Home » Articles » Editorial

The Wargamer's Readers' Choice Awards - 2006

	Author: Staff Article Type: Editorial Publication Date: 5/6/2007 Related Categories: Business and Industry, Best of the Year Awards

The Readers' Choice Awards - Simulation

	IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 by 1C
	Microsoft Flight Simulator X by Microsoft
	PureSim Baseball 2007 by PureSim Baseball

Over the last several years simulations have struggled. Every year sees a few new titles, but gone are the days where handfuls of high quality sims were released year after year. Perhaps it is the high degree of realism demanded by hardcore fans that alienates a broader audience that keeps this genre from rising to the levels of popularity other genres enjoy. In any case, good simulations are few, but the best of 2006 was clear. IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 easily grabbed the gold.

Released overseas but available in the US, IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 offered flight sim fans the opportunity to fly in an alternative history where the Second World War lengthened into 1946, where exotic planes filled the skies. Players had the choice to fly any of hundreds of planes, and that seemed to be more than enough to capture the gold as best sim of last year.

The choice between second and third place, however, was much tighter, and neither game had a war or historical theme. Microsoft Flight Simulator X allows players to fly over a dozen different civilian planes in a variety of engaging and interesting missions and is the most realistic commercial flight sim available for the PC. In a close race, it managed to claim the silver.

Right behind the two flight sims came perhaps the biggest surprise. Sports titles are not normally popular with wargamers, but PureSim Baseball 2007 came to a photo finish for the bronze, probably because it isn’t a typical sports game. Players have the opportunity to manage historical or fictional teams over the course of decades. PureSim Baseball 2007 uses a licensed version of the Lanham database which allows them to match up any historical teams from any year against another. They can also manage their team by season or in-game. A statistician’s dream, PureSim Baseball 2007 takes the bronze as a thinking gamer’s sports simulator.

Two games in the sim category deserve honorable mention for strong showings in the voting and both of them were Roman city management games. Caesar IV and Glory of the Roman Empire both drew strong interest from The Wargamer’s readers and one wonders how the voting would have fared if only one Roman city management game had been released in 2006.