Single Malt Strategy: Episode 82 | Top 3 Games of 2023 | 2023 Recap - Single Malt Strategy

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome everyone to Singlele Strategy. Thisis podcast episode number. Is there a
number here? We're off to areal good start, and we are off
to a real good start. Soundslike someone who's done this before. Episode
eighty two. I'd like to welcomemy co host Finnish Jaeger. Finish Jaeger.
How are you doing today? I'mdoing okay. Thanks for having me

(00:21):
on them one more time. Wewere really looking forward to having you back.
Unfortunately, we also have wolf Packthree, four to five with us.
Welcome wolf Hello, and the historicalgamer Matt Howdy. Since this is
obviously going to be released before theend of twenty twenty three, people are
really interested in hearing our take onthe twenty twenty three games. Yeah,
they're on their edge of their seat. Yeah, and they certainly haven't heard

(00:42):
anybody do a review of the twentytwenty three games yet. I'm sure none
of those have gone out, sonot on any of our channels, that's
for sure. Yeah, that's exactlyright. No, we Yeah, that's
right. Honor bound. If someoneposts a video, I might have done
a list or two, but letme point out that I recorded that all
the way back in twenty twenty three, so I've given it a whole year.

(01:03):
It's twenty twenty four. Now it'sstill twenty twenty three. No,
it's what are you talking about?Finish? It was twenty twenty four,
but Tortua said it was twenty twentythree. He was making it sound like
we were talking before the year wasup. Yeah, like you know,
yeah, I'm playing along. Youknow, I don't want to know.
You just trying to set me upfor failure. Be like, oh,
he took you for so long.You two are just like just lagging behind.

(01:25):
He's like a comedic genius. Whata true co host. You shut
the fuck up? Oh my god, what is that bit from? What
is that bit from? That's reallyfunny? Remember that's good? Like,
right, boy, we're going in. We're going to off the rails immediately.
Oh my gosh, this is likea train derailment. We're gonna do

(01:47):
our top three games. Let's startwith uh, we'll find you go first.
What was your number three game intwenty twenty three? My number three
game? Number three is a trickyone. I mean I got number two
and number one. I'm gonna,you know what, I'm just gonna throw
a game out out there, bouldersGate three and no particular order. I
know it's not really this you knowpodcast, you know, single malt strategy.

(02:07):
I guess boulders Gate kind of beconsidered a strategy game for sure.
It's such a great game, bythe way, which I still haven't played,
but I mean i've I've probably watchedabout three hours or more on that.
Anyway, it's a great game,So I think it fits. You
know, there's one of those thingsevery now and then, those great games
come along and it transcends genres surelike once in a decade. Yeah,
type of deal. I think bouldersGate three definitely fits in that. Yeah.

(02:30):
But it's turn based, right,I mean, it does definitely have
strategy elements to it. Like Iwould say, that's a that's a legitimate
game for this list, even withoutthe you know, fact of how big
it was. We have a historicalbias, I suppose with our our gaming.
But but yeah, boulders Gate three. Love it. It's great.
Been playing the heck out of it. Looking to play some more. Wolf

(02:51):
Search History is whatever. Cut thatso Wolf you get the you'll have the
liberty of choosing who you want topick on next for their number three.
I'd like to hear the historical gamersnumber three, So number three on my
list. Yeah, I'll say somethingthat may be controversial. I don't know
to it's a favorite of Tortugas.I know Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts because it officially

(03:14):
came out this year. You're numberthree? Wait are you serious? Yeah?
When he said that, I waslike, you're not, You're not
serious, but he is. Iam one hundred percent serious, And let
me let me I won't. Iwon't belabor the point. Defend yourself,
defend defend yourself. This is justwalk the plank. So here's the thing
about Ultimate Ultimate Admiral Dreadnought that Ithink makes it at least worthwhile taking a

(03:38):
look at, and I think ismore notable in terms of the games that
officially came out this year on Steam. You know, obviously Ultimate Admiral.
We've talked about it on this onthis podcast a ton, so I won't
talk a bunch about it. Butright, it's an it's an It's one
of those games like Rule the Waveswhere you're a your secretary of an Avy,
you run an avy, you designships and you and you buy them
and then fight them in in fictionalwars that generate way too frequently to be

(04:01):
real, thank god. And itdefinitely has problems. It has a very
bad UI, it has a clunkyand kind of bloated feeling campaign, which
by the way, Rule the Waveskind of does now too, and it
has not great battle generation or sortof strategic map management of fleets. But
the reason it is on this listis a game like Rule the Waves is

(04:26):
a very that's a tough sell toanybody who doesn't already know what it is,
or who isn't really like wargamer orwargamer adjacent. Right Like, you're
trying to sell someone on a gamethat effectively is a glorified spreadsheet looking game,
right Like, most of that gamelooks like you could make it in
a complex Excel spreadsheet, and thebattles are not much better. Ultimate Admiral
has Kerbal space program management elements toits its shipbuilding, which is pretty easy

(04:54):
to pick up and kind of fiddlearound with. It's not I think the
holes are not perfect, and sometimesit feels like you're fighting the system,
but overall like it looks good whenyou're building ships, and it is pretty
easy to build a ship that kindjump in and just ask you a question,
though, what what is it aboutthe game that you gives it number
three for you this year? Thereason it's on the list is because it

(05:15):
came out this year, and I'venever put out on a list before.
It's like a good game, Butat number three, I mean, I
don't think there were a ton ofwar games, And that's kind of the
direction I built my list on waslargely wargames. I don't think there were
a ton of war games that actuallycame out this year. There are a
lot of strategy games, but thereweren't a ton of war games that came
out this year. And that's kindof how I built my list. Everybody
builds their list differently, okay,And I felt like if I was trying

(05:40):
to talk about games that are wargames that came out this year, I
don't think you could not talk aboutthis game because I think if you're in,
I think this is a game thatappeals to people that traditional war games
do not. You look at itfor a wargame, looks pretty mechanics,
not too complicated to figure out,battles look pretty nice, and at the
end of the day, I thinka lot of what hurts Ultimate Admiral dreadnoughts

(06:03):
when it comes to people's perception ofwhere it should fall on the rankings.
I'm not going to say they're notvalid criticisms, but I think a lot
of them are born from disappointed expectationsrather than the game actually being bad,
even though I just said a bunchof stuff about it that's not great,
Like, I think Ultimate Admiral getspenalized because there were a lot of high

(06:25):
expectations by folks in the war gamingcommunity that it did not live up to.
But if it was released by literallyanybody else and it came out of
left field and people didn't have expectationsabout it and it was just released,
I think this would have a completelydifferent reception of a game. That's not
to say it's flawless, but Rulethe Waves isn't flawless either. Rule the
Waves has a lot of problems andpeople adore that game. So Rule Ways

(06:46):
three also came out this year,and you're saying, I'm guessing that Rule
Wave three was not on your topthree. It was not. So you
think that Ultimate Amil Dreadnought is abetter game than Rule Way three I think
Rule the Waves three is not ameaningful enough improvement over Rule the Waves two
to like stand on its own,as this is a this is a great

(07:08):
game that came out this year.Like I play Rule the Waves three,
and I'm just like, Okay,they added a bunch of bloat to Rule
the Waves two, which was largelythey added bloat to Rule the Waves one,
and so I don't, you know, I don't think Rule of Waves
three stands alone whereas Ultimate Admiral.Now, I mean I kind of disagree.
I mean Rule Ways three, Iagree with Ruleway three. I would
not say it didn't make my topthree. It's like kind of an honorable

(07:30):
mention only just because I think it'ssignificant that it was released and it's not
on my top three, and it'sobviously just a dominant force on my on
my YouTube channel, and it's aniconic game on the in the like Grognardi
wargame community. But yeah, Idon't think. I don't think Rule the
Waves three made it. Rule Wavestwo was good though, Okay, it

(07:50):
was. It was good ish becauseit added carriers, and carriers are interesting.
They're interesting. I will give youthat. I don't necessarily think Carriers
are very well done in Rule ofthe Waves. But I will give you
that they added a considerably new mechanicto the game, and they are interesting
to fiddle around with. If Ibut but like I guess where I'm What
I'm trying to say is, ifRule the Waves three came out today as

(08:13):
the first game in the Rule ofWaves series, it would absolutely be above
Ultimate Admirl. But I don't thinkRule of Waves three did enough for me,
just you know, when compared toRule the Waves two to be like,
Okay, yes, I'm really excitedto play Rule of Waves three.
It does so much new stuff.I think Ultimate Admiral does some stuff that
Rule the Waves doesn't do that Ifind interesting and enjoyable and that I will

(08:35):
I will come back to from timeto time to play with. And honestly,
like, if Rule the Waves threedidn't exist, I don't there wouldn't
be you know, it wouldn't reallybe that big of a deal to me.
I could just go play Rule Wavestwo and get ninety nine percent of
of what Rule Waves three would giveme. Well, I do feel like
the most exciting feature of Rule ofWaves three is the fact that it's on
Steam Okay, fair, fair,and not through you know, like that's

(09:00):
what I see the improvement of RullaWaves from two to three and not the
anti piracy situation they utilized before.That's a good point. Yeah, but
if that's not that does not justifya you know, buying a forty dollars
game over again, essentially No,But it's it reminds me of like sports,
right, where like you got alot of players who are injured all
the time, and there's there's youknow, saying that goes around where it's

(09:22):
like availability is you know, partof what you have to have to be
a great player. Right. Youcan you can be the best player in
the league when you're healthy, butif you're never healthy, that doesn't do
your team any good. That's kindof true about games too, right,
Like if you're the best game that'sanyone's ever made about this topic, but
you're hidden away in this tiny littleniche. Frankly, as far as most
players are concerned, that that doesn'tmatter because they're never gonna find you.

(09:43):
The fact that they do get onSteam that is definitely something that is worth
talking about because they are now exposedto a far wider potential customer base than
they ever have been before. Ohyeah, absolutely. I mean even just
looking at their Steam page now theyhave like five hundred dish reviews. That's
I don't know. That seems likea lot to me for a game like

(10:03):
this. Yeah, I'm sure theyprobably only sold a couple thousand when they
were on like maybe five six thousand. Maybe I don't know, I'm making
numbers up. I shouldn't, butcertainly, you know, what's the percentage
of folks that leave a review too? Right? So Minu School, so
I'm sure they sold a lot betterthan on Steam you would think. Then
they sold on naval warfare simulations.Anyway, I think that's enough about Ultimate
Addmirle. That's kind of my logicfor putting it on the list. Well

(10:26):
finished Jaguar, All right, yeah, I'll go next. So my list
is really just three games I likeplaying the most. It wasn't games that
were released in twenty twenty three,but my number three game is actually going
to be played up. Oh.I don't know if this will make Tortuga's
list or not. Probably guess maybenot. But I think mainly because I
just had so much fun playing multiplayerwith Tortuga. Just every night that we

(10:48):
played. I had so much fun. The game is kind of unique in
that, like when we were losingand when things were difficult, it was
almost like even more fun. It'slike the things are stressful, but we
were always like thing about, youknow, funny situations. So I was
just gonna say I never played thesingle player. I only played multiplayer with
you, Tortuga, and I feellike I'd only played multiplayer with other people,

(11:11):
and I think that's perfectly fine withthat game. I had so much
fun, So that's why it's onmy list. It didn't make mind,
but that's most mostly because it didn'treally consider that for the genre like it's
I was really only considering war game, strategy games, stuff like that.
But it's an easy recommend I highlyrecommend it. It does kind of epitomize
that hole losing his fun mentality.It is pretty fun to lose. I

(11:33):
mean you don't feel it in themoment, but then afterwards you're like rolling
laughing about it exactly. Yep.The replayability of that game was extremely high.
I was impressed. Yeah, Iactually played that one too, and
it was fun for what it is. You know, that's not a game
I could think like hundreds of hoursor two or anything. But what little
I played of it, I enjoyedit. I have not played it,
but I watched you guys playing it. It looked fun. So then not

(11:54):
invite you. No, no oneever invites me to play these things.
It makes me wonder why I'm youknow, speaking of ICBM two. Baby,
we gotta do it. Yeah,I'm looking forward to that. Get
backstabbed again. Give my destroyers sunkoff the coast of Cumchaka or whatever,
Soka Leen or whatever. It wasone of my favorite gaming like memories.

(12:16):
Anyway, off topic again. Sorry, Well that's all I have to say
about played up. So Totuga,did you have a Did you talk about
your third? No? Not yet. I have some wild picks for this
last year. I don't know howI even ended up deciding on this.
I was probably just having a weirdnight. But number three for me is
a game called Pegasus Expedition, andI really don't know if it's a great

(12:37):
game. I like, I couldonly half heartedly recommend it, and only
for people. So first of all, it's a four x game that has
an interesting take that it's very narrativedriven. It's practically like playing a story
but also a four X game,so it tried to submerge these Generally,
I would say four X is themost sandbox, the least narrative driven as

(12:58):
a genre, so it's pretty interestingto see somebody try to do it.
And I basically I am just applaudingthe innovation of that game, you know.
I mean Steam ended up picking Starfieldas the most innovative game, which
is like the biggest joke I've everseen. Yeah, that's just hilarious.
Pegas's Expedition has a legitimate claim tomaybe being innovative. I really don't think
that I've seen a story based fourX game, and you know, it's

(13:22):
like the four X elements of itare like okay. So that's why I
can't recommend it, because just thegameplay itself is not like hugely compelling.
It feels like it's a lot ofthings that we've all seen before in four
X and probably a lot of thingsthat different mechanics have been done better by
different four X games. But thefact that they have this emphasis on the
story was pretty cool, and Ifeel like if you enjoyed the story,

(13:43):
you would get a lot out ofthe game. So that's my number three
is a space four X game.Did you say that you wouldn't really recommend
it, like half heartedly. Iguess it would only appeal so for people
who are interested in four X gamesand who wanted to take a chance on
a story based four X game.I would recommend it. For people who
are interested in four X games,I probably would not because I don't think

(14:03):
it does It's not going to bea great a representative four X game for
them anyway. I would probably recommendpeople start with like SIV or something first.
Our top threes, by the way, a game Tortu you won't recommend,
and a game everybody was yelling atme for including Ultimate Admiral. Everyone
should play boulders Gate three. Baby, Yeah, that's a pretty solid number.

(14:26):
That's your number three. Yeah,well what about number two? What's
your number two? My number twois? I mean, okay, this
game did not come out last year. It has had a large DLC come
out, so I'm pretty much includingthat as it. But my number two
Call to Harms Gates of hell OsFront and then the expansion is Liberation.

(14:48):
I've been really liking Call to Arms. It's been honestly probably one of my
most played games of the year,so that's why it's in the number two
slot. World War two RTS gamekind of a spiritual successor, I guess
to Men of War, which Inever even played, so there is that
too. But you just like callingarty down onto churches. I Artillery is
a lot of fun. I forcedFinish here to play it, and uh,

(15:11):
you know, it's like it's goodstuff. I enjoy it. He's
got a gun to my head likesome Soviet commissar. Yeah, it's like
one of those games. Please donot send me over the top. It's
it's one of those games that's prettystressful, but in a good way.
Yeah, when you were saying youforced Finish to play it, I thought

(15:31):
you were gonna say, you forcehis troops into the church and then you
call artillery down on them. Butnow that's I did see. I did
see you called artie and then youwere like walk one of you was walking
through your own artillery fire. Thatwas all. It was all Finish's fault,
though. I thought the artillery wasgoing to stop, and my guys
just, you know, they ranright into it. And like, multiplayer's
fun in that game, and relativelystable, and the single player experience is

(15:54):
great with their dynamic campaign, Socan you not do the campaign with co
op? No, you can dothat and co op too, Okay,
Like, whenever I see people playingit, it seems like it is a
great co op game, like oneof those games like you want to play
with friends and you want to dosomething like this, this is a game
to jump in. I've played alittle bit single player. It's fine.
I like it. We should dosome multiplayer. Let's do that, you
know, invite me some time,Okay, Okay, I will next time.

(16:17):
Bio Wolf and I are doing coop campaign, right, Yeah,
we're doing the co op campaign.Like they have scripted missions that go over
like historical operations, and then youhave the dynamic stuff where you kind of
pick and choose your forces. Admittedly, I kind of like the dynamic stuff
a little more, but the setpieces in the actual MIT, like handcraft
admissions are are pretty cool. Anyway. That's my number two. THHG.

(16:41):
What is your number two, sir? And my number two is a game
I included because I just wanted tosay I told you so to Tortuka.
So at number two, I've gotUltimate General American Revolution, which is not
a completed game by any means yet, but effectively it's the newest ultimate general
game in that series. It's madeby Game Labs. It is a game
that takes place in the American Revolution, where you right now anyway, you

(17:03):
can only play as the Americans.It starts in seventeen seventy five. You
build your armies, you manage themon a strategic map of like Massachusetts,
New York, sort of the northernsection of the American Revolution, like into
Canada too, and then you moveyour armies around. You try and take
key objectives like Boston or Montreal orQuebec, you know, the main objectives

(17:25):
of the war in seventeen seventy fiveand early seventy six. And then when
armies collide, you fight a tacticalbattle on the tactical map, and you
know this is on the list lessbecause of where it is right now,
but more because of what it is. I don't understand, Like I tried
to back my tongue. Lets youtalk about, how is this on your
list? How is this? It'sin early acxis and I said it was

(17:48):
going to come out this year andlast year you were like, there's no
way, it's coming out this year, so you know what, well,
it should have come out this year. It's not bad, it's not great,
it's not bad, and it's thisnumber two game of the year,
I know, right, Like okay, anyway, yeah, it's whatever.
You know, mister Tortuga, Iwouldn't even recommend my number three game on
my list. I'm wondering, like, can we check his mail? Does

(18:11):
this guy on game labs payroll?You know? I had? I can't
remember if it was my most anticipatedlist of my top five list, but
someone said the same thing to meabout my other list I made because like
three of the five games were Slytheringames and go, oh, this dude's
on the Slytherin payroll. Sill.Yeah, I will say I love the
idea of the ultimate General American Revolution. That being said, I have not

(18:36):
played much of Age of sl Iplayed Civil War a lot and really liked
it, so it was great.So the reason it's on them, just
to be frank, the reason it'son my list is I think they nailed
the strategic the strategic layer where youhave to manage stuff on the strategic map
and then armies move around and Collideand Fight. I think that is is
is pretty well done. I havesome criticisms that I feel and this is
kind of true for all the UltimateGeneral games except maybe Gettysburg, so I

(19:00):
guess the only other Ultimate General,But it's true of Age of Sale too.
It's like I don't think they getelevation great on their tactical battles in
any of their games, Like mapsfeel kind of flat, kind of in
the same way that like I thinkEugen Systems games, elevation never really feels
like it matters. So I thinkthat's a little bit of a problem.
And battles are a little repetitive atthis point, so I think they need
to add a maybe a bigger battlefieldmap, or not have units spawn so

(19:25):
close to each other because there's nota great opportunity to maneuver. But I
really think the strategic map is,like the way that implementation is handled,
I think to me is very welldone. I think it could use some
fine tuning, but I really dothink like I'm excited to see the way
that's all going to be put togetherwhen it gets further along in early access,

(19:47):
because I was very nervous about howthey were going to handle going from
purely scripted strategic you know, manageyour army, but like every battle is
on a list of battles and youjust go down the list and fight the
next battle, which is how theirprevious games all work to an actual sort
of dynamic campaign on a strategic mapthat's in plausible real time and I think

(20:10):
they did a very good job ofthat so far. So yes, it
is very early. But the reasonthat's on this list is I think the
building blocks are there, and there'sfine tuning that needs to occur, but
the building blocks are there and arepretty solid, and I think it'll it
shows me that there's going to bea very good game when this is done.
I think one quick question that throwsme off with all games Labs games,

(20:33):
do you get copy strikes if youdon't disable the music when you upload
to YouTube with this particular video game, because every other game like you have
to turn off the music or youget copyright strikes because they don't license there.
I don't know what the situation withthat is, but it is.
Yeah, the license they're purchasing isn'tlike which is fine. I put all

(20:53):
my I do all my music andpost editing anyway, so whatever, But
no, just if that was stilla thing, I don't know. I'll
have to go back and double check. I kind of think I always have
the music turned off now because that'swhat I'm used to with game web games.
But I don't remember there being apop up like with their other games
where it's like, hey, contentcreators, make sure you disable the music
or you'll get copyright strikes. SoI'm not sure there isn't a ton of

(21:17):
music in the game right now,Like they've got some folks playing some wind
instruments, but it's not like it'slike built into the sound effects of kind
of the menu as opposed to thisis a score of of a of a
soundtrack type deal. I see coldBeans. So, I mean, you
may you may disagree with me here, Tortuga, but I do think there's
valid reasons to put it on thislist at number two. No, I

(21:41):
agree with you. I think it'sI mean, I'm not sure if it
would make my top three. Ididn't play it yet, so it's hard
to say. With early access games, you know, when do you put
them out, because basically the wholerelease cycle is totally f nowadays, you
know, you do, like,what does it mean for a game to
be released versus released to early access. It means so wildly different things for
different games. Yeah, and Idon't want to we can, we can

(22:02):
move on, but I do wantto say I will I will add one
caveat or one one piece to whatyou just said. Is that I feel
like with game Lab games, alot of times you can tell if it's
if it's going to be a problematicearly access game Naval Action, you could
tell, like this thing is whatis going on here? Ultimate Admiral dreadnots
even though it's on my list,But like when it first came to early
access, it was like, whatthe heck is this right? Like's it

(22:22):
was all just like scenarios and thecampaign, Like when it came out,
it was like, this doesn't evenlike it's not even reflective of what the
final campaign is going to be.To me, this is reflective of what
the final campaign is going to be. Along with polishing, it needs to
be more needs to be added toit. The core of the system is
here and it seems to work well. That's my opinion. So that's why

(22:45):
I'm I'm optimistic about this one.In a way that I haven't been on
a last their last couple of gamesthat anyway, moving on finish, what's
your number two? My number twois Souzorain. So I really liked this
game. I think I really likedthe story and the different paths you could

(23:07):
take if you play the game multipletimes. I really enjoyed kind of the
world building and the in game loreand how that was presented and how it
was important to the story. Thegame had like those that in game fact
book, and it was interesting justto read, you know, you learn
more about your nation and the othernations that it felt like a realistic world.

(23:29):
They added so much that they didn'tneed to add, I think to
the lore of that. So Iguess I would agree. I would agree
because I think the game was lackingon like decisions for your national policies or
like the foreign policy, because therewas information about cities and other nations that
you never really had any impact with. The game would have been better if

(23:52):
you had more decisions to make aspresident. Well, what I was,
what I was trying to say isand that's not I'm not saying that as
a dig I'm saying I think you'reright there's a really strong sense of lore
to this game, and I thinkit's because they added so much that was
like not always directly relevant to whatyou were doing, right, Like it
felt like a real world because therewas so much outside of just your narrow

(24:14):
window, which I think a lotof strategy games sometimes struggle with. And
the fact that they added all thisit feels it feels like a bigger world
than just your your little kingdom thatyou're directly interacting with. And this is
a great game. I love thatit's on this list. The writing and
the storytelling of this game is justso brilliant, and it is far more
immersive, I think than you wouldget just watching a stream. I think

(24:37):
it's one of those games like whenyou play it, you're like, WHOA
watching a stream? I could seeyou being like, and I think you
were you said that. I don'tknow, like I don't know if these
kind of games are you know,for you, or maybe they just don't
show great on stream, But itkind of feels like, all right,
I'm watching someone read and click buttonsand you know when you when you play
it, the I think the storytellingand the writing is so well done that
it really draws you in. Yeah, I'll agree. Yeah, when I

(25:00):
I watched you play, I wasn'treally hooked. But playing the game myself,
you know, I have the abilityto make my own decisions, right,
so I can drive the story,and my decisions is the way I
want to So yeah, I thinkthat really hooked me into that game.
Other things I liked about the gamevisually, I really liked how the map
look. It was kind of likethat Atlass kind of look. I like

(25:21):
the color palette and just the waythat the map was presented. And then
just like mentioned before, I likethe replayability. I've played two I guess
I've only played two playthroughs, butthey've been different both times, and you
can tell where there's some similarities withthe path, like there's only a certain
number of outcomes that will happen,so that's slightly disappointing, but overall,

(25:45):
you do have a lot of differentoutcomes in the game. I don't know
if it's changed with some of theupdates, but when we did an interview
with the developer, I think itwas for single mold Strategy years ago when
at first, because he came outin twenty twenty and I remember him saying
initially anyway, like the way theydesigned the game was like you should play
this twice. Like they didn't.They knew it wasn't the kind of game
that you're going to play like thirtytimes, right, It's going to get

(26:07):
repetitive eventually, but they felt likethere was enough in there that you could
really experience the game the way theywere hoping you would experience it two or
three times based on the content.So I think you're right. I've only
played it a full play through twotimes, but it is I could talk
about this for an hour, soI don't mean to sabotage your section,

(26:27):
and this is just a game.I'm glad it was on your list because
I love I love this game.Yeah, I really did, really enjoyed
it. I think, like Ialso mentioned, I wish that there was
more decisions that you could make aspresident to make it seem like you were
having an impact on the country.And I know that wasn't really the outcome
of the story because it's a veryit's the story driven, you know,

(26:48):
management country management game. I knowthey're coming out with that guess another DLC,
and it's probably going to be thesame, but it would be nice
if you had more impact on yourcountry's day to day like policy and foreign
policy decision. Yeah, it's basicallya visual novel, right, Like,
despite all the graphs and things theyshow you like, it's effectively it's a
visual choose your own adventure visual novel, as opposed to like, I'm not

(27:11):
gonna have free reign to do thesesliders here to see how I could optimize
the economy. Right, But Ithink in that sense, it's probably more
realistic. How many decisions the presidentisn't in there, like we're gonna tweak
this this way and tweak it thisway. Right, Like most presidents in
a modern world, things come upand they've got a couple of choices that
they're sort of presented as options withand they have to choose between that.

(27:32):
They're you know, outside of maybetwo or three really key pieces to their
their agenda, they're not they're notcrafting super unique responses to everything that comes
out. So I do think there'sa level of authenticity to that. That's
just the way that like leadership works, right. A lot of times leaders
are presented with options and you're youchoose between them. You don't invent all
the options. Yeah, going throughthe game is like I wanted to make

(27:56):
more budget decisions, you know,I wanted to make more infrastructure build decisions.
I wanted to like, you know, call up my neighbor or whatever
of a neighboring country and have likea diplomatic dialogue. And I know that's
you know, that's not what thegame is really focused on. But I
think you could probably combine that withthe story to improve the game. But

(28:17):
it's definitely a very strong number two. It did feel like the foreign policy
stuff it gets, there's more ofit at the end, but it did
feel like, hey, this feltalmost more like I'm a governor than I
am like a president, right,Like, there weren't a lot of options
to call up your neighbor and belike, hey, I need your help
on whatever. Apparently Rizzio, whichis the DLC, is going to lean
much more into foreign policy than domesticwhich will should be interesting. You're in

(28:40):
Rizzia, you're basically going to belike, I don't know if you really
Saudi Arabia, but you're basically you'rea monarchy in an oil rich state.
So you know, take that forwhat it is, which I think is
a very different type of story,and I'm really excited to see what they
do with that. Yeah, wellthat's all I got. Who's next,
Tortuga? You're number two? What'sup? All right? My number two
is I'm doing a little curveball here? Can I mix mine up? I

(29:03):
just listen to you guys talk anddecided to switch my order. Oh love
boy, the number two is goingto be great War Western Front. Honestly,
it was probably my number one standalonegame. But I'll explain why it's
not my number one when we getto number one stuff. But it's a
great game. I think everybody's Ijust I want to speak for everyone here.
I want to say that probably everyonethought it was a good game,
everyone in the world or everyone onthe podcast. I enjoyed it what I

(29:26):
played. This podcast member did notplay the game, but enjoyed watching people
stream it. It wasn't as Iguess realistic, as I kind of hoped
it would be, but it wasstill fun. See. I always thought
that the grind, the way thatevery battle was like the same, and
that how that was really tedious,very well encapsulated what World War One was.

(29:47):
Sure, that's kind of a backhandedmaybe I should play it more.
Yeah, I guess the AI waskind of silly too. Yeah, no,
it from what I played, ButI don't know if that's you know,
been changed or what. I needto get back to it, because
they have released a series of patchesthat are based on When I read the
patch notes, I'm like, Wow, that feels like that would change a
lot. But I haven't played itin a while, so I don't I

(30:10):
don't know how real that is.I this was you just wanted to preempt
me because this was my number one. But I think this is a really
good game. I will say Ithink it fits better in the nineteen fifteen
to nineteen sixteen sort of technology periodI think, or and maybe a little
bit late war. I don't thinkit does a very good job of modeling

(30:30):
like nineteen eighteen, you know,the way that the war unfolded. It's
certainly you know. And the biggestcriticism I would have is that it feels
a little too modern, like somethings are a little too easy. From
an artillery point of view, it'dbe interesting if you could only do pre
planned bombardments and you had to pickwhere to bombard. At that point,
it's a little too easy to belike, use modern tactics, or I'm

(30:52):
going to send a small group forward. They're going to look and find where
the machine gun nest is. Now, when I see the machine gun nest,
I'm going to pinpoint artillery right ontop of that machine gun nest and
suppress it or destroy it, dependingon the type of barrage I call in
for, you know, to pinthem down from an X attack. That
feels like that feels Vietnam esque morethan it does World War One. And
not only that, but like theAI, I felt like we already talked

(31:12):
about it, it's failing. WasI feel like you could learn how to
play the game right, and thenyou knew the best way to play,
and then it kind of like exactlywhere you're describing, the gameplay kind of
was mired in like this repetitive loopbecause you figured out how to beat the
AI, and then you just didthe same thing over and over again.
Okay, move my truce off tothe side, go up and flank,

(31:33):
use artillery attack things. I reallyreally liked about it, though. One
thing I don't think here are alot of people talking about it's a game
with a strategic map, right likeyou've got a strategic map of the Western
front, and then you go andyou fight battles on the tactical map.
I love the way that the resourcesare limited there. In order to commit
to an offensive, you need tohave supplies available to commit to that offensive.
Supplies are generated on the global mapand then distributed out to the tactical

(31:57):
battlefields. Every unit carries a littlebit of their own. But then,
like, if you really want tocommit an offensive in a region, you
need to have global supplies coming into support that. And this is a
game that I think does a betterjob than any other game I've ever seen
where hey, you don't have infiniteresources and you have to spend time building
up supplies so that you can supportan offensive, and you can only support

(32:19):
that offensive for so many turns beforeyou kind of got to take a step
back and wait for a while beforeyou can actually do that again. Now
that that kind of gets a littlebit nerve later in the game as you
unlock technology that gives you more stuff. At least initially, it really did
feel authentic where it's like I've gotto plan out where I want to attack
ahead of when i want to attack. There I've got to spend time to
do that. You know, whilethe war's still going on, the AI

(32:42):
could launch spoiling attacks to consume someof my supplies and other regions. I
mean, don't you find That's alsoone of its failings though, is that,
you know, it becomes very grindybecause of exactly this. You can't
really push in the same area multipletimes, and it takes multiple attacks on
a different territory in order to forit to swap hands. Now during the
one turn that you can't do theoffensive, perhaps if you didn't plan well

(33:04):
enough, that resets the timer onyour I mean, it just takes the
game. The game grinds out evenlonger. My complaints are more that one.
I wish the map was more dynamicin terms of when you fight a
battle multiple times in a region.It would be really cool if you saw
the scars of the battle. Youdon't, They kind of disappear, and
then it's just a generic like,hey, this battlefield is destroyed, right,

(33:25):
like trenches remain, but other stuffdoesn't. I understand from a game
design perspective why that would probably bevery hard, but it is a little
disappointing. But then on the strategicmap what you're talking about. I like
the concept behind like each unit hasa certain number of stars and you've got
to reduce it all the way beforeyou can take a region. I think
that is, in theory, probablynot a bad way to handle World War

(33:46):
One, not being a blitzkrieg whereyou can't just hit one hex and then
hit the hex behind it and thenhit the hexts behind it, because that's
not how the war was fought.I do think it does get a little
repetitive. I think maybe they justthey could solve that by nerfing the regions
of Instead of making regions four stars, you could make a region of four
stars two stars and probably have gohave the same vibe to how quickly the

(34:07):
frontline moves like. I think there'sways to solve that. But yeah,
I do think that's a little bitof a limitation. I still really love
the way that the supplies are allocated, but I do think the strategic layer
does have some flaws. So thisis Tortuoka's second Game of the Year or
Game of twenty twenty three. Whatare your positive I feel like we're only
hearing negatives, So I think thatit actually encapsulated world War One pretty well.

(34:29):
We don't have a lot of WorldWar One games especially. This is
like kind of like Company of Heroes. It's like Company of Heroes for World
War One. You know. Ikind of enjoy even just you know,
taking your super tank, get yourtank early on, and then just drive
it over trenches. The game playsreally fun. I think it's fun.
It is a game. It's agame like War in the Pacific. And

(34:52):
what I mean by that is itis a game that if you really look
at the systems, you can exploitit and you can break it, and
you can play the game in away that I don't think intended to be
played. I think it's a reallygood game if you don't do that,
if you understand like what the experiencethat's being driven at, and you just
embrace the embrace the suck of WorldWar One and try to experience it in

(35:14):
in that way. And I thinkthat, like I said previously, right,
the strategic element of building up supplies, I've never seen anyone do that
in a way that I think works, and I think this game does that.
I think the ability to you know, the slog of trench warfare and
how those battles can unfold is reallywell done. The AI need some work,

(35:37):
like this is not a flawless game. I don't think any game is
flawless finish, but I do thinkthis is a really good game. It
is visually satisfying. It has limitations, but it is It is a game
that is definitely worth playing, andI think it is a standout game of
twenty twenty three. Whether you wantto quibble about it it should it be
one? Should it be two?You know, I think it is.
It is a great game that Ihad a lot of fun with. Warts

(36:00):
and all. You caught me aflat footed finish, but I think I
remember one thing that I found reallycompelling about the game. I really like
the way they do tech progression.So you have a very few points and
you kind of have to choose whichway you want to go. Do you
want to push towards tanks or pushtowards artillery? And I found that this
worked really well. I was excitedto try to get the next thing.

(36:22):
I think it was a meaningful choicebetween I mean, probably there's an optimal
This game is one of those thatI think you can mind max pretty well.
But you know, moving do Iwant to get aircraft to do to
have bombers drop bombs on the enemylines. Do I want to have better
artillery? Do I want to pushtowards tanks and all those things? As
you get higher up the tech tree, they are very powerful. So I

(36:44):
found that that was really cool,and it was exciting to push towards the
different texts just to be able toplay with them, and that none of
them were super disappointing, where itwasn't like I unlocked tanks and I was
like, oh these suck. Thatwas terrible. I wasted my time.
Each one of them was pretty rewarding, so that was fun. I mean,
we were going to try and doan episode on this multiple times and
it just kept getting rescheduled. Butlike, I think tech Tech's a great

(37:07):
example of I also feel like itcaptured the elements of World War One right,
liked it starts off there's barely anytrenches. The trenches suck. You
don't have good lines of visibility onto the other side like in nineteen fourteen.
You don't have great observation balloons,you don't have all these other things.
And then as the tech evolves,it's like, oh, well,
now I can assault better because Ican advance behind a rolling barrage, which

(37:28):
is something that effectively was developed duringthe war as like a tactic to getting
through trenches. But now the trenchesas Tech gets up, your trenches become
much more robust and much more indicativeof what you think of when you think
of World War World War One,and those trenches stay on the maps,
so those carry over battle to battle, and so Tech is a great place
where I think it stands out asbeing a very well done game. We

(37:50):
could spend a two hour episode onthis game just by itself. I think.
Does that bring us background to WolfFor your number one? I guess
yeah. My number one it officiallyreleased a little while ago. It's kind
of a rough around the edges asa small game. But my number one
is Destroyer the You Boat Hunter,which is a game that unless you command
a destroyer hunting you boats in theAtlantic, that's pretty much all you do,

(38:14):
and it does it rather well inmy opinion. I don't know if
any of y'all have played it.Yeah, they sponsored me to do some
videos, so I'm obligated to sayit is a good game. Okay,
well you don't have to say that, but thank you for money brand,
Okay, And that's not the reasonI'm saying. I actually do like it.
I'm glad we're getting this perspective ofthe Battle of the Atlantic, even

(38:36):
though it is a Fletcher class destroyer, But that allows them to maybe expand
into the Pacific and do and flushit out a bit more. So.
I enjoyed it too. I'm justgiving you shit. It was fun.
It's a fun tactical exercise. Ilike it. It can be a little
challenging, like to try and dothe math of like, yeah, you
know, because I think it doesa good job of simulating what, all

(38:58):
right, you got a detection asubmarine? What is that? Like?
What does that mean in terms ofhow should I approach it? Where is
it relative to the to my ship, relative to the convoy? Like is
it a threat? There is thereanother contact that's a bigger threat as you
start getting closer in, like youdon't just it's not like you can just
go directly over the top of thesub and drop your depth charges like you're
gonna miss every time if you dothat. It is It is a challenging

(39:21):
game too. I think it speaksto a lot of a lot of the
math and the challenges behind anti submarinewarfare in World War two, you know,
and kind of in a similar vein, although not really the same as
something like like Silent Hunter does.Yeah, I, like you said,
it is difficult. They did addquite a few assists. They added a
career mode. It's admittedly the careermode's rough around the edges. A lot

(39:45):
of the cut scenes, like theyuse AI text generated stuff, so that
kind of takes me out of it. But the core gameplay I love so
that It's probably not going to beeverybody's number one, but I'm just happy
to see something like this released.So Tom Simulator pretty much. Yeah,
you know, well, watching yourcurrent series, I think I was surprised
at the stuff that they have addedwith the career campaign and then some of

(40:08):
the features in that campaign. Iguess I've only was used to watching your
You played a little demo which itwas just the short missions, but I
guess it's nice to see it iscoming along nicely. Yeah, the missions
are persistent now, so you loseships as you this convoy goes along and
those ships stay lost until you reachyour destination or whatever. A lot of

(40:30):
people were wishing that there was likemore of a dynamic campaign like Silent Hunter,
where you would just sit on yourdestroyer and watch the time go behind.
But I think people, I don'tthink people realize how boring that would
be. Like this puts you inthe engagements you hop in whenever you get
a contact, and you just havethe actual traveling in your head, like

(40:53):
you just imagine it instead of justsitting and looking at a map on a
projected route that you didn't even andmake yourself. That would be an interesting
game design experiment because I think you'reright, and I think the reason it
works for Silent Hunter and it doesn'tfor Destroyer, or I don't think it
would for Destroyer is because Silent Hunter, you're the attacker. You're you are

(41:13):
the one on the m You're drivingall the initiative, right, Like so
your can what would you do whereyou decide to kind of sit out and
hopefully interdict a convoy, like that'sall your decision. You're also the hunted
too, so like there's all thesethings outside the convoy that are coming for
you, that are trying to findyou and trying to stop you. Whereas

(41:35):
like as a destroyer, you're defensive. Your Shepherd. Yeah, you're following
a scripted path. Yeah, andif you run into something along that path,
then something will happen, and ifyou don't, then nothing will happen.
And you can't deviate from that path. And there's nothing like there's no
there's nothing else out there really comingfor you. They're coming for the the
other ships and the convoy, andthey might try to attack you, but
it's kind of like like building agame where you're you're driving over speed bump

(42:00):
is the action as opposed to likeSilent Hunters, like you're building the road.
Yeah, exactly, completely agreed,And uh, I mean it could
work if it was like a HunterKiller simulator where you control like a Hunter
Killer group, which would be cool, but that's not what the game is.
So I think how they did itis fine. It works. I'm
okay with it. I'm glad thedevelopers like didn't bite off more than it

(42:24):
can chew. Like it's refreshing tosee a game with limited scope release and
them do pretty much what they saidthey were going to and not promising the
moon. I agree you Yeah,good point. That's that it could be
polished up, of course if theywant some voice acting I'll do it,
but uh, because some of theAI texts, the speech stuff, some

(42:45):
of it's really good today and thensome of it's so so so. Yeah,
that's it. That's my number one. Thhg. Let's keep this thing
a moving Where two already got bynumber one? So, oh it was
the Great War? I can addone, and you know I won't talk
too much about this. No,that's right, we can move on.
It's fine. Grand Tactician with skinlemons play oh boy, really? Yeah?

(43:05):
Was that your number one? I? No, my number one was
the Great War? But I wouldit wasn't on this list, and it's
because it's a DLC. But Iheard that DLC was kind of rough.
Rough. Everything with Grand Tactician whenit has come out has been rough,
and then they have polished it toget better over time. I think it
is It is really fun to playas an individual within the Civil War rather
than as the Supreme Commander and belike, hey, you only command a

(43:28):
regimen, you only command a brigade. I love the role playing elements that
they build into it, of likeit's about you progressing your career, not
you being Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant at the same time and controlling
everything. It's definitely worth checking out. No, I love that. I
love that aspect of it as well, just commanding a single guy. I

(43:49):
mean, that's kind of why Ilike the Ile two career as opposed to
like, you know, you haveFalcon where you control the whole battle,
but I like just being my dudeexactly. I love. That's the same
reason I love playing called I'm justone guy. Okay, that's why I
play Fortnite. Good point. Ohoh boy finishes number one early number one

(44:13):
game of the year Fortnite, Whatabout you finished? What is your number
one? My number one game ofthe year will via shock to at least
one person, and it's it's gonnabe Gates of Hell ost Front. Well,
let's go. Even after Wolf saidhe's forced me to play it,
I've ranked it as my top gameof twenty twenty three. Starting with the

(44:35):
positives, I think the game hada ton of cool units. It's got
a ton of like he's got theFins, so you know, gotta give
up bonus points for that. Thisguy doesn't even like playing as the Fins
though, so yeah, they gota bunch of crap to be honest and
just get this second hand they haveto go to like the second hand Stoy
like good, what is it likethe good well all green, what's the
what's the second hand story? Will? Good will? Yeah? Good,

(45:00):
the German goodwill, German good willand captured Soviet crap. But anyway,
is this some Stockholm syndrome stuff goingon here? Like he's just forced you
to play it so much, you'rejust like, this is a good gay
I think. So. I reallylike that dynamic campaign a lot, a
lot more than the scripted campaigns.The scripted missions. The scripted missions have

(45:22):
been very frustrating. I will admitthat, maybe because I'm just bad at
the game. But the dynamic campaignis fun because you have the chance to
attack and then defend, and Ilike kind of that back and forth.
I like the having more options todefend compared to like the scripted campaign missions.
There's a whole lot of attacking inthose, so I like, you

(45:42):
know, defending well. Admittedly,I do want to mention we are playing
as the Americans in the scripted campaign, so it makes sense there would be
a whole lot of attacking. Yeah, yeah, I mean as we push
through Europe, I do think thatmaybe the German campaign will be more defensive,
although I do think it does watchon the rhyne stuff, so I

(46:06):
don't know, we'll see we'll seeyou whenever we hop into it. Two
other positives I like for this gamewas the first person mode really adds a
different element to kind of your rtsthat I don't think we see anywhere else.
So I enjoy driving around in atank or taking command of a single
guy and shooting. And lastly,I do like the damage model for like

(46:28):
the units and stuff. I thinkwhen you play against the AI like infantry,
they're a little bit too beefy,like they'll take too many rounds compared
to your guys, and it's probablyjust do like a difficulty scaling thing.
But I do like the damage modelfor tanks. I think that it's pretty
realistic, and thinking to games likeSteal the vision of kind of realism with

(46:51):
tank vehicle damage. Overall, yeah, I think it's a pretty solid game.
I like it. One of thethings I would like more, which
is I guess a quality of lifeand I provement from Steel Division was kind
of like that line of site tool. I would love to be able to
see what units can see on themap, where can my guys see?
Where can the enemy unit see?You know, like where's the covering?

(47:12):
You have so much control over thecamera angles and stuff that you can kind
of get down and see where thehills and stuff are. But I'd love
to just zoom out and just seekind of the line of site tool that
Steel Division has. I can seewhere the hills are and you know where
the hedgerows are and stuff like that. So the game I think really needs
that. But otherwise, just minorimprovements here and there, pre solid game.

(47:34):
That's my number one. By theway, Reddit does not says Germany
doesn't really have an equivalent of goodwill. They have a few organized flea flea
markets, I guess that is whatthey're saying, and a few thrift shops,
but like sounds like they export alot of their secondhand stuff to other
countries, which I guess maybe Finland. We're talking Germany nineteen forty three.

(47:54):
You know, they were just handingall their Romanians and Hungarian allies trash weapons
and then cry about it whenever theRussians come blitzing across, like it's your
vam. Maybe you should have givenhim some better weapons, big guy.
Maybe they shouldn't have joined the Nazis. Yeah, that's a fair point.

(48:15):
That's yeah, I can't really finishgetting all political. Yeah, on my
shelf, on my bookshelf, Ihave a finished World War two helmet,
but it's German made, so it'scut that cut that cut that all right,
Tortuga, you're up? What's yourYou just changed your list mid podcast?

(48:37):
Oh yeah, well I wanted to. I just have the last man.
I decided I really wanted to honormy new favorite publisher, Hooded Horse,
so I decided to put Against theStorm number one. They also released
Cennas two, which I didn't play, but I think it's like in decent
shape. But anyway, I justI've been like really enjoying all the titles

(48:58):
that Hooded Horse has released. LikelyAgainst a Storm is U. It's actually
get colony builder type thing. It'sa little bit reminiscent of the old Impression
games like Caesar three and Pharaoh andall that. Yeah, you have to
build up, you know, yourcity in the right way, and but
it's it's very roguelike, so it'svery it's hard to explain the mechanics finish.

(49:21):
I don't know you've watched a coupleof streams of it, if you
can even jump in and help,because I don't know how to describe it
well. But it's basically a colonybuilder where you expand your city and get
resources, and you're on a timer. There's something called like the Queen's Impatience
or something like that, and itjust slowly ticks up and if it gets
to maximum, you lose. There'sways to bring it down, and then

(49:43):
you're just completing objectives on each littlemap which build up her I don't know
her favor or whatever it is,and you get If you get her favorite
max, you win the mission.But it's it's a lot of fun.
I don't know if it's a lotof fun to watch, but it's a
lot. It's very addictive. Thefirst time I played it, I typically
go to bed around eleven thirty ormidnight and I need to get up at

(50:07):
like five thirty or six. Iplayed until like one thirty in the morning,
So it has that kind of thinggoing for it. I think it
just as a viewer of this game, I think it's got an interesting strategy
element of when when you can expand, where you can expand, and like
when you have to expand, thenyou have to fight that boss I guess
to get in certain areas of themap right, to get to get better

(50:28):
resources or whatever. I think there'sdefinitely like a little strategy element to that
colonization and expansion I think is intriguing. And then also I say, the
I guess you have different species inyour colony, right, so they are
for different kind of bonuses or differentkind of skills, or different kind of
food that you're supposed to supply forthem. And the roquelike nature of the

(50:49):
game is really cool from the perspectivethat, like I prefer to do the
farming thing to get wheat and tomake biscuits or whatever, which the beaver's
like, there's beavers, humans,harpie. You know, it's kind of
a random collection of oh and likewhat is it crocodiles out, no dinosaurs,
dinosaur ly lizards or something, andthen get your plain old humans.

(51:09):
It's an inspired choice, I wouldsay, artistically, or like the field
of the game is very different thananything I've seen before. It's not like
your typical fantasy setting where you gotlike orcs and elves or something like that.
But it has that kind of fantasyfeel to it. But yeah,
yeah they have. The different creatureshave different provide different bonuses, also demand

(51:30):
different foods, So the if you'reon a map where you just don't get
any wheat, then you have tofigure out a new way to provide for
all the different people what your foodsource is going to be, which just
forces you. Like in a lotof games, you figure out the best
strategy and then you just keep doingit map after map. But the way
the resources are very randomized, youend up frequently with maps which will force

(51:53):
you to play a strategy you wouldn'thave played otherwise, and that ends up
being fun too because the game's donewell. So I would say this is
an easy recommend for people who enjoythat kind of banished or seize your three
type type games. Good stuff.Well, I think we should go for
our honorable mentions. Now, ifanybody has any that they want to kind

(52:14):
of list off one of my wellwe'll just go back in the circle.
Stick with you, Wolf, ifyou want to just mention any other titles
that you were thinking about considered likeputting on the list, but they didn't
quite make it. No, Imean they're the only other games I've been
I mean I'm excited about is Postscriptumbeing revived. That's an honorable mention.

(52:36):
I love that game as a firstperson shooter, and it's kind of making
a comeback under it's been rebranded andit was purchased by their publisher, so
it's not called Squad forty four anyway. It's by far my favorite first person
shooter and I'm happy to see thatback. And I've talked about this other
game quite a bit, but Warhammerforty thousand Dark Tide has been my just

(52:58):
chill, relaxing game, just goin and kill stuff. It's like,
uh, I mean you play Vermontide, I believe Tortuga, So, I
mean it's that. But forty Kthey've done quite a bit. They've added
skill trees and stuff to kind offlesh out the experience. So just to
for people who aren't familiar with thatgame, I mean it almost it's it's
just like four person co op,I don't know, just hack and slash,

(53:21):
yeah, like you know, horridefighting, yeah yeah, and you're
finding in the forty K universe,which I like already a lot. I
am kind of a forty K nerdso for me, it's it's reminiscent of
which is a very old title atthis point, Left for Dead. Yeah,
yeah, very similar to that.That's where a lot of the Tide
games get their inspiration from. Soand going on to THHG, I'd say

(53:45):
Grand Tactician would have been the onethat stood out. We kind of already
talked about that. I think theUnity of Command DLCs that have been coming
out have also Unity of Command twoDLCs that have been coming out have been
continued to be very very good andworth taking a look at, and maybe
other games that like maybe they're ona future list, but I haven't had
a chance to play them yet,but I know there are games of Note

(54:07):
Terror and Victa definitely, And I'mexcited to see what's going on with Gunner
Heat PC, Like, oh yeah, jeez, I played that a lot
when it first entered Early Axis.It seems like they're making some good progress.
Oh absolutely, maybe this is morefor like twenty twenty four, but
like, I'm excited to see whereit goes in twenty twenty four. Yeah,
I mean they've added they've kind ofteased the T sixty four. It's

(54:29):
an AI asset and they've added likesmoke launchers and all sorts of stuff.
Air support is getting flushed out.You know, it's not like a super
high fidelity sim where it gets likecorrect me if you think I'm wrong wolf,
But I don't think it rises tolike DCS level when it comes to
like simming. No, it's notlike steal Beast, I guess would be.
Yeah, it's approachable. It's simlight. You hop in. They model

(54:52):
all the optics appropriately, but you'renot in there flip and switches and crap.
But that being said, the smokeis the example. Different countries used
smoke differently, and they do modelI believe they model that based on what
I saw in the patch notes,right, like, oh yeah, the
way that the Russians deploy there orthe Eastern Bloc deploy their smoke is different

(55:15):
than the way that the you know, the the Abrams or the Americans will
deploy their smoke. So like there'sthere's a level of authenticity despite it not
being you can flip every switch inthe tank. It zooms out a little
bit from that sort of fidelity.It's detailed in a different way, and
in my opinion, a much morea way that makes the world feel much

(55:37):
more alive. Yeah, that's allI got. I guess if I don't
know if I have an honorable mention. A game that I guess I like
a lot, but I didn't Iguess play a whole lot in twenty twenty
three was probably IL two Tank Crew. I love playing that game. I
mean, the multiplayers just so muchfun. You know that, the tanks
are so much fun, the damagemodel is so much fun. It's al
realistic. Just love the realism.It's just a shame that a multiplayer scene

(56:00):
is, you know, almost nonexistent. If we have any sort of
if we have any sort of youknow, because we're talking about Gunner Heat
PC and that's definitely like a coldwar if there, If someone else wants
to make a IL two Tank Crewkind of standalone deal that's realistic like that,
I will play it. Well.There is there is a game called

(56:21):
literally called like Tank Squad, andthey had a demo and it was,
uh questionable. Yeah you should thinkyou sent this to me. Yeah,
but the visions there, like Ican see it kind of being fleshed out
and looking being better eventually. Itsays planned release date is Q one twenty
four. I don't know based onwhat I played in the demo, I

(56:43):
don't know how realistic that launch dateis. Yep, that's my only honorable
mention at Tortuga. You're up.You had a list multiple things. I
mean, I wrote down a lotof different games, but I'll just honorably
mention a few of them. Onethat probably really wanted to squeeze in my
top three was Dune Spice Wars.It's the Dune version, you know,
the sci fi universe of Dune versionof what was the previously Northland or there

(57:07):
was, I forget what the predecessorwas. For this, it's the same
people who did like was it northGuard? North Guard? Yes? Thank
you? Yeah, so it's it'sthe next game after north Guard. It's
very similar in play style, butit's in the Dune universe. I thought
it was done very well. Ireally enjoy it. For people who enjoy
I don't know, the north Guardtype things, or are interested in the

(57:29):
Dune universe, it's nice to seea return for a game to the Dune
universe that was Oh, north Guardis forty four thousand reviews. Oh wow.
I wonder how many Dune Spice Warshas because I think it was still
eight thousand. I'm glad because Iknow that they were kind of bummed out.
They were trying to time their releasefor the second Dune movie, and
then the Dune movie got delayed.I remember playing Dune Spice Wars a bit,

(57:51):
and I thought it was like,I'm not like huge into the Dune
universe, but I remember playing.I was like, hey, this is
this is pretty good. It's likethis this scene like an interesting and enjoyable
game. I think that's a verywell, that's like, well put,
it's a great way of describing it. It's a it's just a fun game,
and especially if you are interested inthe Dune universe, it will be
even more appealing. Let me alsomention that Age of Wonders four came out.

(58:15):
I did not play this one.I think it's a very so anybody
who's familiar with the Age of Wondersseries. God, what's the how do
you even describe this? It's aFantasy four X type game, but it
has the tactical combat. How todescribe it. It's like a civkit type
game, but it has tactical combatwhere you cast spells and such, and

(58:35):
I actually have to move around,So that's another honorable mention them last.
Sorry but let me sneak and alsoShadow Empires Oceania DLC released. They just
think Shadow Empire is such a goodgame that it deserves to be mentioned that
that was released. Although you know, there to like kind of had mixed
reviews. People had different thoughts abouthow the naval force stuff was done.

(58:58):
Since it was abstracted, you weren'tactually controlling fleets, it turns out,
I mean, at least somebody hasmentioned that this was actually because I had
a conversation. I think it wasyou as well, Matt, that we
had a conversation with Vic about navalcombat and how Urn based naval combat has
always done so poorly, which Istill agree with. So he took that

(59:20):
and that it was the inspiration forhim not to have fleet control in Shadow
Empire, so he abstracted it.Wait we influenced him? I don't know.
I mean, if you believe therumors, yes, we've made it.
We have done and everyone hated thatof course, so we're the it's
our head on the chopping block.So are you sure that it's not just

(59:44):
you know, their company was like, well, you know, we just
we just listened to the to thepodcast and they said that this was what
we should do. So it's notour fault. I mean, Vic was
on Actually we talked with him directly, and that's true. At least I've
mentioned this to him before. Butnow I think that people are coming around
to the to actually the way hedid it. So it wasn't a huge

(01:00:04):
success on release, but I thinkpeople are now seeing the merits of it.
Honorable mentioned Shadow Empire as well withtheir DLC release, just because that's
such a great game. It deservesmany mentions, you know. On Ultimate
Animal Dreadnoughts was on my potential listfor because I also saw that it was
released. It's you know, it'snot the bad game, but he's coming
around. Give it two years andyou're gonna this is going to be the

(01:00:25):
core to your channel in two yearswhen the last time you played it,
it's a long long time. Iwas so soured on the development. This
is probably a topic for another day, but I do feel like it's interesting
how your initial experience of the game, and this is such a problem with
early access, can completely corrupt yourability to enjoy a game later on and

(01:00:47):
prevent you from ever really wanting togo back to a game, And a
lot of times games change a lotin early access, but that initial experience
you have is so powerful, orthose initial disappointed expectations are so powerful that
I think a lot of games failbecause because maybe they come out too early,
even in early access. Well,drawing on this is a tangent which

(01:01:09):
another again, well, IY thatto the upcoming episode about this. But
even Star Citizen, I feel islike this, like it's probably an okay
game at this point that if,like today, suddenly they just released a
new game that nobody'd ever heard ofcalled Star Citizen in its current state,
people would be like, oh,yeah, this is good, but the
development has so soured people to thatgame that you know, nobody would even

(01:01:30):
want to But yeah, I meanyou could never escape the baggage that comes
with what Star Citizen the name means. Anyway, all right, gamers,
I guess that'll that'll wrap up episodeeighty two and our look at twenty twenty
three. We'll have to come backfor episode eighty three looking at twenty twenty
four and what we're all excited aboutthis year. But I hope you guys

(01:01:53):
all enjoyed this episode thanks again fortuning in to the Single Malt Strategy podcast
one. Once again, feel freeif you do enjoy these to leave reviews
on Spotify, Apple, wherever youget your podcasts. Smash that like button,
baby, smash it, or oryou don't give us five stars because

(01:02:15):
I don't. I'm on the Applehas a like button. I think you
give like a star rating, right, you know, so don't do one
star. Remember more stars is goodand and you know, if you want
to rant at us in our commentson YouTube, you can do that too.
But thanks everybody, to my tomy trusty co host for coming on
yet another episode of the Single MaltStrategy and as always, until next time, we're out

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