of Strategic Command WWII: World at War. © 2018 Fury Software/Slitherine Ltd.  Hi, everyone! Welcome to today's "upcoming events" blog post in A Certain Point of View. As the weekend approaches, I'd like to let you know what my plans are regarding content and the future of this blog. In the near future, I'll try to focus my attention on writing reviews and back off from writing about politics, the conservative/liberal divide, and Donald Trump. This will probably result in a slow-down as far as creating blog posts since much of my energies as of late were spent writing about the toxic political scene at home and abroad. Additionally, I closed my Quora account this morning, and because most of my Trump-related content was derived from my answers on that site, I'll be forced to come up with new material that will be exclusive to A Certain Point of View if I have any hopes of getting any income from AdSense and Google. So, Constant Reader, I don...

Old Gamers Never Die: First Impressions of 'Strategic Command WWII: World at War'

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The Strategy Map in Strategic Command: WWII: World at War. © 2018 Fury Software/Slitherine Ltd. Okay, so I've been trying out Strategic Command WWII: World at War, a relatively new (it was released by Britain's Slitherine Games last December) computer game based on the Second World War. I haven't devoted a lot of time to playing this strategic-level wargame because I do have to write every day, but so far I've played it enough to give you at least a few first impressions. As you can see from the screenshot above, this is not a first-person shooter game a la Call of Duty or Medal of Honor ; it's a global-warfare level game where land combat is fought by corps- or army-sized units, with maybe a few independent armored, mechanized, and supporting arms units tossed in for good measure. Only in naval warfare do we see one-on-one duels between individual warships and subs, albeit in a stylized "board game" kinda way. The game has different unit di...