CLASSIC GAMING
Hogs of War
Developer - Infogrames Sheffield House
Publisher - Infogrames
Genre - Strategy
Year - 2000
System - Playstation/PC

Strategy games have for years always been made to make one feel the commander, the leader, the revolutionary in some battle which is either historical and pragmatically world-changing like the conquest of Romans across of Europe, or be completely fictional and even be set in more smaller battlefields such as Syndicate.

This game however puts a whole new flip on strategy games itself.  The war is different, the players are different, and the whole atmosphere itself is different, for this game takes you to where no man in the modern era has gone before.
And definitely where no hog has gone before either.
Hogs of War is a humorous turn-based war strategy game with humour as its main diving board to jump your attention into, with a growing level of difficulty that surely tests any strategist's mind.

Story - The story is simple and rife with humour from the very moment you hear the obvious old General with a hardarsed voice of pure British authority in the Blackadder style of respect.  The top commanders of the armies have discovered an island of swill, the Nirvana of all hogs everywhere.  But of course each of the hoglands want to reach it for their own country, so you choose from six nationally-inclined teams and are let loose on the battlefield to make more bacon than any street butcher will ever make.  With one of six nationally stereotypical teams, you must reach the Isle of Swill across the continent of Saustralasia before any of the other teams.
The teams are as follows.
Tommy's Trotters - The WW1 British.
Uncle Ham's Hogs - The Americans.
Sow-er-Krauts - The WW1 German.
Sushi Swine - The Japanese.
Garlic grunts - The French.
Piggystroika - The Russians.


Gameplay - The main meat of the game, as it were, is of course the missions themselves.  The levels are actually quite tricky for a game that does some work on humorising countries and the two World Wars into this open-hearted mockery.  The levels get progressively harder as the game goes on as you lead a group of seven hogs against opposing teams of varying ranks and sizes from four scouts in the trenchlands to three armoured bunkers in a snowy valley.
The ranking system is simple yet decisively important.  Each of your hogs can start off in either heavy weaponry, demolitions, medic, or scout ranks. Each rank has also their own faults and advantages over the others in the fields and each having limited skills one must use wisely.
You upgrade by obtaining medals, which you can achieve up to three of in the later levels. One for completing the mission, one for having all your hogs survive the battle, and one secret medal in the level.

Not only that, but there is a wide range of weaponry, all of which require varying levels of skill to perform, from the simple melee attack, to the sophisticated Mortar.  The game is not simple in any way and the gameplay constantly reminds you of this, with its time limit for each turn, your ranks' varying levels of abilities, and a competent CPU that gets more experienced as the game wears on.
Not only that, but imagine the multiplayer when you share one controller to swap between sides with a pal. let the bacon fry and fly!

Graphics - The graphics are not terribly impressive to view in all honesty and have aged badly.  They are blocky with their characters and buildings, little has been put into graphics and rather the focus was given to gameplay.  The only problem of this uninteresting battleground you may encounter is the occasional glitch of scenery, particularly on the outskirts of the level.  Nothing major other than maybe getting stuck a little bit and losing a turn so you best just stick to being off the steep mountainsides.  The only thing of interest graphics-wise is when you have an Engineer and can see where mines lie with a black-and-yellow checkered area near him.

Music/Sound - The music is your basic army marching stuff and nothing special to be given attention, rather taking on a Blackadder Goes Forth quality by its un-uniqueness, again adding to the parody of war.  The main thing to consider in the game are the voices which are as awesomely stereotypical as you can get.
The British have their xenophobic pluck, the Germans have their brash tones, the Japanese are whiny and patronising regardless of "ah so" moments, the Russians are brusque and proud speaking, the French are snooty dicks and the Americans are annoyingly trigger-happy.  The Italians, as if intentional, have been left out because they've probably given up.
Don't expect any country getting left alone, this game is as un-PC as you can get to the highest moment of laughing at both your team and your enemies' speaking.  And let's not forget, since it's every country being as bad as the other, there is no inequality.  Every team is the same as the other teams in terms of stereotype and ability.
None of them have any differences or advantages apart from different clothing and voices.  And of course each team have their small musical themes, ranging from the Russian folk tunes to the Japanese flutes and drums combo.
Nothing special, but some of the voicing is done by British comic legend Rik Mayall.  Now THAT's comedy in a game.


Hogs of War is a great change of pace from the same uniforms worn by the same ambiguous soldier from any strategy game you may have played. Despite its unpretty look, it's gritty yet funny, a parody of war and a parody of ourselves in war.  Plus, it's a great breath of fresh air from the PC-craze of recent times when all you wanna do is sit down and laugh at the whiny Japanese on the other side of the river failing to throw a grenade, before your little Brit shoots the mortar too high and blows one of your guys up.
Ahh well, war is hell right?  And the only thing to ask now is, where are the Italian pigs in this war?
But of course, they fled, because they never wanted to fight anyway.
Even that little detail is somehow an accurate mockery of the two World Wars.  It may be silly, but there is some odd truth lying within the context.  Not that you'll notice after the fitfh pig you blow up.

Fun and Innovation - 5
Replayability - 4
Gameplay - 3
Presentation - 3