Previous Next

Ask any innocent Amiga owner to name two of the greatest war game heroes of the last three centuries and they will undubitably come up with Napoleon Bonaparte (1769) and Sir Jonathan Davies (early 19th century). Unfortunately though, neither can be with us tonight leaving me, even more unfortunately, to do the honours. Oh dear.

As per usual, Great Napoleonic Battles plays with two turns per side; firstly, the movement part (move squares around a scrollable map - this time made out of hexagons), then the fighting part (for the artillery section or adjacent opposing troops). The game ends when one side succeeds in their mission's objective; the enemy have been killed, certain ground is held or a certain destination is reached. Standard war game material, you might say. Yep, I would reply. There's nothing flash about the graphics. Nothing great about the sound. No action, blood, nor battle bits.

Just lots of square to move around. But what this game does have is rather more scope than usual. Three historic Napoleon battles are provided on the disk along with an editor. With this, the lucky utiliser can modify the existing battles - fiddle with everything from objectives to maps to the 'rules' of the gameplay to make it as easy or tricky as desired. Or, if in the mood, its user may even want to create his or her own battles.

Unfortunately, this editor is the only thing on offer to the wargamer that he hasn't got already - the remainder of the game has been seen, and bettered, many times, before. Tsk. War games, eh?

A stupendously average wargame - its only bonus is a rather good editor.