Strike North

Command #39

by A Bunch of People

Reviewed by Richard Berg

This is a most unhappy game. Visually, it's about as uninteresting as one can get using talented people and money. The map is as bland as Barry Manilow (it looks less like Norway and more like North Africa), and the counters are uglier than his nose.

The visuals are better than the game, though. Now, knowing I will be excoriated for not giving SN a "fair chance", let me say that it took stern stuff to get through even half of the game - we played the Bomba-Perello historical, 1940 scenario; we did not play the McGrath-Smith (re-engineered by the former duo), what-if, 1943 version. We duly note that its system is different from the 1940 version - during which time the most exciting thing that happened was the arrival of the mailman with a letter from the IRS. Although that lifted our spirits somewhat, it didn't take much longer before we both decided playing SN was most painful, and verrrry boring.

The game is one of those seemingly mathematically designed projects, built to ensure that the winner is determined in the last turn or two, an exercise in Design for Effect sure to cause outbreaks of heavy teeth grinding to go with the intellectual hives. Players move one unit, one hex, per turn, with one minor exception, and, considering that Oslo is pretty much the only target in the game, everyone heads for The Big Battle. Watching it unfold is like sitting through a lecture on plant dichotomy … except the visuals in the latter are niftier.

Look, everyone's entitled to a blatant buzzard. I had 1862 (among others). XTR has Strike North, possibly the worst Command game yet. Let's hope it's a case of bottoming out.

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© Copyright 1996 by Richard Berg
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