Pictures of your games

[WorstUsernameEver]

What's that?

[Starwars]

The Saboteur I think.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

The Saboteur I think.

 

That would be correct.

[Tel Aviv]

Knobjockey? Who thought THAT was a good idea?

[Gfted1]

Knobjockey? Who thought THAT was a good idea?

 

The same author that quipped "purebred German Bratwurst"?

 

I wonder what that could mean.

[Hurlshort]

I'm sure he is simply referring to German cuisine and the fact it will become quite popular among the ladies. It is October, after all.

[Monte Carlo]

Nazis in tight red jumpsuits? Kinky.

[HoonDing]

Nazis in tight red jumpsuits? Kinky.

They're racers, so it makes sense.

 

But they have nothing on the SS babe.

[Nihilus5078]

 

 

Don't mess with an Irishman.

 

What game it that, looks fun.

[Rosbjerg]

What's that?

The Saboteur I think.

What game it that, looks fun.

 

There you go..

[HoonDing]

 

 

 

 

This game is so over-the-top, I love it

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Did they ever get the game to work with ATI cards? I might give it another go if it's been fixed (got it for cheap and then found out it was buggy as hell on my system).

[Mera]

Did they ever get the game to work with ATI cards? I might give it another go if it's been fixed (got it for cheap and then found out it was buggy as hell on my system).

 

There is a working patch for ATi users. However I remember reading it had some issues.

Edited October 11, 2010 by Mera

[Slowtrain]

Protect the truck?

 

Nice to see game developers haven't been able to improve mission design in the last twenty years.

 

Protect the truck. lol.

[Guest Slinky]

Protect the truck?

 

Nice to see game developers haven't been able to improve mission design in the last twenty years.

 

Protect the truck. lol.

You know, you often remind me of this picture.

 

I can't say that I disagree with you, at least completely, but still

[Nepenthe]

Protect the truck?

 

Nice to see game developers haven't been able to improve mission design in the last twenty years.

 

Protect the truck. lol.

 

Those missions give me nightmares. I blame Dark Corners of the Earth.

[HoonDing]

That "protect the truck" segment is the finale of one very long and varied mission that starts with hijacking a zeppelin and features more explosions than the average Michael Bay movie.

[Kaftan Barlast]

I liked the "protect the ship" missions in X-Wing. Because there was actually no way to protect them, you just had to hope the AI decided to shoot on something else this time

[Humanoid]

It's just past twenty years ago that gamers were trying to save the Ralari for the first time. Twenty years on and most are probably still trying. I think I managed it just the one time thus far.

 

 

I was planning on replaying WC on the day of the anniversary before I realised I didn't have a copy of the game here, and that my old CH Flightstick would be out of commission because Win7 doesn't play with the gameport. Sad me.

 

 

This was before the EA/Bio guy announced that they're planning on re-releasing the whole thing for free though. Happy me. EA have also granted permission, after ten years of legal limbo, to release the final Wing Commander novel. Laugh if you will but it's nice to see the non-evil side of EA coming out.

[Llyranor]

Airborne Assault: Highway the Reich. The Eindhoven Historical Campaign.

 

September 17, 1944. Operation Market-Garden. In this daring operation, US and British paratroopers are dropped deep into enemy territories to secure a long succession of bridges to prevent the Germans from blowing them up as the British ground forces push north from the Belgian-Dutch border through Eindhoven, Nijmegen, all the way to Arnhem to create a bridge across the Rhine river (Germany's last natural defense), so as to outflank the German West Wall and have a clear path to the industrial regions of western Germany.

 

This is the Eindhoven sector, the furthest south. The paratroopers involved here are the 101st Airborne. You may have heard of them in that little show called Band of Brothers. Their objectives are the bridges at Eindhoven, Son, St-Oedenrode, Veghel, and a little sidequest at Best as an alternate route. I play as the Axis, Nick as the Allies. The very few blue units are mine. The green ones are his (all I see is what intel has spotted for me).

 

It was a bold operation, with not much room for error. The expectation was to quickly capture the bridges and have the ground forces (XXX Corps) drive up a single road (around it was polder country - which is not suitable for tanks at all) all the way to the final objective. Meanwhile, the Germans didn't really have properly set-up units in the area. All I could settle with was a slow trickle of ragtag reinforcements. Blue lines are mine, green are Allied ground forces, yellow are paratroopers.

 

As the paratroopers landed, they quickly made for their objectives. As I didn't have much to defend with, most got captured fairly quickly. Main pockets of resistance were at Best - where it was contested territory for a while - and at Veghel - where I was still holding the line, but defeat was inevitable. Unlike the historical outcome, the Germans failed to blow up the Son bridge. Historically, the loss of this bridge incurred some heavy delays on the Allied forces as they tried to go north.

 

By day 2 or 3, I was in deep trouble. The Allies had almost all of their objectives. If they could hold on to them, it was only a matter of time before the ground forces would connect to them, which would make trying to cut the line would become much much more difficult. Given my reinforcement schedule, I had planned the following:

1) Veghel being the location with the most objectives, I would try to strike them there. It would be my schwerpunkt or whatever.

2) In the meantime, as I was unsure of the progress of the Allied ground forces, it may have proven wise to try to cut the line further south. If I can stop them before they reach Veghel, it might be easier to defend it (rather than trying to take it back).

3) I also sent another probing unit towards St-Oedenrode. If I can secure that town and dig in, I could stall them for a while.

4) Further reinforcements from the west would go towards Veghel.

 

My probing of St-Oedenrode was proving fairly timely, as I had met the vanguard of XXX Corps. After a small engagement, I was pushed out of the town, but I was decided to stall them as long as I could. I committed an assault to the northeast of the town, along the (if you can call it one) forest. As a full-fledged attack, it proved pretty pathetic given the units I had available (Nick didn't even realize I was fully attacking, heh), but what I did achieve from that was heavily delaying the enemy. What this allowed me was to bring my main force south of Veghel, and attack the town from 3 fronts; northwest, southeast, and southwest. I realize how incredibly lucky I was, as my southwest unit had barely begun its assault when the Allied ground forces started probing their rear. I managed to spare a rear defense force to hold them at bay for a while, permitting my attack to carry through. If this had executed just a few hours later, XXX Corps would have reached Veghel before I could secure the town. Lucky!

 

After a long battle, I managed to secure the town, except for a few American remnants (including Easy Company of the 506th Regiment, haha). XXX Corps was still held at bay, for now. I did the mistake of committing a good proportion of my Veghel units towards attacking the entrenched remnants. One is to expect heavy losses when assaulting an entrenched elite unit. Which is what happened here, and I didn't even get to kick them out (though from Nick told me later, I was pretty close, and he took heavy casualties there). This would cost me dearly later on.

[Llyranor]

I though I had everything secured by this point. My units were well-positioned and dug-in, and XXX Corps south of the Veghel bridge couldn't get to us, being shot up from multiple directions and constantly shelled by artillery. At this point, enemy units were being spotted to the northeast, NORTH of the river. What???? I think we had broken the game at this point. The game only simulates the units that were involved in the actual battle around Eindhoven, whereas units that were committed to battles further north were not included. Historically, the Allied had already secured this sector and gone further north to Nijmegen. When Germans began harassing the route near Veghel, British ground units were sent back south to help out. These are the units you see here. Being caught in an unexpected pincer attack, I committed all my remaining reinforcements towards strengthening Veghel.

 

Eventually, and I didn't expect this, Allies managed to sneak a substantial armored force (how did he bypass my scouts???) southeast into Veghel's flank. The battle was not going well for now. Ultimately, I held on until the end of the campaign (10 days), but had it gone for a few more hours, Veghel was going to collapse completely. Lucky again!

 

What a tense epic battle! For the record, we also went to visit the battlefields of Market-Garden this September. Here are a few shots we took of the southern 101st Airborne landing sites (north of Best and Son)!

 

One thing to note about the gameplay system is that it tries to be as realistic as possible. It often felt like I was acting as commander, ordering subordinates around. Flexible chain of command, order delays (units don't act instantly, you thus have to pre-plan ahead and anticipate the enemy's moves, otherwise it may be too late), realistic depiction of time and space (this is an anthentic map of the sector, movement is made at a realistic pace, eg. can very slow - so plan beforehand instead of just sending units everywhere, as they'll waste time AND become tired). For the record, tanks brisk right through the road when they're unhindered. Put them in polder terrain, and they'll slow to a crawl. Dig in a few harassing units along the road, and you can stall them for a very long time. Historically, there was a massive traffic jam all throughout Hell's Highway. Fatigue is an important factor, terrain plays a crucial part eg. roads, forests, towns, rivers. Nighttime is a tough choice between resting units, sneaking and moving them around (without being spotted), or surprising the enemy with an attack. So much decisions to make (with meager resources), so much fun.

 

I played this battle about 3-4 months, and I still remember the larger details of the battle very clearly. That's how awesome it was! Smaller details may be a bit off, though. Most tense strategic/tactical battle I've ever had.

[Gorth]

Nice

 

I wish somebody would do games that does justtice to Operation Zitadelle or The Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation some day

[HoonDing]

 

 

 

 

For a Russian game, translation is pretty darn fine

[Rosbjerg]

Having fun being a cowboy intellectual in Fallout NV.. this game is absolutely great! A+ Obz, you did a fine job on this one!

[LadyCrimson]

I make a Fallout:NV chick, & she looked like this in the editor:

 

Then I step outside and...holy yellow face! Must be all that radiation or something.

Also, her hands are huge. They're as long as her whole head. *giggles*

 

And for anyone who might want a full-size of chr+starter area background: