After spending the majority of my life playing turn-based, IGOUGO wargames, I have on occasion, played a few WEGO games within that mindbogglingly huge mix. When I got the opportunity to review WEGO World War II Overlord, I jumped (leapt? pounced?) on it. Coincidentally, the last WEGO game I bought was their (Brian Kelly and Matrix Games) first one, WEGO World War II: Desert War.
Obviously, Operation Overlord is the code-name for the allied Normandy invasion (a.k.a. D-Day), and that’s what WEGO World War II Overlord follows. The first phase was Operation Neptune which encompassed all of the naval pieces and parts to get the Allies to shore in the first place. Most of that is past-tense in this game due to focusing on the ground battles themselves. I tried to order the screenies so the actual Landing images all come first, while deeper-into-game screens are later.
Landing Plus
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WEGO World War II: Overlord is an operational-level, mostly ground-based, WEGO, WW II gaming system. If it’s cornfusing, which is easily done (like kernel vs. Colonel), I’ll try to briefly explain this major, unsubtle difference. When you play a ‘usual’ turn-based game, IGOUGO it is probably what you’re used to. You move everything you want, hit “End Turn”, then the computer/enemy does the same with their units.
WEGO however is you ‘plot’ your moves for the upcoming phase… while the computer does the same. When you hit “Next Phase” in a WEGO game, the computer simultaneously runs both sides’ moves! You can only try to not hit/run into and enemy… unless you’re spoiling for an instant battle somewhere on the map.
Now, the only thing I can compare this to is: Remember when everyone peed when Civ IV went into Civ V because they finally went from Doomstacks to only one unit per hex (workers and settlers excluded)… kind of like, I don’t know……..… a wargame? The grogs of you will know immediately what I’m saying… because we thought: 1. what’s the BFD? And 2. So what? Civ’s finally catching up a little bit to something we’ve been used to for 63 years.
Anyway, back to the show of WEGO World War II Overlord. This hex-based wargame recreates the Allied invasion of Western Europe. It includes 14 historical scenarios, from the landing at Omaha beach to a huge 135-turn campaign that covers the entire Normandy campaign. Of course, if you’ve read anything of mine, you know I’ll jump my pinhead first into the full campaign.
WEGO World War II: Overlord stretches from Touville to Flers
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Being out of my comfort zone, as well as an extremely interesting game, are both yuuuge understatements. However tough to learn (bell-curves anyone?), it wasn’t impossible. It did take me about a day and a half to really figure out what the hell was going on. Once I did? It’s a f*****’ blast, man. You plan your units’ moves, artillery fire, possible offshore ship attacks, and possible offshore plane attacks. Once you plan your actions, it’s obvious what is what… and what the hell you want to happen when you hit the “Next Phase” Button. Everything is clearly marked, so don’t worry… you’re not going to mix up arty, with offshore ship or plane attacks.
It begins with the Setup Phase, then the Planning Phase, and then the Execution of your Planning. After the first turn, all you’ll have are Planning and Execution (until/unless you get reinforcements). As far as I could tell, the Tutorial was in Caen, while the first of the campaign was in the Caumont Gap (Villers Bocage).
WEGO World War II: Overlord stretches from Touville to Flers
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Right here is where it becomes very strange for me. During the Execution Phase, you don’t get to watch it! For the most part, you have to ‘remember’ the attacks you planned, the moves you made, etc. It’s just a static splash-screen until the phase is over. Oh, you’ll be able to see the results in the next Planning Phase… but it doesn’t ‘really’ help identifying what you had done and planned. It just feels/seems very odd that you don’t get to witness your plans in action. Again, it’s a tough game, but this whole ordeal doesn’t help matters any. Plus, I don’t have the memory I used to… which you have to use to try and remember what you had planned on an individual level.
In case you want to know the details… officially, from the devs:
“There’s 3 turns per day (2 day, 1 night) so 135 / 3 = 45 days. The map covers all the beaches and east to Touville plus south to Flers… it’s 64 x 62 hexes.”
WEGO World War II Overlord is an extremely fun game. However, I’m hoping they fix the ‘temporary blackouts’ where you have no idea what’s going on with either side… until the Execution Phase is over. Other than that minor, hopefully easily fixable, leetle detail, this is one that stays on the hard-drive.
WEGO World War II Overlord is now available on PC.
