Steel Panthers WorldWar2 and Steel Panthers MainBattleTank
These games are both FREE. Steel Panthers World War 2 (SPWW2), and Steel Panthers Main Battle Tank (both the Windows-based winSPMBT, and the old DOS-baseed SPMBT) are made by SP-Cammo Workshop. SP-Cammo Workshop is a group of dedicated amateurs, but it looks profesional.
Both games are tactical games, on squad/single viechle scale. They are hex-based, with a top-down look on the battle-map. They are turn-based "I go, you go" games. They are evolutions from SSI's Steel Panthers-series. However they are far superior to theese old games. Also they have a much better AI.
The games have some differences however. SPWW2 is covering the period 1930-1949. Thus you can play WW2 or some other conflict, like the Spanish Civil War, or some hypotetical encounter. winSPMBT/SPMBT covers 1946-2020, so you can try out figths from this period, WW3 or some other hypotetical encounter. Both games are higly enjoyable, if you like these types of games.
If you wonder why prefer "turned-based" too "real-time", here is why: Real-Time is more realistic in teory, but in such games you have to leave some of your units to the AI at times. The problem is of course, that the Artificial Intelligence isn't. I also feel theese games are more of a test of dexterity, than a strategy/tactics game. Lastly, I can't eat pizza and play a RTS-game at the same time.
Last updated August 23rd, 2005.