Wargame red dragon ships3/11/2023 ![]() Ships may not be as noisy as a battalion of tanks, but there are some pretty beastly engines beneath the armour and the fact that this isn’t represented in-game is a notable omission. ![]() In classic Eugen style, the ships are very well recreated in-game, but it’s difficult to see them as brutal weapons of war when they silently glide through the water. ![]() For one thing, the ships don’t have any sound effects while moving the gun shots are there, and very satisfying, but there’s an awkward lack of engine noise. Short of seriously derailing the tracks of history and throwing in some swashbuckling pirates, there isn’t a lot Eugen can do about it. That doesn’t make for an especially engaging gaming experience, and it probably never will. It’s an issue with realistic naval combat that has plagued many a game: the simple fact that, in reality, ships typically battle without even seeing each other. There are moments of enjoyment, but these are lost in the horrible stretches of time where nothing really happens. The naval combat, on the whole, is pretty boring. To be fair this is probably one of the best efforts yet, but it by no means deserves to be the headline attraction of the whole game. Has Eugen bucked the trend and brought us a fun, hell we’ll take not awful, naval combat game? No, is the simple answer. Even arguably the finest strategy devs out there, The Creative Assembly, haven’t been able to create fun sea battles in all four of their previous Total War games. There’s a Blackbeard’s stash amount of awful naval simulator games and naval combat titles out there, and thankfully like the pirate's treasure they’ve long been buried. Yet history has taught us one golden rule about naval combat in strategy video games. So having already conquered the art of land battles, it probably made sense for Eugen to turn their focus towards the sea after all, naval combat is a big part of modern war. What’s made Wargame an enduring title is not only this epic scale, but the satisfying, realistic and wholly tactical gameplay that’s arguably the finest representation of true modern warfare out there. The concept of zooming in and out of a strategy game has been a strangely satisfying enigma for decades Red Dragon is the ultimate zoom-drug (if you will), which means there’s an ungodly amount of space to do battle in. God of War has its Titans and Skyrim has its open-world, but nothing compares to the battles of the Wargame series. Put simply, there’s no game on the planet that delivers battles, hell anything at all, on such a huge scale. No matter how suspect the distribution may be, Eugen Systems has crafted a gem of strategy gaming and Red Dragon doesn’t lessen the brilliance of the outrageously huge land battles. For what it’s worth though, the core game, and the premise, is still fantastic. So that’s a downer right from the off, and it’s difficult to ignore no matter how many hours you plug into the game. As opposed to releasing small pieces of cheap DLC, developer Eugen Systems has delivered two fully priced games that offer about the same amount of content that expansion packs of old would offer. It’s an odd situation that’s something of a reversal from the norm in the whimsical land of modern PC gaming. Frankly, even that game was lacking in new content and felt more like an expansion for 2012’s Wargame: European Escalation. Even for (and as) a fan of the series, it’s difficult to justify publisher Focus Interactive’s decision not to simply make this DLC for AirLand Battle. ![]() So the fact that it’s available now for full price, posing as a whole new addition to the Wargame franchise isn’t too cool. Let’s get one thing straight here right off the bat: Wargame: Red Dragon doesn’t really have the right to call itself a full game. Reviews // 12th May 2014 - 8 years ago // By Ryan Davies Wargame: Red Dragon Review
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