Command HQ

I have probably spent more hours playing this game more than any other. Played it when it first came out almost 25 years ago and still find myself booting it up. I'm glad it's on Steam now. If this game had modern graphics and was re-tooled for mobile or ipad, I imagine it could sell. Here's my pitch. Its beauty is its simplicity. Infantry divisions, tank divisions, air wings, carrier groups, destroyer groups, submarines, cities, bases, oil fields. That's pretty much it. And spy satelites for certain scenarios. World War I, WW II, WW III (NATO vs. Warsaw Pact, WW IV (~ WW III), and WW V. I suggest World War V to start- cities are randomized on the map. You start at one city and your opponent starts in one other city with no spy satellites allowed. The elephant in the room is the graphics. Admittedly, I cut it some slack because I grew up with it, but, honestly, it doesn't affect the gameplay, which is solid. Finally, for STEAM, this games NEEDS a manual (for basic UI and minutiae)! ...

This was my favorite game for many years when it came out, both solo and multiplayer. I probably played this thousands of hours. It was a DOS game and when that went away, I really couldn't play it any more. It is classic strategy. I prefer the bit more complex modern age setting. It took me a few minutes to get the controls down (left-click, move unit; right click, zoom in, mouse to screen top to buy units, etc.) Sure graphics are aweful- they were even then, but the play is fabulous. No longer works for multiplayer I see, but great game to play while watching TV or such. The key of course is to gang up on enemy units and take enemy towns to gain income. Not hard, but really quite fun.

One of the earliest RTS that has also surprisingly aged better than stuff like the early Warcraft games. Probably due to the simplicity. You capture cities for money and places to purchase new units. You capture oil fields to keep your army gassed (sort of the supply food cap of Blizzard RTS games). Units are kept simple. On land you have infantry (can just barely capture empty cities, weak on attack, strong on defense when dug in) and tanks (faster than infantry, stronger, but cost twice as much and get no defense bonus). That's it. You have a single type of air unit (expensive, can fast respond over a long range, conduct a heavily damaging air strike against units but takes a long time to recover). 3 different navy units. Destroyers (cheap, toe to toe naval unit), subs (hidden but weaker in direct combat than destroyers), and carriers (long range, can carry ait unit, but expensive). Any naval unit will almost instantly sink an infantry or tank if it's caught being transported acr...

For any old-schoolers who missed Command HQ, I'd put it in the Civ1/SimCity1/Gold Box rotation... Should be all I have to say. For new-schoolers, many/most RTS games owe some respect here. Not the first or last in the genre, it has simple and deep strategic elements (oil vs cities; cheap vs quality; ground, air, or sea units; heal or tank, etc.), competent AI, and surprising playability 25 years later... Click to move, right-click to zoom, and F buttons for the menus. Even the sound and graphics hold up in a genuine-quality-retro way. The worst I can say is clicking on the exact square can suck, and you'll want to memorize F4 and F6 (especially)... But once you're engaged, it's a pretty thrilling use of a couple of hours. In short, play it if you haven't, and if you have, play it again :) [b]Someone needs to dust this off and reboot it!!! Take my money!!!

I bought this game back in the late 80's and played it on I believe an IBM 8086 computer. My first home PC, this game maxed it out. Also the first over the phone game I ever played with a friend. I cant stop playing this game. Every month or so I have to jump on and take over the world. Best of the beer and pretzel games ever. Multiplayer is awesome and the learning curve is easy.

Command H.Q. is a ton of fun in a small package. I played this in my early days in the Army on a Tandy 1000 on a 2400 baud modem--hey, it was the cat's meow at the time. Strongly recommended for "retro night" over a pizza and Code Red Mountain Dew.

Even after all these years I still enjoy this game and those damn Russians keep sinking my stupid transports in the Atlantic when I forget to escort them.

I had $3 left after buying a $50 game. After a lot of relentless searching I came upon this game, and it was on sale for $0.97. I watched the trailer, and I admit I was skeptical. The graphics aren't like those of Hearts of Iron IV or other grand strategy games, and the trailer didn't do a good job of showing gameplay. But despite my doubts, I bought the game, and started playing it. Though its simple graphics, its a great game. The mechanics are great, though not easy to learn right away. The AI is alright, and at times can be a challenging, strategic game. Get this if you want a good war strategy game without spending a fortune.

Axis and Allies... When the game developers first set out to make this games, they wanted to make an axis and allies type game with RTS componets. The game is really well done and I still play it often to this day although at this point the graphics are dated (Made in 1990) but once you get used to it, it's a lot of fun.

Still an A+ strategy game!