Warpup
Posts: 120
Joined: 1/18/2001
From: Roseburg, Oregon, USA
Status: offline
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There was a great thread a few months back on the future of computer wargaming in about 10 years. It skipped ahead of the smashing historical development which happened using technology available today and involving actors already on the stage. Consider these snippets from the Warrenton Post Dispatch of October 31, 2002:
The Christmas shopping season is well underway, but many are still having trouble finding just the right gift for friends and relatives who have everything, including peculiar hobbies or tastes. In a series of articles to run through Thanksgiving, the Post Dispatch will offer suggestions for a daily featured gift problem.
Today's feature deals with what to get for the "Grognard". For those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to a player of military simulation games, especially to one who is old enough to have played such games using paper and cardboard maps, playing pieces, and components prior to the time when computers made such anachronisms obsolete.
It is not difficult to find computer military simulation games, whether on the web or in stores. What is difficult is to find the perfect game that will allow the grognard to relive his days in college dorms, military barracks, or trashed bachelor apartments gaming with his (or more rarely, her) friends until dawn to the detriment of almost all other, arguably more important aspects of life.
Last Christmas seasons' smash release, "The Sims: House of Gamers", was aimed at upping the level of social interaction in that pathologically absorbing game by enabling house parties to revolve around such games as Poker, Bridge, Pictionary, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, Magic: the Gathering, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Pokemon, Risk, and nearly 500 other games. All the games had rules programmed in and all had beautiful components.
Many of you may already be familiar with this release and know that it is leading all other computer game sales this year. You might not have thought of this Sims expansion as a suitable gift for the grognard in the family, who you rightly believe wouldn't touch a Sims game with a ten foot joystick. However, Matrix Games has just altered reality for grognards everywhere.
Matrix Games has released a fully authorized free patch for the best Sims expansion so far. It can be downloaded from their website for free, though it's size will cause those of you with slow DSL and Cable Modems to need to set the download to run all night.
Matrix Games has programmed in all the rules and components for over 1000 of the antique style cardboard and paper military simulations. According to the grognards this reporter has been able to consult, Matrix Games has fully captured the bizarre social dynamics of group gatherings to play such classics as Empires in Arms, Squad Leader, Pax Britanica, Stellar Conquest, Third Reich, Longest Day, Campaign for North Africa, Advanced Civilization, Axis & Allies, Wooden Ships & Iron Men, and countless others.
Players can populate the game house with over 500 stock grognard characters, or can use the editor to create their own grognard buddies, both fictional and real. Grognards who have passed on can roll the dice yet again as a Sim, allowing the grognard to relive memories of games with old foes.
The action gets pretty facinating as the Sim grognards reach strange states of game play due to sleep deprivation, cafeination, intoxication, depression (usually related to a string of bad luck on the dice, or sometimes due to other players ganging up on them), hunger from forgetting to eat, strange digestive effects from the junk food typically consumed at grognard gaming sessions, and toxic effects from putting off trips to the restroom.
Sim grognards conduct realistic diplomacy by pairing up in various rooms of the game houses for talks. Explosive tempers can lead to enough noise generation to draw visits from the cops or the resident hall advisor. Anguish on screen is palpable when the dog or cat lands on the game table scattering the hundreds of cardboard chits used in these antique games. Moves are made more difficult by visits from distracting individuals such as the game host's wife or children or college study partners.
The Sim can be run for a single long game such as the months required to play a campaign game of Empires in Arms, or can be set up to depict a whole season of senarios such as those in Squad Leader. The amazing thing is that the components are so detailed, including written rules, that grognards never need to put wear on their collectors item cardboard and paper games again.
When asked how Matrix Games could produce a free patch so extensive that it consummed over a million hours of programming time, the company spokesperson replied that no one at the company has been able to quit their day job yet, although the company has existed for several years. The programmers at Matrix felt that they owed it too the grognards you shower them with kudos and loyalty, even to the extent of passing the virtual offering plate to gather donated funds for the company. Matrix Games also feels this patch is an excellent way to introduce a world of "Grognets" to that wonderful bygone era which they might otherwise never be able to experience.
So for the grognard in the family, surprise them with a copy of "The Sims: House of Gamers", but make sure you type the free download website prominently to the outside, with the clear label "The Matrix Games Patch" which, as a grognard, they will instantly recognize.
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The Ghost of Grognard Christmas Future
By Warren Bruhn
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