I’ve been getting back into the classic Close Combat games, and they’re some of my very favorite of the wargame genre.
I’m curious what retrogaming’s favorites are. I’m not too particular on what constitutes a “wargame,” it could be anything from Final Fantasy Tactics to Steel Panthers.
To throw a couple more out, I really enjoyed Rome: Total War for the 4x strategy and the Combat Mission games for their simulation systems as well.
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Historyline: 1914 - 1918
Total Annihilation
That soundtrack chefs kiss
I loved just loitering on the main screen for that lovely white noise/cave sound/immortal machine music vibe.
Command & conquer: Red Alert
I’m more of a Tiberian Dawn person myself
It’s a close second, but red alert has the better balancing in my opinion
I just don’t like the style of RA as much, and I’m usually a campaign-only player for C&C anyway
Fair. I get that. I had the same problem with red alert 2. It could be the better game, but the style just doesn’t interest me. For the later games mainline c&c has the better style. Including c&c3 and ra3.
There is even an open source version
EA just opened sourced the real RA as well!
Red Alert 2: Yuri’s Revenge
Warlords 3 Dark Lords Rising, Age of Wonders a close second.
I played so much Warlords 2 multiplayer with my siblings when I was a kid. I should check that series out again.
I never really played 2, but the art and music in 3 are amazing. Very fond of that era in fantasy art.
Rise of Nations: Extended Edition
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person on earth that remembers Close Combat. I loved how the units felt like real people instead of automatons. That’s definitely a franchise I would love to see return.
There was an old fighter pilot game that I used to play on linux back in the day all the time in the early 2000s. I can’t remember the name but it was because my dad’s laptop was very cool to me and ran SUSE, so I played that, super tux, and a few free games because the alternative was a windows 95 machine with a 10 gig upgraded hard drive.
Commandos
With commandos 3 breing my fav
The joy of slowly advancing position… preparing the covert mission objectives… hours of careful planning and precise movements… only to hear « Alarm!! Alarm!!! »
Empire Earth
Oh, I’d forgotten about that game. I actually liked it better than Age of Empires.
I loved close combat games! I still want think and look for similar games. It left a void I haven’t quite filled.
Rise of Nations
Man I haven’t played Close Combat in probably 27 years but I instantly recognized that screen shot. Great game!
I still play C&C Generals and Supreme Commander fairly often. Not sure I’d call them retro but they are pretty old!
Generals:Zero Hour is still a great play, especially with mods.
I was having a blast playing through Combined Arms recently. It’s a mod to OpenRA which provides a story an campaign that involves factions from all C&C and RA games, including the Scrin.
And best of all: Since it’s based on OpenRA it’s completely free.
Sudden Strike 2
Falcon 3
