D-Day:
The Beginning of the End

Impressions Software

Review By Graham Empson

Well here I am again reviewing another refinement of Impressions' Micro-Miniature series. This game is an example of how you, the public, can influence what the game companies write by letting them know what you think. The customers, that's us folks, actually wrote and told them we wanted the army commanders to have personalities, to have different leadership capabilities. Well guess what? They listened! So this game has generals with personalities which of course affects how they respond to your orders (or even just ignore you).

This can prove to be somewhat frustrating, to say the least, (just ask Kenn!). I personally think it adds to the game quite significantly. At least you know how Eisenhower must have felt dealing with glory hunters like Patton, slow and steady Bradley, and our own Montgomery. All I can say is 'rather him than me'. Another customer request was for more accurate historical detail and historically accurate army organizations, again I feel they have made a good attempt at providing this.

Obviously the unit types have been dramatically modernized, increased to include aircraft types, day and night fighters, fighter bombers, ground attack, transports, and strategic bombers. The naval types of troop transports (both ocean and river), destroyers, battleships and even landing craft. The land forces include armor, increased variety of artillery, airborne troops (very useful), supply units, mechanized infantry, mechanized artillery, even field HQ's ( who are always in the wrong place anyway) and of course engineers who lay minefields, mend harbors & airfields, and even build you new ones. You are given indirect fire support, both naval and air.

The options now include supply, reinforcements, building new divisions, good old fog of war to complicate your life a little more. Winning in the shortest time possible regardless of cost (14th August Germany surrendered and no Italian landings / Southern France needed) gets you the game comment of 'disastrous campaign but you won'.

The game mechanics are of course very similar to those of the Blue and Gray (see LW 109) with reinforcements at intervals, 2 turns per day, one day time, one night time. The weather also has a nasty habit of upsetting your best laid plans, so beware. The variety of forces at your disposal does add to the complexity, but not enough to spoil the game, it just means you have to think a little more. You have the choice of operating at a strategic only level, at strategic and tactical level, or you can even play purely tactically with 3 pre-loaded battle scenarios.

Word of Caution

A word of caution for strategic only players - the program has a nasty habit of awarding itself victories it should not always have, so save the game before a major encounter, play it on autoplay, if you lose (and you think it cheated) then go back and fight it out at a tactical level, after all it's only a computer and you know how good you are. Kenn has the ambition of getting to Berlin without losing any armor or artillery by fighting every battle [and is plodding on very well thank you].

To allow for speed of play the game has options for speed and screen detail so that you can adjust one or both to suit the machine it is running on. On a slow PC, reduce the screen detail and set the game speed to maximum for a reasonable response. Since there are no time constraints in a game turn, you can take as long as you like in pondering, with no penalties.

Well my overall opinion is a highly recommended, with a 'well done Impressions!' for actually listening to your customers. May more games creators follow your lead. Now comes the hard part, of price, which is £35.99. As always, shop around. Impressions were having distributor problems back in July, but hopefully that has now resolved itself. It comes on floppy disk and runs on 20386 machine so nothing too extravagant required.

[I can support Graham's comments and recommendation. There is a lot in this package for any wargamer whether he plays WW II or not and I cite myself (Samurai and Ancients) as a prime example. Excellent value for the money. Kenn].

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