The Weekly WTF: ‘Gettysburg: Armored Warfare’ is American History the Badass Way

Hold on to your butts, gentlemen. It's about to get educational in here. Just a little, though, don't worry. I'll try to keep your learning of the fact-tastic to a bare minimum.

The Battle of Gettysburg took place in the summer of 1863, midway through the civil war. It's said to be the costliest, bloodiest battle of the conflict, with around 25000 men wounded or killed on each side. Historically, it was a Union victory, and is supposed to mark the point at which the war turned against the Southern States.

But you know this. This is History of the Good Ol' U.S of A for Dummies, right here. And even if you don't, there's one thing you sure as balls do know: There wasn't a time traveller there, giving the Confederates fancy-ass 21st century weaponry in an attempt to change the future.

Because that kind of crazy-ass only happens in video games or shitty sci fi. In this case, it's the former. Behold Gettysburg: Armored Warfare.

The game hit Steam in 2012, an odd combination of RTS, TPS, FPS and maybe a couple other nerdly gaming acronyms. Imagine it as a kind of Total War release (Batshit Crazy: Total War, in this case), giving you control of a vast army in real time and testing your tactical badassery to the max on a big ol' 3D battlefield.

Just like Creative Assembly's celebrated strategy series, the history's gone a little awry here. That time traveller I mentioned? That's an actual thing. Watch your back, Yankees; the South are partying like it's 2060 with their new tech.

The good news? You have all manner of shiny futuristic death-dealers to command. Which is always cool. The combination of gameplay styles seems great in theory too, allowing you to switch between issuing orders and directly controlling units on the fly. It's all very Battalion Wars, for the four people in the damn world who've ever heard of that.

Sign me the eff up, you might be thinking. Until you play the thing, and realise that it's an horrific, bug-addled shitstorm. With a little TLC, this could've been something, but you know how it is when developers forget to finish their games before releasing them.