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Videogames

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Videogames

Owned by Nathan Wailes
Last updated: Jun 08, 2025

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Tasks

@Nathan Wailes: Write an article you can post to gamasutra proposing that gaming sites get revenue by being paid as consultants while the developers are making the game.
@Nathan Wailes: Write an article about how game reviews need to evolve. I think a Netflix-style recommendation system with Amazon-style reviews would probably be better. I think Steam already kind of does that. But I'm not sure how well it handles new releases.

Games I want to play through next

  • Background:

    • If you have limited gaming time, I think itā€™s maybe more fun to stick with a single game at a time so you maintain the muscle-memory of how to play. I also think it may be most-fun to just do one scenario per day.

    • Iā€™m not sure how I want to handle games or series that have huge amounts of content. A common problem I have with games is knowing when Iā€™ve basically seen everything and should move on.

  • List:

    1. Sims

      1. Land

        1. Tank

          1. iM1A2 (1997) - https://www.myabandonware.com/game/im1a2-abrams-dl4

          2. Steel Beasts Pro PE

      2. Naval

        1. Surface

          1. Destroyer Command (2002)

            1. https://www.myabandonware.com/game/destroyer-command-e7j

          2. Task Force 1942

        2. Submarine

          1. Aces of the Deep

      3. Air

        1. A-10 Tank Killer (1989, Amiga)

        2. Falcon 1 / MC / 3.0 / 4.0 / BMS

        3. ATC

          1. Air Command 3.0

    2. Tactical:

      1. Scourge of War (active)

      2. Janeā€™s Fleet Command (active)

      3. Radio Commander

      4. Radio General

      5. Full Spectrum Warrior

      6. Graviteam Tactics

      7. Combat Mission

      8. Ultimate General series (Gettysburg ā†’ Civil War ā†’ ?)

      9. Close Combat series

      10. Armored Brigade series

      11. Battle Group Commander

      12. Naval

        1. Red Storm Rising (1988)

      13. RTSes:

        1. Regiments - single-player only, apparently the most accessible of the three, units are represented as platoons vs single units

        2. WARNO - more complex than Regiments, has multiplayer, the spiritual successor to Wargame (itā€™s by the same devs)

        3. Steel Division 2 - less accessible than WARNO

        4. Wargame: Red Dragon - the least accessible(?)

    3. Operational:

      1. Unity of Command

      2. Command Ops 2

      3. John Tillerā€™s Panzer Campaigns

      4. Patriot (1993)

      5. WEGO World War II

      6. Gary Grigsbyā€™s War in the East

    4. Strategic:

      1. Strategic Command: Civil War

      2. Crusader Kings Complete

      3. Victoria: Revolutions

      4. Total War series

        1. Shogun: Total War

        2. Medieval: Total War

      5. Grand Tactician: The Civil War

      6. AGEOD games

        1. Civil War 2

        2. Birth of America 2

    5. Other:

      1. Darklands

    6. Super-categories:

      1. Rally-The-Troops.com games

      2. John Tiller games

My thoughts on misc videogame-related topics

Why are so many videogames about war / shooting / fighting?

  • Most sorts of diversion in men, children, and other animals, are in imitation of fighting. - Jonathan Swift

  • I think it's an instinct in people and animals to enjoy games that are really just practice for fighting.

What I like and dislike about videogames (in general)

What I like

  • ...

What I dislike

  • Not being able to easily take the actions I want to take in the game.

    • I find this to be a big problem in games where I'm controlling lots of units, where I feel like IĀ should be able to just "tell" the units what to do, but instead I need to navigate annoying menus.

      • Ex: OFP / Arma, Total War, Combat Mission

      • I suspect that this problem will go away once voice recognition / interpretation becomes really, really good.

    • This can also be a problem when trying to play an FPS with a controller rather than with a keyboard and mouse.

    • I found this to be a problem in Rocket League, where I couldn't do things that would be easy in real life (like "pass to that guy over there").

  • An unpleasant learning curve / progression (I guess another way of putting it is "the game is too hard").

    • Examples:

      • TIS-100 puzzles that feel too hard.

  • Boring gameplay (aka "the game is too easy"?)

  • A lack of feeling of reward when I achieve something.

    • I like the end-mission screens in Hotline Miami.

    • IIRC Knights doesn't have much special that happens when you solve a puzzle.

  • Bad and/or repetitive music

    • I suspect getting sick of a game's music may actually make me not want to play the game anymore, even if I don't consciously realize it's the music making me feel that way.Ā  I'll just be considering what to play, think about the game in question, have a gross feeling in my stomach, and decide to play something else.Ā  I suspect that gross feeling in my stomach may sometimes be caused solely by the game's bad, repetitive music.

Visualizing abstract depictions of military units

  • ABCT Visualization - This is a great visualization of what an Armored Brigade Combat Team actually looks like, both if you had it in a field but also when itā€™s moving through real terrain via roads.

  • TODO:

    • CMx1 squads

    • different NATO counters

    • different NATO force-size indicators

    • Civil War units (regiments, etc.)

Platforms

DOSBox

  • To launch a game, drag the game's EXE onto a DOSBox shortcut.

  • To create custom DOSBox settings for a game:

    1. Copy a shortcut to DOSBox into the game's folder.

    2. Create an empty dosbox.conf text file in the folder.

    3. add -conf "full-path\to\dosbox.conf" to the DOSBox shortcut.

    4. To launch the game, drag the game's EXE file onto the modified DOSBox shortcut.

  • Custom settings I used for ATAC:



    • [cpu] cycles = fixed 10000 # use this to get the framerate of the game higher [sdl] fullscreen=true # Sets the game to switch into fullscreen mode immediately. fullresolution=desktop # I don't understand what this does. #fulldouble=true output=overlay windowresolution=1440x1080 # Sets the resolution when the game is running in windowed mode [render] aspect=true scaler=none



  • Issues I'm having:

    • I can't get ATAC to have crisp graphics in fullscreen mode, even though it looks right in windowed mode at the same resolution.

Windows

  • One thing to keep in mind with PCs is upgradability: after a few years you may want to buy a new graphics card, more RAM, etc.Ā  If you buy a laptop or a PC that's custom-built to be small, you may not be able to do any upgrades.

Windows 98 SE

PCem emulation

Key things to remember

  • Ctrl+Alt+PgDown to make it fullscreen or get out of fullscreen.

  • Ctrl+End to have your mouse no longer captured by the VM.

  • To move files to the VM you need to:

    1. shut down the VM

    2. mount the HDD.vhd file as a drive

      1. Open Disk management. In the search box on the taskbar, enter Computer Management, and select Disk Management.

      2. On the Action menu, select Attach VHD.

      3. After the Attach Virtual Hard Disk dialog box opens, select the Browse button, and find your .vhd file.

      4. Now that you've selected the .vhd file, you return to the Attach Virtual Hard Disk dialog box. Select OK.

    3. move the files to it

    4. eject it

    5. start the VM.

Desktops

Monitors

General info
What resolution to aim for
Screen tearing

  • Example

    • 2013.11.02 - YouTube - ViolentRumble - Battlefield 4 PC Gameplay Screen Tearing

      • In the comments:

        • @quadead freesync is just a variation of vsync, it does not have the same quality as gsync. freesync monitors can only prevent screen tearing in a limited fps range. gsync can prevent screen tearing at any frame rate

          so yea, he has an amd card, the best he can hope for is freesync, it wont solve the problem. the only 100% solution is an nvidia card + gsync

          @nogston a 244hz monitor does not prevent screen tearing unless it is gsync, because the problem is not the hz of the monitor, the problem is caused by the frame rates being out of sync with the monitor, which can happen at any hz of monitor

          vsync attempts to solve the problem by limiting the number of frames produced in an effort to minimize gpu stress. it doesnt always work, plus it limits your frame rates

          freesync attempts to solve the problem by locking your monitor at a lower than normal hz range while expecting you to vsync within that range, its a pretend solution that doesnt actually work any better than vsync does by itself since it only works within a limited range

          gsync (patent by nvidia) is exclusive in that its the only tech that allows your monitor to actually dynamically change hz to match current framerate output to always be in sync, thus gsync can fully prevent screen tearing at any frame rates

Comparison articles
Specific monitors
Monitor tests

Graphics cards

GeForce

Keyboards

Why use a mechanical keyboard?

  • My opinion

    • Things I don't like about mechanical keyboards

      • I don't like how high the keys are.

        • I like to rest my wrists on the keyboard or the desk to keep my arms from getting tired, and with mechanical keyboards that feels uncomfortable, like it's going to give me carpal tunnel syndrome.

      • I don't like how spaced out the keys are.

        • Your fingers need to travel further to type.

      • I don't like the gaps between the tops of the keys.

        • It makes it impossible to just run your fingers across the tops of the keys the way you can with a chiclet keyboard.

      • I don't like it when they make noise.

        • I find it distracting.

  • 2018.12.26 - Reddit - r/unpopularopinion - Mechanical keyboards are overrated

    • jmaman - For 99.9% of people theyā€™re exactly the same as digital switch keyboards. The only time it matters is is if youā€™re playing a game which requires synchronization of movement and are at an elite enough level where milliseconds matter. A good example of this is high level CS:GO. Pros need the mechanical switches so their strafing is perfectly synced with their shooting for accuracy.

      • I don't know enough to say if he's correct or not, but it at least sounds plausible that professional twitch gamers could benefit from their keys having hair triggers.

Misc links

  • 2016.12.21 - YouTube - Leutin09 - 60FPS+ ARMA 3 Zeus PC - Build Overview

    • He got the parts for free, it would cost over $3000 (as of 2016.12) if he were to actually pay for it.

    • 2:49 - He says Arma 3 performance is most often hindered by the CPU rather than the GPU, and that Arma 3 is single-threaded, so you want to prioritize choosing a powerful single-threaded CPU.

Laptops

macOS

  • A timeline of different macOS releases.

  • How I'm getting MacOS 8.1 running on Windows so I can play old MacOS games like Hellcats Over the Pacific:

  • Dealing with sound issues in older games in Basilisk:

    • Information about the problem:Ā 

      • https://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5038

        • An explanation of the issue: Some games under Mac OS 8.x and up don't sound at all, because they use the Sound Driver in System 7.x or lower. In Mac OS 8.x and newer there's the Sound Manager, which is not 100% compatible with the old Sound Driver and the result is no sound in most older games.

          I read that this applies to Mac OS 8.x and up (I've seen several times topics like "no sound in game xxx under OS 8.x"), and that they only sound under system 7.x or lower depending on the game. If you try to play Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade without Drigo's patch under OS 8.x you won't hear any music (you'll hear the sounds, though). Games such as Vette!, Larry 1 (original version), 4D Boxing and Bill Elliot don't sound at all, though they are enabled on the game configuration.

        • A dev responds:Ā There are no separate sound driver files in System 7.x or 8.x. Maybe different QuickTime versions make a difference? Else you may need to try downgrading your system to 7.5.5 or 7.6.1. Of the two, 7.6.1 is the more stable one, especially on PCI PowerMacs.

      • https://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5641

        • I'm trying to get the game Chex Quest to work in BasiliskII. It works very well except in one area: sound.

          Its not working very well and in some cases, not at all. I saw two pieces of software in the README. They are Quicktime 2.0 and Sound Manager 3.1 (though they suggest getting 3.2 as soon as its available).

          I've been looking, and I dont see either of these softwares. Does anyone have them or links to them?

        • A dev responds:Ā 

          QuickTime 2.1 is part of System 7.5.3, so any system 7.5.3 or later will have QuickTime 2.1 or later. (See in Extensions folder)

          Sound Manager is not always present as a separate extension. In 7.5.3 and later Sound Manager 3.2 is incorporated in System. Sound Manager 3.2.1 is incorporated in System in MacOS 8 (or 7.6?) and later. Sound Manager 3.2.1 may be installed in pre-OS 8 systems as a separate extension with QuickTime 2.5 if a previous separate extension Sound Manager happens to be present.

          Sound Manager 3.3 is installed with QuickTime 3, but isn't that version of Sound Manager PPC native?

      • https://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5282&start=175

        • A dev:Ā A "Sound" extension does not exist. Maybe adespoton refers to the "Sound Manager" extension. It was available in early System 7.5 versions and was removed in System 7.5.3. A later "Sound Manager" extension was again installed with QuickTime installations.

          Someone else replies:Ā Yup; I believe that's the one needed for 7.1 sound in BII. From viewtopic.php?t=7890 installing Quicktime 2.5 in System 7.1 appears to install the correct extension. The installer is available from Macintosh Garden's quicktime-2 page.

    • Stuff I tried:

      • I installed Quicktime 2.5 on macOS 8.1.Ā  It didn't seem to have any effect (sound still wasn't working in Hellcats).

PlayStation

Xbox

Nintendo

Troubleshooting

How to find good games

Individuals who are good at finding underappreciated gems

Reviewers

YouTubers

Lists of YouTuber reviewers

Let's Players showing initial impressions

Games

Advanced Tactics Gold

How to learn

Tutorial

Tutorial 1

  1. You win via Victory Points, which are assigned to cities.

  2. Troops are made by production centers and supplied by headquarter units.

  3. A town in your territory will have a black background if it has not been assigned to a HQ yet.

  4. Assign the town to your HQ by selecting the town, then select the button with a factory and ā€œHQā€ on it (fourth from the left on the line of buttons), then select your HQ unit.

  5. Next we need to produce troops by selecting the town and clicking the ā€˜productionā€™ button. Set the production of this town to 20% supply and 80% ā€˜Rifleā€™ (infantry).

  6. End your turn.

  7. Creating HQs and ā€œformationsā€ cost PPs. PPs are political points, an abstract social cost of maintaining the military.

  8. Create a new ā€œformationā€ and assign it to the existing HQ.

  9. The colored stripe on the left of a unit icon indicates which HQ it is assigned to.

  10. Transfer the newly-created riflemen to the new formation.

  11. Select the formation to see information about it.

    1. AP are action points.

    2. RDN is readiness.

    3. EXP is experience.

    4. MOR is morale.

    5. ENT is entrenchment.

    6. The green dot on their icon means they have enough supply.

    7. HQP is headquarters power. (Communication ability with the HQ?)

    8. STF is staffing level. - How well the HQ is staffed for the units it is commanding.

    9. All these factors have an effect on the combat result. Once you get to know them, they can help predict how your unit will perform in a fight.

  12. End the turn, order the infantry to move to the village, transfer the new infantry to the formation, then end the turn again.

  13. Select the village. In the hex data screen on the right, notice that the recon number for this hex is 27. In general, the more units we have near a hex, the better our recon will be.

  14. Select the formation and click the ā€˜Land attackā€™ order, select the infantry formation, confirm, and commence the attack.

Age of Fable

  • http://www.ageoffable.net/

  • I like the pictures that accompany the text.

  • At first I found it boring, but I gradually got more and more involved in the universe that it was discussing; it was kind of like being hypnotized into forgetting about my life and instead being sucked into a dream.

  • It seems like in order to get sucked into the dream you need to have it be different enough that you won't be reminded of things that you're encountering in your real life, but similar enough that people can understand the images you're trying to convey.

AI War

General thoughts

  • First impression from reading the developer's prose in the tutorials is that this guy sounds competent.

General advice

  • Turn the music off.

Summary of the tutorials

  • The AI do not play like humans.

    • (I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean.)

Basic Tutorial 1: Exploring the galaxy

  • Like most RTSes, there is no in-game unit that represents you.

  • Press P to pause.

  • Hold the tutorial (and in-game chat) with the Alt key.

  • Home Command Stations are the most important unit. If you lose all of yours, you lose the game. (Analogous to the King in chess).

  • You can click on units or click-and-drag to select units.

  • Zooming:

    • The easiest way is with your wheel mouse.

    • You can also use Page Up and Page Down

    • You can also use preset zoom levels with QWER.

  • Panning:

    • Move your mouse to the edge of the screen...

    • ...or use the arrow keys.

  • Right-click to issue a Move command.

  • Use Tab to switch between the view of a single planet and a view of the galaxy map.

  • You can see your selected ships in the bottom-right of your screen.

  • To issue a wormhole command, Ctrl+Right-click on the wormhole in the planet view, or right-click the desired destination planet in the galaxy map view.

  • The galaxy map has a sidebar on the left with P0-P9 buttons. Those are used to assign priorities to different planets, as "essentially a way to take notes" to remind yourself which planets are important.

  • Shortcut: Press Alt+<0-9> and then left-click on the planet to assign a priority.

Basic Tutorial 2: Building your economy

Basic Tutorial 3: Military operations

Basic Tutorial 4: Hacking

Intermediate tutorial: Campaign simulation

---

Online: Fast facts: A crash course on AI War

Online: AI War wiki (Important!)

Armored Brigade

How to learn the game

  • I tried a single mission and still found it a bit overwhelming.

  • I recommend learning this game the same way I got comfortable with Combat Mission: play randomly-generated missions on the smallest-possible maps with the smallest-possible number of units. This will let you get familiar with all of the different unit types, the game UI, the controls, the tactics. When you feel comfortable with those, then ā€œgraduateā€ to the hand-made single missions, and then ā€œgraduateā€ from those to full campaigns.

Avernum: Escape From The Pit

  • General thoughts on the game

    • On its default setting, Avernum had a very pleasant difficulty; it was mostly "easy" in the sense that I didn't really ever die, but it was difficult enough that I needed to be paying attention or I would die. And there would be parts that would get more difficult. That in-the-zone / constant-progress-on-easy-problems feeling reminded me a lot of other games I had made significant progress through (or even finished) without stopping: Max Payne, Diablo 2

  • Advice for playing

    • Combat

      • When you fight someone out on the world map, the enemies will often drop an item or two that you can sell for money, and you need to make sure to send one of your people over to pick it up before you finish the battle or you won't automatically pick it up.

      • Just as the documentation says, the basic strategy for fights in this game is to use your casters to do the real damage (like artillery), and to use your melee people to keep the enemy away from your casters.

    • Item management

      • Pick up everything that can be sold for money! You don't get a lot of money otherwise.

      • Use Ctrl+Click when looking at items on the ground to send them straight to your junk bag! I was most of the way through the game before I figured this out.

      • I eventually settled on a strategy where I would give all of the Wisdom Crystals (which give free experience points) to my melee people to boost their HP / dodge chance, and I would spend most/all of my money on buying training for my casters at the trainers you see in the various towns. This is because there's no real way (as far as I know) to get your casters up to Level 3 (the highest level) with their various spells without getting them trained, whereas the training you can buy for your melee people is exactly the same as the boosts they get for gaining another level.

      • I recommend keeping all of the unique / rare items you get, especially if they have some kind of resistance bonus. I never needed to do it, but I could see how you could end up in a situation where you might want to equip certain items when facing a particular opponent just to boost your resistance to their most-damaging style of attack (eg melee damage, fire, poison, lightning / magical (this one was a real pain for me), mind effects).

    • Traits

      • I think it's a good idea to get the 'Negotiator' trait among all of your characters ASAP (it gives you extra money from selling loot). I also got the 'Quick Learner' traits ASAP and I think it was a good idea.

      • There are definitely skills / traits which seem useless. For example, I never really needed Cave Lore, and I only put a few points into Luck and still don't understand what exactly it does, but I don't seem to have hurt from it.

      • Usually the best way I found to pick traits / stats was to pay attention to what my pain-points were, and to just allocate stats to relieve those pain points. The game is really good that way; it lets you do that, instead of throwing you into some completely-unpredictable challenge.

Avernum 2: Crystal Souls

  • General thoughts on the game

    • I really like how the menu music plays full volume once and then fades to a much lower volume. I don't think I've ever seen that before.

  • Criticisms

    • Honestly, after having beaten Escape from the Pit, I feel like "Why the hell am I going back to Avernum? I escaped!" Even though your characters in the game haven't returned to Avernum (they're stuck there like your characters in the first game), I felt as a person like I'd returned.

  • Advice for playing

    • If you have Windows' "Zoom" setting set to > 100%, it'll make the game screen too big.

    • If you click the sunburst icon on a potion in your inventory it will immediately use it. I'd been wondering why that was happening while playing the first game.

    • Press the space bar to skip a character's turn.

Banished

  • Thoughts on the game

    • This feels *exactly* like Stronghold's economic (non-castle-building, non-warfare) game.

    • I don't like how the game doesn't let me bring the viewpoint totally horizontal.

  • Questions

    • How do I know if I've allocated an efficient number of workers to a particular job? (e.g. fields, cutting down trees, etc.)

  • Advice for playing

    • Just keep an eye on your food reserves and your resource reserves.

Battles of Napoleon

Reviews

  • Best Napoleonic game?

    • ā€œModerate complexity and yet rich in options and highly realistic outcomes. Even the AI is great. Probably the best overall wargame ever made. I've played everything Napoleonic for 40 years, have studied the period my entire adult life, and it has never been surpassed.ā€

    • ā€œAt the time it came out, it was acclaimed as an all-time classic and it certainly still is. I've never found anything better at the grand tactical level. I especially like how I have to assign commanders objectives and it will then penalize me for moving units away from those objectives. Simple, elegant way of handling Corps-sized unit groups so you don't have divisions wandering all over the map, irrespective of the their command structure. I hate games where the units are free to just do whatever, regardless of what higher formation they belong to.ā€

    • Advice for learning the game: ā€œInvest a little time with the manual first, then play the small intro scenario (Raevsky redoubt at Borodino iirc), then maybe the excellent Auerstadt scenario (so you can see how historically accurate the system is).ā€

Braid

  • Braid really does a brilliant job of ramping up the difficulty. It doesn't get too difficult too quickly, but it also doesn't stay easy for long stretches of time, which can bore you.

  • Another nice thing is that it mostly avoids the problem that many games have where if you leave them for a while you forget so much of how it works that you can't really pick up where you left off.

  • Tip from Braid: If you attempt the task in the most-obvious way, you're unable to solve the puzzle. This prevents players from brute-forcing the puzzle (trying random things) and forces the player to grasp the interesting fact.

    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zK8ItePe3Y

      • He also uses sequences, pairings, and reprisals.

      • You'll encounter a simpler version of a puzzle immediately before a more-complicated version of it.

      • By using familiar layouts, you can see how the consequences have changed.

      • He subverts the rules you're used to.

      • He throws out traps for people who aren't thinking hard enough.

      • He's ruthlessly curatorial, eliminating puzzles that lack a sense of surprise, or that overlap with each other, or fail to say anything interesting.

      • He will leave something in the game, even if it isn't fun, if it is interesting or it would make the game feel incomplete to not have it.

      • A puzzle is never just a puzzle; it's a communication of an idea from the designer to the player. Solving the puzzle is the player's way of saying "I understand".

      • Mechanic --> Rule --> Consequence --> Puzzle

      • The "harder" puzzles are only about understanding the consequences in different set-ups, layouts.

      • The levels are small enough that you can consider all of the moving parts at once.

      • There are no or few red herrings, and few arbitrary steps to finish.

      • Once you've found the solution, it's relatively effortless to execute it.

      • "The more that a puzzle is about something real and something specific, and the less it's about some arbitrary challenge, the more meaningful that epiphany is."

Brigade Combat Team

Reviews

  • Metacritic - BCT Commander Reviews

  • BCT Commander Review

    • This release is actually a sort of "gold pack" consisting of an upgraded version of the original BCT, two expansion packs, and a scenario editor. (ā€¦) The current edition comes with 57 scenariosā€¦

    • Even for those with extensive experience with military simulations, just starting a scenario can be a lot of work.

    • Rather than an algorithmic AI, the game employs one of several predetermined strategic approaches to each scenario in planning its strategy. (ā€¦) This kind of opposition means that you'll eventually see the AI reveal all its cards, at which point there's not much left to do but try to optimize your responses.

    • The scenarios themselves are a bit disappointing, in that many of them take place on US Army training grounds with opponents like the "Krasnovian Army," rather than historical or hypothetical scenarios with more interest for wargamers.

    • the learning curve for BCT Commander is extremely steep.

    • The interface makes good use of the mouse for context-sensitive menus, but it tends to rely on these a bit too much. (ā€¦) BCT Commander makes too much use of the standard Windows menu and shortcut system.

    • BCT Commander's manual is even better than Shrapnel's standard. It's the type of manual than can be read as a narrative rather than as a set of legal pronouncements, and it's especially helpful in providing answers to questions like "Why doesn't this work?"

    • Although units on the map can be represented by military symbols, the scale is small enough that they don't have "centers of gravity" or similar devices that make these kinds of military planning games seem artificial at a larger scale. Each tank symbol represents one to three vehicles, and tanks still fight it out with direct fire and get blown up by minefields that you can see.

    • BCT Commander is in many ways an outstanding product that delivers exactly what it claims to--it's a rigorous, realistic simulation of what it's like to command a brigade of combined-arms troops in modern warfare.

  • PC Gamer (US) March 2002

    • image-20250412-052940.png

    • It doesnā€™t say much, and doesnā€™t give any criticisms.

  • https://web.archive.org/web/20030219034118/http://www.pcgameworld.com/review.php/id/275/

    • This is not your typical wargame, with carefully balanced scenarios that insure both sides are at the same challenge rating.

    • Scenarios are typically brigade or regimental in composition, with a map measuring 50 km by 50 km.

    • Unfortunately a lot of what you do is BCT Commander is initially a confusing mess that could have been handled better. (ā€¦) Take moving a unit. You first double-click on the unit you wish to move (so far, so good) but then in order to plan the route you have to either go to the tool bar that runs across the map, or a drop down menu, and enter into the path mode. Why couldnā€™t this be accomplished with something simple like clicking on the unit, then shift/left-clicking on the various waypoints?

    • As mentioned previously the game plays out in real time, and unlike most RTS games, real time means real time. One second of gameplay equals one second of reality (time can also be accelerated). Time is an important factor in BCT Commander, because everything reacts according to the rules of the real world. Units may not start moving right away just because you click on them, they may take some time to begin moving. Troops donā€™t instantly dismount/mount an APC. Firing rates arenā€™t a steady laser-like stream. Artillery salvoes can take minutes between each salvo.

    • BCT Commander is a tough game.

    • The AI does a decent job, although unfortunately the AI consists of canned battle plans, as opposed to a totally free thinking AI.

    • replaying the same scenario never feels like youā€™re trying to find a solution to a puzzle

    • one thing that cannot [be overlooked] is the horrible, horrible interface (ā€¦) the pop up windows, like the mini-map and the report logs. For whatever bizarre reason you canā€™t simply close them from the windows themselves, you can only close them from the drop down menus. Now really, how hard would it be to include a little ā€œxā€ in the upper right corner so they could quickly be closed?

    • Youā€™ll also have to tone your Windows color down to 16 bit before playing or the maps wonā€™t show up, which makes no sense.

  • https://web.archive.org/web/20030219035012/http://www.armchairempire.com/Reviews/PC%20Games/BTC-Commander.htm

    • Rule of thumb for anything that Shrapnel publishes: Read the manual.

    • Scenarios are scattered all over the globe (and through recent history) from Korea to the on-going conflict in Afghanistan

    • thereā€™s absolutely no fog of war.

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