Not A Tesla Coil In Sight - Wargame: European Escalation Is Red Alert For Grown Ups

Generation Y is lucky, in that it managed to largely sidestep living under the Cold War era ever looming spectre of cataclysmic East/West conflict. Unless you've been walking around with your eyes closed and ears plugged for the past few months, you'll be aware that recent events in Ukraine have created a new diplomatic rift between Russia and the West, sparking fears of a return to the diplomacy-on-a-knife-edge of old. I've been doing a lot of research on the Cold War, largely in an attempt to gain some perspective on what's going on over there, and have discovered that, on a number of occasions, we came so close to one side or the other pressing the proverbial big red button that it doesn't even bear thinking about. Such tense geopolitical situations inevitably give rise to a lot of 'what if' speculation, these days, often in gaming form. Released back in 2012, Wargame: European Escalation simulates hypothetical ground level  (i.e. it focuses on tank and troop movements rather than wading into the moral quagmire of slinging warheads across the Atlantic) conflict between NATO and Warsaw Pact states through a series of alternative not-so-Cold War scenarios.

This is the furthest thing you could possibly imagine from the mad click frenzy of top tier StarCraft; you'll find no kiting or unit spam here, just period appropriate battle-groups that'll follow your instructions so long as their fuel, ammunition and morale reserves allow. Although the experience is underpinned by the same glorified rock, paper, scissors approach to balance that strategy games have used since the year dot, a huge raft of secondary tactical and logistical considerations add many layers of complexity to each engagement. As a result, Wargame: European Escalation rewards intelligent planning and forethought over sky-high APM, and victory feels all the more satisfying for it. Clearly, this is one for the deep strategists who, as the old axiom goes, 'love it when a plan comes together'.

As an aside, the game's developers, Eugen Systems, have very recently announced Act of Aggression, the spiritual successor to their 2005 effort, Act of War. Purporting to offer classic 90s RTS thrills, up to and including classic resource management and base building mechanics, wrapped up in a 'tomorrow's military' aesthetic of which Tom Clancy would certainly have approved, it may end up being the perfect outlet for Command & Conquer veterans frustrated by EA's cancellation of the series' own pseudo-realistic free to play offering.