A serious tabletop strategy game
This game borrows a lot of its elements from a military game series which at the time hadn't yet made it onto the PC, Axis and Allies, which was a genuine tabletop military game. Not to be confounded with Dogs of War of 1989, which was a simple run and gun with platforming elements, this game is as serious as simulation games ever could get not so long ago, back in 1997. Another tid bit of important factual data on the game is that it was further developed by fans pitching in, since the developer went under at the later stages of production. Anyway, all production considerations aside, the game played as a PC version of a tabletop game, with much the same graphics, only that the PC would keep track of the troop movements, of the supply chain and also of any paramilitary or diplomatic treaties that might have been set in place. The game simulated the WW1 war, starting with eh spring of 1942 and the game could be played by assuming control of one of the 5 major nations involved in the conflict. Tactics, economics, strategic developments all are simulated, which gives rise to an increasingly complicated but beautiful representation of the world conflict. It of course, gives you the chance to rewrite history and it can create very intricate narratives of war, which is why I deemed it such a serious experience at the beginning of the review. For a tabletop game, the graphics are as they should, mirroring very well the graphic capabilities advances achieved by 1997. However, it's in the nature of the game to be abstract, so don't expect to see any close quarters action. You are limited to a general's bird's eye perspective, with tiles that represent units and lots of other symbolic representations of everything of concern to the actual strategy involved. So, as with most serious hardcore tabletop war games, this too will only be for dedicated war gaming fans, while for everyone else it will simply prove too complicated and too abstract.
