The Drift 1879 Review
The last game in my review series of Jeff Lapkoff Strategic Simulation Games. The other two games I reviewed were The Alamo! and Custer’s Last Command 2, both of which were good games. Now I take a look at the final and most recent game of Jeff Lapkoff’s.
Pros
Unique & Exciting Game Design.
I really like the design of this game. Its unique and different from the other strategy games that are being made by the big box publishers. This game focuses solely on Rourke’s Drift and puts you in command of the small outpost and all its troops against the 3,000 man Zulu army. I give big props to Jeff Lapkoff for designing such a innovative title.
Great Looking Map
I really love the way the map is drawn and detailed. Its easy to identify buildings, walls, and units. The only thing I had confusion with is to get inside a building it looks like you need to place a squad on the roof rather than the door.
Improved Firing System
In The Drift 1879 I noticed it was easier to identify which unit was attacking another. A red line identified my squad firing on a enemy unit, which was easy to see and understand.
Larger Text Size
I noticed The text in this game was larger and easier to see than the previous two games, The Alamo! and Custer’s Last Command 2. Also The UI was cleaner and more organized.
Lots of Game Options.
Starting the game off you can play the classic historical setup, or you can play a alternate version of history. You you can include The Natal Natives And/Or have another British company under your command. On top of all this you can tinker with morale, the amount of zulu troops attacking Rourke’s Drift all the way down to the ammunition level of the troops.
Intuitive Gameplay.
Its so simple to move units in this game and even simpler to have them fire. The learning curve for this game is down to minutes. Big props to Jeff Lapkoff for this.
Lots of Replay Value.
Because of the large amount of gameplay options the possibilities of replay are endless. One day you can play the classic historical scenario and the next you can play something totally different.
Very Addicting
A game has to be really good for me to play 4 hours of it. And The Drift 1879 did just that. And now I just found a option where I can increase the size of the Zulu army. Here comes another 4 lol.
Cons
Freezing Bug
For most of the game I ran into a bug that would freeze the display. The game went on in the background, but I couldn’t see what was happening. I noticed this same bug in Custer’s Last Command 2. Its a frustrating bug, because you can’t see whats happening in the game and when the displayed comes back half your squads are now routed or disrupted. Now unlike Custer’s Last Command 2 where I was about to shut off the game I wasnt able to do that with this one. It happened but I believe not as much as Custer’s Last Command 2.
Other Bugs
For some reason about a hour into the game my troops in the Hospital couldn’t shoot anymore, however when I moved them to another building they were able to resume shooting. Also when I tried to evacuate the troops from the hospital they were unable to. Really weird because it took about 6-8 turns (almost 1-2 hrs game time) for the men to make their way out of a burning building.
Another bug I discovered was toward the end of the game. I relocated all my hospital troops to my storehouse mid way through the game. I wanted them in that building to support both the north and west walls. I was gonna use them as a emergency reserve just incase i needed men on the line. Unfortunately when it came time for that I couldnt get them to exit the storehouse. I thought maybe it was because they were low on movement points but no that wasnt it. They just wouldnt come out. I was very low on men and The Zulu’s were about to break my lines and those hospital men were needed.
East Wall left untouched
The Zulu’s attacked all my walls except my Eastern wall. Wonder why this was left untouched.
Battle Results
Just like with The Alamo & Custer’s Last Command 2 the battle results of each combat attack are displayed on the bottom of the screen. This becomes a bit frustrating as your eyes have to jump from the map to the bottom of the screen repeatedly. I wish the combat results would display on the map over the affected unit. Although I will say that the battle results are displayed a bit longer than the 2 previous games, so as to give you time to see the statistic before disappearing. The last two games the statistics disappeared within a second or two.
Recommended Features
Multiple Units to shoot at the same time. I would love a feature to be added where by I can select 3 - 4 squads to fire simultaneously on a enemy squad.
Continuation of the game after you beat it. Once the game told me I won I still wanted to play out the game. I would love if a option be included where I could play until one side was totally destroyed.
Conclusion
The Drift 1879 compared to the two other games I reviewed in the series - The Alamo! and Custer’s Last Command 2 - is my favorite. I enjoy nearly every single facet of the game and have only a few issues with it, primarily bug related.
Im a big fan of The original movie Zulu with Michael Caine and I was looking for a game that would put me in the boots of Lt. Chad … tasked with defending the outpost. The game does this perfectly. I can’t think of another game that does this so well, actually you won’t find another game that does this as this is the only Rourke’s Drift game I can find, except for a iPad game which isnt as in-depth or as good as this game. For this I would like to thank Jeff Lapkoff for making a incredible game. This is easily one of my favorite games of the year.
The game retails for $24.95. Even though the game has a bug that causes a bit of frustration I’d still recommend it. The fact that this game was so fun that it pushed me to rewatch the movie Zulu, is worth $25 easy! I enjoyed the game immensely and I play to sink another couple hours of it in the coming week.
* Part 2 & Part 3 of The Video Gameplay will be posted in the coming days. Their 1-2 hr videos in 1080p, so they take a while to upload.
