MrsWargamer
Posts: 1655
Joined: 6/18/2014 Status: offline
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Heheh so many posts asking even bitching about Gary getting off the pot and making a reborn Steel Panthers. But the more I play my sorted out and figured out Steel Panthers 3 Brigade Combat title from the 90s (because I don't think the title ever left the 90s), and then I compare it to a sitting of Battle Academy, and I find myself wondering, well dear, you COULD have spent an hour playing BA, but you spent and hour playing SP3, and you likely would have had more fun with BA. My ASL is currently sitting in a storage bin. I have a long time old friend that is swimming in income, and he has essentially told me he's going to help me find that 5k down payment loan on a house one way or another by loaning me the funds. We have pretty much discussed my putting the ASL and some of my other titles up as trade. The stuff is not fully worth 5K in some ways of thinking. Yeah with some very nice luck, who knows, I might manage it on eBay, if I liked eBay (and I don't). But the thing is, he's willing to help (and he's always wanted my ASL any way). We played it back when it was still just called Squad Leader. I would regret selling my ASL, right up to the point where I plunk down the down payment sign the mortgage and start packing to move into my own house. Hmm ASL or a house. Gee what a tough call :) ASL is a truly remarkable game, a level of detail hard to describe. Every turn is full of 'how the heck did you manage that?'. Results that mirror real life mainly as WW2 was basically that eh, a lot of moments in time when you read about it and you wonder, 'how the bloody hell did that really happen?'. Ever read about the heroic defense by Audie Murphy? You can actually do that in ASL, good lucky getting to experience that sort of outrageous luck in any other game easily. I've had similar results in some of the games I have played. One single man counter and a radio, and a refusal to die, sitting under an artillery barrage himself, calling in artillery on an attacking enemy force and wiping them out in the process. Awesome stuff in a game. But the manual, what a read. Learning that in and IN are not the same word. You see one is written in upper case, and that matters eh. Then there is adjacent, which is not the same as ADJACENT. And the rules cases going through 1.0 1.001 1.002 1.0023 Because the little details matter. It's not like any of the guys like arguing, but in a lot of cases, you can find yourself disagreeing and it can often be a problem figuring out who is actually wrong. Usually, the best games are where with a rules disagreement, often the best way to resolve it is odds my way, evens your way, and just refuse to care who was really correct. Why waste 20-30 minutes reading a manual trying to figure out something that simply might not really mean a lot. Where BA shines, is it is squads, not a lot of them, vehicles and guns, and artillery support and airstrikes and even sometimes awesome naval gunfire. The terrain map is not so big you spend a lot of time scrolling. The terrain is nice to look at. The squares are not hard to get used to. People eventually realize that 3 squares away is not really the same as 3 hexes away in hex based games. Movement is either cautious or speedy, and it has an effect on your performance. The game simulates some forms of ammo supplies and some things run out. Units get varying amounts of choices based on how they spend their turns action points. The game has a chess like quality, every unit really counts. That is similar to ASL where losing some units can really hurt your chances. In most games of Steel Panthers, it isn't easy to get too worked up when so many scenarios have so many units. But some people just can't get past the graphics. Some feel a need to denigrate the game, call it beer and pretzels as if you can't drink beer and eat pretzels with any damned game eh. It's not like you are forbidden to enjoy beer and pretzels playing War in the East. A fast turn just means you get to play the next one sooner. A very very very long tedious turn and lengthy game is really just risking being something that never gets finished. A book doesn't become better if it is 4 times the thickness. Movies don't become better if they are 7 hours long. Magnitude is not a determining factor in quality. When they did the ASL starter kits, I was severely disappointed actually. They could have done them so many ways. I think they picked the wrong one. Who knows, ASL might be a game that is doomed to die with the demographic that made Squad Leader. Because it doesn't really have a lot of appeal to the young. And no, just because a small percentage of the old guard were able to play a few 30 somethings is no reason for joy. I don't want Squad Leader on a computer. I'd like to see BA become a Middle eastern wars release next. Then a Korea release maybe. Then maybe a Vietnam release. Heck I could enjoy playing BA releases till the world stops spinning :)
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