About Waterloo At Home:
The tagline I saw for this game was, “The spiritual successor to Red Storm Rising.” That was an 80’s MicroProse game I had for the Commodore 64 as well as the PC. Can’t guess how many hours I put into that game. Two hours in I’m going to say that’s the perfect description. Upgraded the graphics, tweaked a few gameplay things and stuff, but….sure enough, it’s basically Red Storm Rising with an updated look and feel. If you’ve played that game, the learning curve is zero (well, assuming you remember it all…) or close to. You can skip to the end of this review which is, “Yeah, definitely, buy it if you ever yearn to replay 80’s NATO submarine warfare tactics in a real-time-y style strategy game.” Now, those of you who read this far but have had enough waxing nostalgic about games from the floppy generation. Here’s what this is: In campaign mode, it’s a real-time-ish strategy game overlaid with tactical battles that affect the direction the real-time-ish elements move. The battles are nail-biting, single sub (you) vs. single surface ships, single subs, groups of either, and combined forces. Air assets will appear against you as well, both on the strategy level map and in battle. In between battle, resupply or move yourself into place for the next encounter (battle) as you see fit. This is not an “arcade” type game, you don’t peer through the periscope pressing the “fire” button (er, well, you shouldn’t…) but spend 95% of your time looking at a simple plotting board and a lower corner display. If you want fancy graphics, wicked explosions and modding capability, this isn’t it.
