Clippings: Post-Gamescom Edition

Over the weekend, I finished the last episode of Telltale Games’ seriously underrated Back to the Future series. I wrote about the first episode last year — they’re good, funny, and strike a balance between riffing off the movies and establishing a character of their own. Well worth a look for adventure gamers.

In this week’s news:

  1. Relic announced Ardennes Assault, a single-player standalone expansion for Company of Heroes 2. AA will feature a dynamic campaign with persistent units – two of the coolest features in Wargame.
  2. Amongst other Gamescom announcements, Paradox showed ten minutes of Hearts of Iron IV gameplay. The new footage includes our first good look at HOI4‘s “battle plans” system. The battle plans look great – you paint objectives and movement paths on the map, then assign divisions to each objective with a simple drag-select. If this works properly, it will be a very welcome UI innovation.
  3. And speaking of Paradox, here is a post-apocalyptic America mod for Crusader Kings 2. Features include a “Mouse Tribe” near the remnants of Disneyworld, mercenary companies named after old sports teams, and invading, red-coated soldiers who worship a sinister queen. Cool!
  4. Here is a trailer for a remake of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, the ’90s adventure game. What made me sit up was the music – I wonder if the soundtrack will be sold separately?
  5. Eurogamer previews a PS3, PS4, and Vita tactical RPG named Natural Doctrine. What makes me leery is the preview’s mention of “a no-nonsense defeat condition that sees the death of one friendly unit bringing the whole mission to a close“. That sounds like a recipe for frustration…
  6. Lastly, US Gamer observes that police games are almost never about policing. This sounds like a specific instance of a broader problem – video games are almost always about combat, even when that doesn’t really suit the theme.

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