Ogre GAME PREVIEW

DEVELOPER: Auroch Digital & Steve Jackson Games
RELEASE: 5 October
FORMATS: PC

Ogre – the classic board game of giant cybernetic war machines versus massed tanks, infantry and artillery – has been around since 1977. Created by Steve Jackson (the American designer of Munchkin and Car Wars, not the Games Workshop co-founder), the wargame has seen umpteen different iterations, from a $2.95 Pocket Edition to an 18lb behemoth of a Designer’s Edition that was Kickstarted back in 2012. One of the stretch goals of that campaign was that Ogre would also get a digital version… and here it is.

Developed by Auroch Digital, Ogre promises to be a faithful video game adaptation of the game’s sixth edition rules, complete with multiplayer and a single-player campaign. However, we got to try out the skirmish mode – specifically, a classic scenario pitting a single Ogre Mark III against an enemy army attempting to defend their command post from the metal monster.

Graphically, Ogre is best described as “no frills” – prettier than the board game with its rather ugly counters, but similar enough that players will feel that they’re getting a direct port of the tabletop experience. If you’ve played Ogre before, you’ll feel instantly at home with its digital incarnation, from the on-screen dice rolls to the barren red terrain of the original hex map. And if you haven’t, you’ll find that it’s super easy to pick up.

Although Ogre has evolved over the years, at heart it’s still a wargame from 1977. It is simple, verging on simplistic – no morale effects, suppressing fire, front and rear armour values or any of that kind of malarkey. But while the gameplay is basic, it’s by no means without strategy; blindly charging at the command post did not go well for our poor ogre! The bottom line is that Auroch looks to have delivered a solid, unflashy digital version of the board game. And that, we suspect, is exactly what Ogre fans are after.

Preview by: Dave Axbey

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