A personal review of SB: Eagles Strike

[Silverleaf]

Greetings,

Thought I'd do a quick review of SB:ES to share my thoughts on how the game looks/plays.

Background:
Board game freak, whom plays Ambush!, Carrier and other mostly solitaire WWII games. There are others but they aren't relevant to this discussion. I've long been looking for a PC fix that would satisfy my interest and desire to play man-to-man squad level combat type of games.

In the last 15 years a handful of pretenders have come along that could have aided me in this quest, but sadly they fell out of favor because they didn't meet all the requirements - that being the "possibility" to recreate small squad interaction against an enemy force.

Then one day I discovered this little known gem, 101: The Airborne Invasion of Normandy and things changed quickly because though I couldn't edit any of the missions, it was indeed personal squad combat. Okay, one contender has been added to the list.

Now comes Squad Battles: Eagles Strike - I won't go into the details of the back story because you already know the history. Suffice it to say that I watched a couple scenarios allowing the AI to control both sides and liked what I saw. 2d and what's this, 3d capability.?.

Throughout this review, I'll give a AA if it's a good thing, or a XX if its a negative.

Graphics AA
Presentation AA
Sound AA

I played a quick scenario myself to just getting some idea of the mechanics on a personal level and see if this system was worth investing more time getting to know. What I discovered was yes, this system doesn't require you to be a current officer in the Army to figure it out. AA

The next step was to see if I could create my own scenarios. AA

How about edit/create own graphics (some is better than none). AA

A possibility to edit/create a new type of weapon that "might" not be covered. AA

So far so good, now to the two biggies:

Maps:
This could be a problem, but after seeing that the software comes with a sub map capability - perhaps not so much - although I would love to be able to recreate the Ambush! system maps then do all 38 scenarios. XX

Lastly, what pushed this game further up my list was the videos on YouTube showing how to add/edit your own battalions and..yes! single man counters are able to be created. AA

Overall:

I'm really pleased with this system, the graphic presentation isn't 2009 standards, but then again it doesn't have to be. What shines is the capability and flexibility that the system would offer me if I pursued scenario design. Overall, I must confess I didn't expect much when I bought Squad Battles : Eagles Strike - but I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the completeness of the system, and the amount of expansions that preceded this game in the series.

My hats off to the design team for making a solid game that will stay on my hard drive for the foreseeable future.

Cheers,

R.S.