23) D is for... Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game
The challenge: To play through each of the games on my Steam library.
The rules: I have to play at least 1 hour of each game, in alphabetical order.
I'm developing a Pavlovian response to the Paradox Interactive logo now. My eyes glaze over, my finger starts just clicking compulsively... anyway, here's another Paradox map game!
Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game is a real-time military simulator. Set in the First or Second World Wars (your choice, woo!), you pick a side and try and get as many victory points as possible. Being a huge board game nerd I'm no stranger to the allure of VPs but I just could not work this one out.
I think my main frustration with these types of game is that the entry level to them is so high. I've been known to play a map game or two, Civ and Stellaris and such, but Darkest Hour is just so hard to learn. The game does acknowledge this though - repeatedly through the tutorial it tells you' this is too difficult a concept for new players so let's skip over it' or 'this is a tough notion to grasp - read the manual as well'. I don't want to read a 158 page (that's the actual page count) manual before playing my game!
By the end of the six in-game tutorials I understood how to attack, build, move, diplome etc, but only under the sterile circumstances they offer you. During a 'live' game, I tried my very hardest to make Bulgaria attack all of its neighbours, but despite knowing the inputs my troops just would not move.
The music is OK if you like that kind of thing (I don't) - remixes of songs like the Dam Busters theme. The UI and map itself are fine too - some of it was quite hard to read but with the sheer amount of information crammed into a thousand spreadsheets that's kind of to be expected.
It's not all bad though. I loaded up a game where I played as the USA and when the game started it seemed like we were under attack on a million different fronts. When each thing happens (like a battle, policy changes, diplomancing) you get a pop-up. So I spent an enjoyable 10 minutes clearing pop-ups, and that's the most fun I had playing this game. BG.
The rules: I have to play at least 1 hour of each game, in alphabetical order.
I'm developing a Pavlovian response to the Paradox Interactive logo now. My eyes glaze over, my finger starts just clicking compulsively... anyway, here's another Paradox map game!
Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game is a real-time military simulator. Set in the First or Second World Wars (your choice, woo!), you pick a side and try and get as many victory points as possible. Being a huge board game nerd I'm no stranger to the allure of VPs but I just could not work this one out.
'Welcome to the tutorial!' it says cheerily, flanked by Iron Crosses
I think my main frustration with these types of game is that the entry level to them is so high. I've been known to play a map game or two, Civ and Stellaris and such, but Darkest Hour is just so hard to learn. The game does acknowledge this though - repeatedly through the tutorial it tells you' this is too difficult a concept for new players so let's skip over it' or 'this is a tough notion to grasp - read the manual as well'. I don't want to read a 158 page (that's the actual page count) manual before playing my game!
By the end of the six in-game tutorials I understood how to attack, build, move, diplome etc, but only under the sterile circumstances they offer you. During a 'live' game, I tried my very hardest to make Bulgaria attack all of its neighbours, but despite knowing the inputs my troops just would not move.
The music is OK if you like that kind of thing (I don't) - remixes of songs like the Dam Busters theme. The UI and map itself are fine too - some of it was quite hard to read but with the sheer amount of information crammed into a thousand spreadsheets that's kind of to be expected.
War. War doesn't use a popup blocker.
It's not all bad though. I loaded up a game where I played as the USA and when the game started it seemed like we were under attack on a million different fronts. When each thing happens (like a battle, policy changes, diplomancing) you get a pop-up. So I spent an enjoyable 10 minutes clearing pop-ups, and that's the most fun I had playing this game. BG.
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