Battleground Waterloo

7.4

Format PC

Developer Talonsoft

Publisher Empire Interactive

Genre Unknown

Only a reviewer struggling for an intro would crack a pathetic joke about a certain British Rail station. Andrew Wright deliberately steered clear of the corny gags because this is serious stuff - it's the third in Talonsoft's Battleground series of 3D miniature style wargames.

Yes, there's something vaguely familiar about the name - we've reviewed numbers one and two in the series already, namely Ardennes and Gettysburg. They couldn't be more different - one has tanks and the other has bayonets - but doesn't Waterloo sound like a rerun of Gettysburg? I mean, it's the blue and the red instead of the blue and the grey, isn't it?

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Actually, Talonsoft's third effort in its 'miniatures-on-your-monitor' series has quite a few enhancements. First of all, from the user perspective, there's a wider range of views, including an impressive 3d full zoom-out view so you can see the whole battlefield.

Secondly, from a wargaming point of view, there's a lot more variety in terms of unit types. Instead of just infantry and cavalry you now have light and line infantry, light and heavy cavalry, and lancers. Light infantry can send out smaller units of skirmishers a la Sharpe and his men - just as they would have done historically - to break up the enemy formations or to harass their enemy counterparts.

There's a whole range of realistic formations too - from ordinary line and column, to extended line (equivalent to the British two deep 'thin red line'), skirmish order and square. These do complicate the battle slightly, but it's worth it for the extra realism. The graphics look a lot snappier too, and the infantry units look more like infantry units than they did in Gettysburg, thanks to the use of more figures per unit. However, they're any-thing but snappier when you play the full scenario - it can take quite a while to scroll around the map in 3d mode.

Testes testes one two three

With all this in mind, you'd think we'd be getting close to perfection. Visually, the series just gets better and better. Waterloo's beautifully textured landscape looks a dream close-up - it's the next best thing to playing with miniatures. Unfortunately though, the game is let down by an ai that's had a combination of a frontal lobotomy and its testicles removed. Walk your massed infantry nervously towards a line of big guns and you'd expect to get chopped into mincemeat. Not so: the ai shoots at your skirmishers, which it's got less chance of hitting anyway. And if you move some artillery up to a strongly defended chateau or farm, you expect a barrage of lead, right? Nope - the defenders ignore you completely, firing over your head at some other target while the cannon balls grind them to dust and bone.

I've got my doubts about some of the extreme combat results, too. Charge a 200-strong enemy line with 600 top troops and you can easily lose half your men, while they take a paltry 25 casualties. Combat results like these should have been chopped.

And there's still no scenario editor. Ardennes had a sort of editor, Gettysburg didn't, and Waterloo bloody well should have done. You need a tiny scenario or two to get the hang of the game system and there just isn't one supplied.

Grumbles over, Waterloo looks a real cracker. The re-enactors on the video are great and the marching background music really is excellent. Just shrug your shoulders at some of the sillier combat results and enjoy it. Z