Recent reviews by Chris Redfield

My last SGS game I think. They're fun and flavourful, but they really don't hold up to scrutiny. This has an unfinished feel, its buggy like the others and there are many oversights that lead to the game becoming an annoying wreak (such as the UN player being able to massively overstack pusan due to how reinforcements work, and its definitely not intentional).

First impressions, much more realistic than I thought it would be. I play realistic milsims like Combat Mission and ARMA, and this is shockingly true to life. The core gameplay loop is suppressing and flanking, if you play it like any regular old FPS you'll die very quickly. It feels like playing as a single squad in Combat Mission but its an FPS.

However, the caveat is the game is very dated. The shooting feels unresponsive and the FOV is super tight (the supposed fixes didn't work for me, and this FOV is how the game shipped, so I'll review the product as it was given to me).

Recommend, but beware this is an oldie.

Quick and dirty, classic David Syzmanski esoteric nonsense. Loved every moment.

WAITER WAITER MORE SYZMANSKI SLOP!!!

A great litmus test for wargames. If a war depicted isn't as good as it is depicted in this game, then there's no point.

Scenarios included that I fw

-Singapore 1942 (I wrote a book set here, and its never been depicted in a serious wargame. Closest is the Burma Road campaign for Order of Battle: WW2, but that's very beer and pretzels)
-US invasion of Grenada 1983 (Very obscure, very small, very cool)
-Korean War (As far as I know, this is the only grognard depiction of the conflict).
-Fire in the East 2 (A bigger map version Gary Grigsby's War in the East 2. Does cut some features of WitE2, however. YMMV)
-Taiwan 2016 (The CAJONES you need to depict this hypothetical scenario. Bro.)

Small but tricky scenario even as the Japanese. You must keep a coherent frontline or the British will breakthrough and destroy your backline.

Great first game for SGS's system, as its small and manageable, while also covering a forgotten front with a ton of flavour.

Recommend with a buyer beware.

The ammount of content you're getting here is insane for a fiver. But something I didn't realise was squad sizes are abstracted. You'll see three men on the battle map, but they actually represent ten men all with different weapons. I don't mind stuff like this in a hex and counter game, but for 3D tactical scale I find it... repugnant? If you can get past that, it's awesome, but for me personally I'm gonna stick with the newer games for the most part.

Has a slow start, but once you begin to get powerful, this is one of the most satisfying shooters out there. Every upgrade feels significant, and you'll never see the same gun twice

Good DLC, better than home invasion, but it's close. All 3 missions have something unique they bring, the helicopter circling the outside is really immersive and helpful if you use it. I beat all 3 in a day, so I recommend getting it on sale, but other than that, this was something really cool, and it gets some balls rolling for a future DLC plot. The stakes have never been higher than this...

Friendslop? Ova here!

Well, this was an early end to the grand campaign for me.

-Enemy has space marine divisions which you have no real answer to
-ai of spanish infantry is generally *good* but will let you down when it counts
-Requires a very meta, sweaty playstyle to succeed.

Had to stop at early madrid when it dumped a bunch of soviet tanks and international brigades on turn ten, completely melting my defence while the spanish infantry was miles behind still mopping up enemies from the beginning. I'm sure this is a skill issue, but to be honest, this is way too difficult for the opening of a grand campaign. It's harder than the entire base game. When I watch people play on youtube they're doing extremely unconventional tactics and sweating the capture of enemy armor to use it against them, which is highly ahistorical. I just don't fw this dlc. If I manage to finish it I'll update, but I've basically given up at "Early Madrid"

Edit: I beat the DLC, it does get easier after "Early Madrid" then shoots sky high in difficulty for "Battle of the Ebro" then Catalonia and Madrid 1939 are fairly painless, but good God this DLC is hard for the beginning of a campaign. The trick is doing huge encirclements and capturing a ton of soviet tanks to use yourself (encirclements are fine, but I hate the meta is using captured tanks that germany only scarcely used) I'd recommend you play it but with a huge HUGE buyer beware.