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| The tutorial is not quite 73 Easting, but pretty close |
Graphically, this game shows it's roots as the descendant of SSI's original Steel Panthers DOS game. I believe years ago I had the modern warfare predecessor of this game. Nonetheless, the game and engine has seen over a decade of constant work and, for the type of game it is, I have the impression that all the rough edges have been worn off and it's extremely playable. The game was also recently patched to version 8.
Ultimately, what attracted me to WinSPMBT is the breadth of conflicts it can simulate. The game contains OOBs for 92 countries, from 1946 to 2020. If you want to simulate battles during the 1990 Transnistria War, you can. The game has a full set of editors allowing you to do just about anything you'd want to. I'm interested in creating some scenarios exploring less well-know recent conflicts, and I think this is going to be an easy tool to do that. It'll never be as attractive as even Combat Mission: Shock Force, but it makes up for that in sheer utility and playability.
I've only played the tutorial mission so far, but it seems that there's a lot of depth to the engine. I think it'll be fun to mess with when I'm not mentally up for something more complex. If you aren't ready to shell out for the game, there is a completely free version available. Be warned though, it only handles screen resolutions up to 800x600.
Hi Doug. Curious to know what you think about the game. I went over to the Shrapnel games website and saw a few titles that look interesting. I had never heard of this company.
ReplyDeleteChris, I own several titles from Shrapnel. I've bought and played pretty much all of the ProSim titles like ATF and Battlegroup Commander. Those are good, graphically simple, but occasionally quirky. They play like the map layer of SBPro PE without the actual simulation part. The actual simulation author is a serving Army officer named Pat Proctor. I once had a support question that he answered via email from his then-current posting in Afghanistan!
DeleteI'm going to try and play this some more today. Maybe I'll even grab some video of it to give you guys a more thorough impression of it. It is very easy to pick up and play. My biggest gripe about it right now is that I find it tough to navigate the OOB and keep track of what units are part of what formation. The game uses some pretty non-standard callsign/unit designation nomenclature that I have yet to get my head around.
But..there are something like 200 scenarios that ship with the game. 92 different countries. There's just stuff you can simulate with this you can't with almost anything else out there.
Hi Doug. I went to his company website Prosimco.com and found demos for all of these games. I downloaded the Brigade Combat Team demo and I am going to give it a whirl tonight! Thanks for the tip. All of the titles interesting.
DeleteHello. This one looks good. I heard a lot of things about this but I will wait until reading some more from you.
ReplyDeleteJC
JC, last night I started a scenario that was a hypothetical conflict between Argentina and Uruguay, modern day. I'm commanding an Argentine BG versus unknown strength opposition. Argentine forces have crossed the Rio Uruguay and are on the ground in the vicinity of Nueva Palmira and have to expand the beachhead.
DeleteThat's one of the stock scenarios!
I'll try and get a real AAR up later today, and maybe some video of gameplay. I may be delayed a bit though, since you've convinced me I need to finally play Arma III that I've had sitting on my drive since it was in early beta!