Games That Never Were - Harpoon 4

Harpoon was the first computer game that I became addicted to. I would go to my friend Jerry’s dorm room, boot it up and sink a Yankee fleet or two. The more realistic but less user friendly Harpoon 2 left me cold, but I bought Harpoon Classic – the first game with all the battlesets ever made for it – the moment I saw it on a shelf at Computer City. The thrill of steering an Oscar sub into the middle of a carrier group and unleashing hell just never got old.

The sad story of Harpoon 4, then, is one that longtime grognards like me know by heart. It’s a tale of business consolidation, one man’s single-minded desire to bring a game to life and how the fading of wargames as a viable genre means that a game can be in production for six years and still have nothing to show for it.

When Larry Bond posted this message on the Ubisoft page devoted to the game, most hope was already lost. The work on Harpoon 4 began in 1997 at SSI and Mattel. The original launch date was someday in 1999 and, by the appearance of the game in this preview, it was well on its way to completion.

In its initial design, the game would be very similar to the classic Harpoon. The unit icons look very similar and the much touted 3D mode would be used very sparingly by most players. It wouldn’t be eye-candy; it would be an alternate view that would privilege utility over glitz. There would be a pseudo-dynamic campaign in which fleet losses would carry over from scenario to scenario.

The first delay came when SSI changed development teams in late 1998. Crusaders’ Studios was replaced by Ultimation, the developers of Panzer Commander. The official reason was the original group was not a “good fit”. How ill a fit? So ill-fitted that most of the code written by Crusaders was scrapped even though some of the design decisions were kept. Press reports give the impression that Crusader Studios had begun to push for a greater emphasis on the 3D component at the expense of the rest of the project.

The change in teams meant a further delay, though there was still hope that the game would get released in 2000. That deadline came and went. And, in spite of the early worries that 3D was becoming too prominent, whatever screenshots were released tended to highlight the 3D aspects of the game.

The next major shock to Harpoon 4 was the sale of SSI by Mattel to French gaming behemoth Ubisoft in early 2001. Ubisoft decided that it had little interest in pursuing Harpoon 4 – completely understandable considering the state of wargames in the mass market. To paraphrase Bill Gates by way of the Simpsons, Ubisoft didn’t become rich by writing a lot of checks. Ubisoft was more interested in pursuing World War 2 wargames and a modern naval simulation just didn’t make good business sense, no matter how distinguished its pedigree.

By April 2001, though, a bright spot appeared on the horizon. Ubisoft had a change of heart, probably because of the continuing lobbying and commitment of Larry Bond, the brainchild behind the original boardgame and driving force behind the computer series. The mini-crisis of cancellation and renewal undoubtedly delayed production even further.

Fast forward to 2002. At that year’s E3, Executive Producer Carl Norman told Jeff Vitous and Mario Kroll of Wargamer.Com that Harpoon 4 would ship by Christmas “if it kills us.” In an open letter to their fans, Larry Bond promised that the game would be done, though the interface would have to be rewritten. Screenshots that appeared on Gamespot early the next year showed little improvement or even change since the termination of Crusader Studios, though, so if they were not using Crusader code at this point, the similarity of look raised more questions than it answered. Did they revert to Crusader code? If not, did they just keep their interface? And why does the game still look stuck in 1998 four years later? True grognards care little about graphics, but the game was supposed to be a simulation hit that would bring in new gamers to Ubisoft’s wargaming projects. Clearly, a lot of old screenshots are mixed with a few new ones – very few. And the only obviously new shots are of the 3D engine. Any E3 demo was behind closed doors and was very incomplete.

By the end of 2003, the troubled production came to an end. Ubisoft pulled the plug on the game, and despite Bond’s public commitment to keep the dream alive, we hear nothing one year later.

Harpoon 4 could have been the greatest naval sim ever – it even promised multiplayer – but it appears never to have really moved beyond the planning stage. Seven years of promises and speculation have doomed games before (Does anybody really expect Duke Nukem Forever to be any good? Or Grimoire?) But for a wargame to go through these dramatics with no immediate pay offs is suicide.

You could blame the chaotic corporate environment. First, you change developers, and the new ones just don’t seem to be very productive (few screenshots or even concept art, so I think this is a fair judgment). Then your wargame heavy parent company, SSI, is bought out by a game maker with an iffy commitment to your project. Eventually you persuade them to stick with you but you are facing an uphill battle with a real life naval simulation about a global conflict that never happened, and probably never will.

Blaming the suits is the easy way out. The more you read the dismal tale, the more apparent it is that there is no wizard behind the curtain. Promises, promises and little else. The repetitive screenshots are mostly mockups – not real screens – and after six years you have nothing to show journalists that might keep people talking about your game. In an industry that moves as quickly as the gaming business, buzz is everything and buzz means that you have to keep showing people something. In the end, Harpoon 4 had nothing to show anyone.

Simply put, niche genres like wargames can’t afford to take forever to make, especially if you want to make a high end product that requires the deep pockets of a major publisher. If you are willing to invest your own time and money and take you chances with Matrix Games or Battlefront you have a much better chance of success than by depending on the whims of a large gaming house that needs to justify the continued existence of every project.

The lesson is simple. Produce or die.

Sid Meier is ruining my life - again

Thanks to Sid Meier and his minions, I am losing hours of my life playing a game that I already played to death ten years ago. Sid Meier's Pirates! is consuming time like no game I have played this year, including Rome: Total War. And it shouldn't.

First, this is a remake. I don't think anyone is as tired of game designers going back to the tried as true as I am, and few studios are mining the past as effectively as Firaxis. Civ IV is on the way, Civ III was a major success and Pirates is on a lot of top ten lists. Where are the new ideas from the only guy who has earned his name on every box? We had Sid Meier's SimGolf...and nothing else in a while.

Second, this is one of the most repetitive games on the market. Sail, duel, dance, sail, duel, dance. Ad infinitum. The map doesn't change, the cinematics don't change, the menus don't change. I just criticized a game in a review for having scenarios that are too identical. Pirates is the poster child for identical gameplay.

Third, it's not really a strategy game. This is an action-RPG - well outside of my bailiwick. Most of the games that really eat my days involve conquering the world, not courting buxom lasses.

Still, it is the most hypnotically replayable game to come out in a long time, largely because of its old-school familiarity and ease of play. You don't need to understand a lot of rules, but the manual is still thick and readable - with a little bit of humor. Even after you've retired seven or eight times, you want to keep coming back to find that last hidden relative or sack Panama.

It's so old school, so primitive in its basic gameplay that I feel like driving the ninety minute to Hunt Valley to smack someone. Now if only they'd channel some of that energy into something I haven't seen before.

The Spanish Main is calling...

A search for good writers

Game Daily Biz is searching for the best gaming writers in the world for recognition. There doesn't seem to be any cash prize or anything; just a chance for writers to be recognized for the stuff they do.

I'd take this chance to list all my favorite game writers, but I'd be sure to leave someone out. And, since I work with some of these people, that would not be cool. This request for nominations does raise the obvious question: What makes someone a good writer about video/computer games?

1. No inside jokes. Running jokes are OK. Tom Chick references his imaginary friend Trevor in his monthly columns for CGM and his irregular must read Shoot Club stories. But inside jokes that refer to things that other reviewers or co-workers do are just annoying, especially in a review. Thankfully, this is not as common as it used to be, a sign that the writing side of the biz is getting more professional about what is and is not important to the reader.

2. Avoid the cliches. "If you like this sort of game, you will like this sort of game." Scraplines that reference "Kung-Fu Fighting" or "Lions and Tigers and Bears!" "It's like Pac Man meets Planescape!" Some journalistic lingo is unavoidable, but try to break out of the box.

3. Put the game you are talking about in the context of similar games or games from the same developers. Sure, everyone knows Civilization or Age of Empires. But if you are talking about yet another WWII RTS, compare it to some of the hundred others that came out that year. The rating you assign - be it in stars or percentages - won't be enough to give the reader any idea how it differs or which he/she should buy.

4. Grow up. Sex and booze and weed and cartoons are not always as interesting to the reader as you think they are.

5. Proofread, please. I'll admit to not being as good at this as I used to be. And my editors are used to my stuff being good enough that proofreading is not needed. But I goof up sometimes. I repeat words and constructions, I leave out key words, I misspell stuff. Make a lot of mistakes and readers will begin to think that anybody can do this job.

5. Remember that almost anybody can do this job. It doesn't take a lot of skill to play a game or interview a developer and make people believe that you have half a clue what is going on. Which makes it even more shocking that there are full-time staffers on magazines and websites that constantly leave me gasping for breath at their latest absurd statement or unqualified generalization. Being a good writer - someone the reader will trust - doesn't mean making the reader think he/she is lesser than you, but it does mean conveying the idea that what you have to say is especially interesting more often than not. After all, most of us who write about games part-time were just in the right place at the right time.

6. Know the history. I don't mean that the only qualfied writers are those who've been gaming for fifteen years. Nor does it mean that a new gamer has nothing interesting to say. Kyle Orland has a point when he says (as he often does) that there needs to be more room for casual gamers on the journalistic side of the industry - we need to know what makes this group tick. But just as you would look askance at a sportswriter who didn't know who Ty Cobb was, or a film critic who thinks that Gladiator is the ultimate sword-and-sandal movie, a serious game journalist who doesn't know that wargames, flight sims and adventure game used to be the big moneymakers probably can't be trusted to know how quickly the indsutry can change and why.

Six simple rules that we can expect. Maybe someday I'll have the guts to list my top ten writers in this field. You can always check the links on the left to blogs that I read regularly, so you have a sneak peek at the short list. Feel free to fill the comment box with your own thoughts.

Settlers again

Check out my friend Jim9137's opinion on the changes to Settlers. He's a bigger fan of the series than I am and seems to be a little more upset. Anyway, it's a good read.

Essential 50 my ass.

1up.com has recently completed their list of the essential 50 video games. This is not about the best, but supposedly about the most important.

The whole point of lists is to argue about them, so 1up.com can't expect everyone to agree with their choices. After all, with all the games out there, choosing the most important ones is neither easy nor obvious.

The list has only four strategy games on it: M.U.L.E., Populous, Herzog Zwei and The Sims. The best selling genre of all time, and only four titles. That's fine, I guess. There aren't many sports games on the list, and importance is importance regardless of the genre.

It's the absence of certain titles that is really surprising. Where is SimCity, the first game to demonstrate that software toys and sandbox games could be huge hits? Where is Civilization, the landmark strategy game that opened up new worlds for so many people?

Even the choice of Herzog Zwei is curious. First, the idea that it is the first RTS is probably debatable. Even more debatable is the idea that "first" is the same as "important". Warcraft II or Age of Empires had a more lasting affect on the industry simply through their success and are not necessarily descended from Herzog Zwei.

What's with Dragon's Lair? Sure, it was a hit at the time, but it has had next to no influence on how adventure or arcade games are made (thank, God.)

And where are the flight sims? Dying genre now, but the bread and butter of the industry for a long time.

Time to work on a counter list - the 50 essential strategy games. Feel free to pitch in.

Settlers V and the costs of franchising

The Settlers: Heritage of Kings has just been released. Since it is a Settlers game, you can count on it selling millions copies no matter what, right?

Well, maybe not. This is the most realistic looking Settlers yet, and that may not be a good thing. Whatever limited charm the early games had, a lot of it was rooted in the idea that you were building a sim-Smurf village. Your denizens were cartoonish and your city would develop around them as they went about their work. Most veteran Settlers players won't even recognize it.

As I download the demo and look at the screenshots and unit descriptions it becomes evident that this is not your older brother's Settlers. They've tacked on a sort of plot, included hero units and added buildings straight out of a fantasy setting.

None of this is to say that Heritage of Kings will be a bad game. Like many people on this side of the pond, I never got the appeal of the original games all that much. This might actually be an improvement. But is it Settlers?

In an industry that has become increasingly reliant on franchises and series, it's kind of disheartening to see a popular franchise title hijacked to buttress the prospects of what is, by all appearances, a completely different city-building game. There seems to be a lot more emphasis on the combat and conquest stuff (always important, but understated) plus the inclusion of magic and heroes on a much larger scale.

So, you have to ask yourself how the Settlers name even got attached to this project. Even when there was a legal battle over who owned the rights to the name Civilization, the games involved all looked like Civilization. (Well, not Advanced Civilization, oddly enough.) Calling this a Settlers game is like making a new Monkey's Island game that didn't have any pirates or jokes in it.

The thing is, most of the designers and developers have a history at Blue Byte Software and are familiar with (or even worked on) the Settlers games. Still, they decided to go a completely different route - one not lined with cartoon characters toddling along but one with realistic avatars and dark magics.

It's their franchise, of course, and they have every right to take it in whatever direction they choose. But you have to wonder what the value of a franchise name is if it just gets attached to a game with only a passing resemblance to what went on before. Settlers is cartoony; that's what it always has been and always will be for me. Heritage of Kings looks to be another game altogether.

DIY Games review update

My review of Outpost Kaloki is now up at DIYgames. There are a few grammatical errors in the review, all my fault, but the gist of the review is clear. I love this little game, mostly because it taps in to my sense of humor. This is not ha-ha funny, but it is just silly enough to keep a smile on my face.

Where's my Gettysburg?

There was a time not so long ago when games based on the American Civil War were everywhere you looked. A lot of the Battleground games were set in the Civil War (the rest were Napoleonic) and probably half of the early wargames were set in the great confict that has defined American history.

Lately, though, the Civil War has fallen off the radar of game designers. You can point to Sid Meier's civil war games as the last great games based on the war. Gods and Generals, a terrible game based on the boring movie of the same name, was probably the last high profile game connected to it.

Why the decline in civil war games? It can't be because there is no interest in it. Civil war books and TV documentaries are still very popular and I doubt any war is as consistently re-enacted. You can't argue that there is no more room to mine this particular war for ideas, since that hasn't stopped anyone from making games based on World War II, an equally familiar and eternally popular war.

Who knows what sparks trends. The explosion of games based on ancient history can be tied to the success of the movie Gladiator and the commercial triumph of Age of Empires, one of the biggest hits of all time. Similarly, WWII became a more popular subject for gaming after the visceral Saving Private Ryan. The civil war hasn't been in the pop culture radar for a while, even though people still find it fascinating.

In an industry where the success of Grand Theft Auto is interpreted to mean that people want more driving games and the sales of World of Warcraft will be used to justify yet another high fantasy MMOG, the lack of a single recent civil war hit game only retards the desire of game designers to make Sim Chancellorsville or Battlefield: Vicksburg.

Fortunately, MadMinute Games is trying to rectify this with Bull Run: Take Command 1861. This game will probably fly under a lot of people's radar because it has the History Channel logo on it. So, gamers will just see it as your typical edutainment game with no staying power. The fact that it is being priced as a budget title will do more to limit its appeal to hardcore gamers, most of whom see price and quality as being perfectly correlated. (I'm not denying that most budget titles are average or below average games, but you will find your share of gems.)

I haven't had a chance to try Bull Run yet. I saw an early build at last year's GDC and it looked almost finished, though I had serious reservations about the interface. Hopefully this will be the first of many more wargames based on the period.

Updated CGM reviews

Just added my latest published review to the archive link on the right hand side. My very negative review of Golemlabs' Superpower 2 was published in the latest issue. It is also quoted in the 2004 year end wrap up since Superpower 2 was named the fifth worst game of the year.

It's hard to overestimate my bewilderment with people who enjoy the Superpower series. They certainly have the right to their opinions and it is not my job to tell them what is and what is not fun.

It is my job to tell them that SP2 is a dog's breakfast of statistics that may or may not matter, improbable movements of troops and diplomacy that seems to be an afterthought more than anything else.

In the right game, none of this would matter. In fact, if Golemlabs' press releases were the only sources of their hyperbole, none of this would matter. But when you put your claims to realism in everything you do, the world you build better have some semblance of reality. If you keep calling your game a simulation and wacky stuff keeps happening, you are better off just calling it a game.

And for the record, the CIA Factbook is not a classified source. Stop implying that it is.

Something in the way you move

I recently acquired a copy of Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord, the Battlefront classic tactical game set in Europe after D-Day. Think of it as X-Com with Nazis if that helps. After having spent hour after hour with the more recent Combat Mission: Afrika Korps, CMBO is a real step backward in terms of interface, usability, command options and mission variety. Frankly, once you've played CMAK, there is no real reason to go back.

Still, in spite of myself, I am having the time of my life thanks to a couple of friends who also have CMBO. This means multiplayer. And multiplayer is the only way to play wargames.

Every wargame should have a strong single player component, of course. In fact, I would argue that every strategy game should emphasize single player since a single session can take a long time in some games, and even the lunch break type games (like Rise of Nations) need to be booted up without fussing to find a friend.

I have come to conclusion that wargames are something different. And it has nothing to do with the AI.

In fact, the Combat Mission games have pretty good AI. Though a little prone to suicidal charges up hill, it knows how to set and ambush and where to lob its mortar shells. Give it a small advantage and it will put up a good fight. Not every wargame is so lucky, of course, but the limitations of the genre mean that CPU intelligence is not that hard to work out.

I have come to the tentative conclusion that wargames are among the most personal of games. Even if they take place on large battlefields (like some of the scenarios in the Operational Art of War series), the mental space can be quite small. With very little scenery to distract you and limited sound, the war becomes your world. Plop in even rudimentary 3D units, like in Combat Mission, and you *are* there. And there is still limited stimuli around you.

Now you add in a human opponent. I don't buy that humans are inherently more unpredictable than good AI, at least in wargames. Some of the guys I play have certain tendencies that I can count on. But humans add a mirror to your own involvement in the war game.

And nothing beats the aftermath once a hard fought skirmish is done. It's like swapping war stories, only you get to have full intelligence. "Yeah, I thought I had you but then your bazooka killed my Panther." "That was my final rocket, too. If he missed, that would have been it for me." etc.

This is certainly possible in other genres, but it loses something. The debriefings after an Age of X game often boil down to who should have grabbed which gold mine or whether the tower rush should be banned the next time around. It's hard to keep up the energy for a multi-week Europa Universalis type of game, so players peter out or choose to throw their lot in with another player, often leading to hard feelings.

In wargames, it's just you and the other guy. None of the backstabbing that you get in other strategy games. There is a good guy and a bad guy, and you can talk about the battle afterwards like gentleman. It's two sided. It's collegial. It's the only way to play.

More ancient battle goodness

And so it continues. Stainless Steel Studios, the developer behind Empire Earth and Empires: Dawn of the Modern World have announced Rise and Fall of Civilizations at War.

The ancients gaming trend seems to be continuing strong in spite of the disastrous public reception of Oliver Stone's Alexander biopic and the dominating presence of Rome: Total War on the gaming landscape.

Judging by the trailer on IGN, it looks a lot like Rome, complete with armored elephants tossing soldiers around like ragdolls. (Question: Why do these games insist on making these historically impractical weapons of war the sword and sandal equivalent of Panzer divisions?). The inclusion of naval combat looks promising, and there is supposed to be a hero based combat system. It will be ahistorical, so look for Alexander and Caesar to go toe to toe in the sands of time.

No release date yet. And they have to finish Empire Earth 2.

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Yet Another Ancient Game

The ancient strategy trend continues with the announcement of Sparta: Ancient Wars from an unnamed international developer, to be published by IMC. From the two screenshots, it looks great. In fact, the announcement seems very heavy on plugging the game's graphics.

It looks vaguely like Pyro Studios' Praetorians. But it looks to have more traditional RTS elements. One of the screenshots seems to have a couple of peasants walking around.

Gaming News?

Can anyone clue me in as to how the renewal of Battlestar Galactica remotely qualifies as gaming news? I'm not going to tell another site what's important and what's not, but the contract renewal of a sci-fi program is not game related. Given the number of army shooters out there, news from Iraq qualifies as gaming news more than the continuing production of a show with no related game.

But, once again, this reinforces the place of gaming in so-called geek culture. If you game, you must like science fiction, you probably role play and know a lot of about comics. Somehow, these hobbies and interests have become inseparably linked in the minds of people who write about games.

Are these connections still typical, though? One could certainly argue that the "geeks" of the early 80s were the early adopters of computer and video games. But now I find it hard to sustain that stereotype. Most of the gamers I know have no interest in Star Trek and less in Battlestar Galactica. I certainly don't buy comics - never have - though I will confess to reading my college roommate's Spiderman comics.

Maybe Evil Avatar is staffed by a bunch of geeks who are really interested in this stuff. But please don't tell me that it's gaming news.

Games that never were: Pantheon

This is the first in a series of articles on strategy games that never got finished. I am doing this to show not just what we are missing out on, but to point out what kinds of games never get the funding they need.

Pantheon was to be Frog City's next game after their historical business sim Trade Empires. In fact, if you look at the existing game art for Pantheon the debt to Trade Empires is obvious. The buildings look very similar to those in TE - even the landscape is reminiscent of it. The gameplay promised in Pantheon was to be more Populous than Capitalism, more Majesty than Age of Empires.

In Pantheon, the player would start with a single Olympian deity and then build a pantheon (naturally) of at most three more. With these gods, the player would compete for worshippers against a rival collection of gods and goddesses. Think of it as The Iliad come to life on your PC screen. The gods muck about in the affairs of men, do favors for their worshippers and smite the unfaithful.

This Computer Games preview is the best single article still available on this lost gem. As it makes clear, this game was about divine intervention but also about creating a core of worshippers who could fend for themselves. Like the favor resource in Age of Mythology, your gods' actions would be limited by the amount of ambrosia that they had collected. Priests would work to make sure that your divine ego was stroked, heroes would undertake quests to further the cause of your people and your citizens would worship you so long as you were a constant presence in their lives.

Of course, Pantheon was never made. No publisher could be found and Frog City was last seen making Tropico 2, the underwhelming sequel to a decent city builder. Why no publishing deal? No idea. These are/were experienced developers with what looked like an almost finished game. The lackluster reaction of the gaming audience to Trade Empires might have made the development team less of a going concern, but worse games made by less talented people haven't stopped their careers. Frog City still maintains a customer support forum and a website devoted to information of Pantheon.

I mourn the loss of this game for more reasons than just my natural bias towards ancient history. And, yes, Frog City was responsible for Imperialism, one my all-time favorite strategy games. The path set by Majesty, the archetypal give-and-go RTS (it lets you set the stage and then you just watch your little men go about their business), was never really followed. Pantheon seemed to moving more in that direction. If it had succeeded, and I am confident it would have, it could have given us gamers a real time strategy option beyond the Age of Empires or Warcraft mode that makes the player handle everything.

Pantheon could still be made today, of course, but both graphics and players have moved on. Age of Mythology has already made commercial hay out of the whole divine intervention thing, and done such a good job that Pantheon would have a hard time keeping up. Players have become so accustomed to the rock-paper-scissors/gold-food-wood model of RTS gaming that most other 3H games have to stick with it. I love Age of Mythology but it's not been a huge success in multiplayer because is complicates the rock-paper-scissors thing by having two cycles to follow (infanty>cavalry>archers>infantry and heroes>myth units>mortals>heroes).

We don't know for sure how or if Pantheon would have changed RTS gaming. Frog City, while not a marginal developer, was not powerful enough to get a publishing deal so it might not have had the public attention that it needed. But game designers would have seen something else out there. And that might have been enough to shake things up.

Diplomacy

Paradox Studios has announced that its next game will be a conversion of the classic boardgame Diplomacy. (See this entry for the place of this game in my grand theory of game design.)

This is good news. Though the games from Paradox have usually been just shy of greatness, there is a to be excited about in this announcement. First, diplomacy has always been a strong point of their game design so it makes sense that they should try a game named for it. Second, their acquisition of rights to the Diplomacy name being followed so quickly by an announcment that a game is on the way bodes well for the Advanced Squad Leader license, which they also own.

This would be the third PC game based on the board game. The first one (from Avalon Hill in 1984) was pretty crude and really designed for multiplayer. The second (from Hasbro in 1999) was roundly attacked for its terrible AI and wonky MP system. This means that there is a lot of experienced people around who have played or designed games based on the original board game.

The big worry, of course, is that the AI just won't be able to make it work. As I noted yesterday, Paradox has a history of letting its computer opponents fall asleep and Diplomacy with a sleeping opponent would be a disaster.

Paradox is one of the only studios whose efforts I follow with bated breath, but its games are the ones I have the strongest love-hate relationships with. As in, I love the ideas but hate a lot of the execution (and day-zero patches). That said, I will be near the first in line to try Diplomacy when it comes out.

New Tin Soldiers Game

The sequel to Koiosworks's Tin Soldiers: Alexander has been announced. Unsurprisingly, it is Tin Soldiers: Julius Caesar. As I said in my review of the Alexander game, Koiosworks is doing the first real ancient wargames since I-Magic did their Great Battles series all those years ago. Rome: Total War, after all, is not really a war game and is hardly a tribute to realism.

Julius Caesar, to my mind, has always been a little overrated as a military leader. His greatness was earned in battles against Gallic rabble no more talented than the Eastern armies that Lucullus and Pompey fought. Caesar had a reckless tendency that almost led to disaster at Dyrrachium and Ruspina, and his final battle at Munda - against an army rapidly assembled by Pompey's less talented sons - was almost the end of him. The only flash of true genius in his battles was at Alesia.

As a leader of men, though, Caesar is almost unparalleled. I'm challenged to think of any ancient general aside from Hannibal who was more able to lead his men where they did not necessarily want to go.

For game designers, Caesar's battles are excellent because we know quite a bit about them. Though his accounts of some of his encounters are frustratingly abbreviated, and the Spanish Campaign is a complete muddle written by a near illiterate soldier, we know more about his battles than probably any other ancient leader. Though the battles in the Roman Civil War lack the variety of troops that the wars of Alexander and Hannibal have, they have an epic feel of settling old scores that should work well in a campaign game.

And the Tin Soldiers campaign game is excellent. It's a little disappointing that you have to fight your way up to all the big battles, but it does give victory in the campaign battles an importance that they might not otherwise have.

Hearts of Iron, Brains of Molasses

I recently submitted my review of Hearts of Iron II to Computer Games Magazine, so look for it in a month or two.

I'm not going to cut into my master's profits by giving away much of what I said, but I will confess to being a little disappointed by the the game's AI. Once again, Paradox Studios has shipped a computer opponent that simply stops doing stuff. The sleeping AI is a characteristic of all their games, but they've done nothing to fix it. Ever.

This is not a crippling problem, since you can always play it MP. But a Paradox Grand Strategy game played online is asking for trouble. The games take forever as it is. Put all the vagaries of the multiplayer world into that and you may never finish unless you are one of the dedicated fans of these games. I am one of those, but one of those who knows his limits. Heavens, I'm still waiting on turns in two War: Age of Imperialism games.

These games are designed for single player and play best in single player, but a computer opponent who can't do the one thing that HoI2 is about - fight a war - isn't much fun after a while.

Anyway, this is far from my only opinion of the game, and in fact my opinion is mostly positive. So check out that review if and when it is printed.

Review update

New review at DIY added to review archive on the right hand side. It's of Destroyer Studios space combat sim Starshatter. I gave it four stars. The text of the review may seem a little unenthusiastic, but I do like this game a lot. It's just that I suck at it. I've lost whatever talent I had at space sims, and that was minimal to begin with. Plus, Starshatter's mouse control is far from intuitive.