Every week, we like to highlight some of the titles we’ve enjoyed on Game Pass, as part of our Spotlight series. If you read about it here, you should probably add it to your Game Pass queue!
Remember those ragdoll simulators you could play ten years ago? Remember Half Life’s Gary’s Mod? Well, I do! I had a lot of fun just throwing objects into the air while playing with gravity and physics. Totally Accurate Battle Simulator does this, adds a gameplay element and a whole lot more googly eyed goofiness into the mix.
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, better known as TABS to the hardcore fans, has come to Xbox Game Pass for Xbox and PC last month. I had already watched a couple of videos of this game prior to this announcement and was eager to try this game myself. The game is still in early access, so keep that in mind.
So… what do you do?
In this game you oversee a battleground from an isometric perspective. You can place soldiers on the field that will fight for you. There are plenty of options to your disposal. Peasants, knights, archers, catapults or even mammoths. TABS includes two game modes, the sandbox mode and the campaign. The campaign will keep you engaged for a few hours with differently themed levels. Meanwhile the sandbox mode is more fitting for players who like a creative touch in their strategic games.
Sandbox mode
This mode is essentially a make your Xbox (or heck, even your PC) turn ablaze mode. In the sandbox mode you can place as many pieces on the battleground as you see fit. And as it’s all physics that have to be calculated, your console cpu starts to struggle. This is the mode to have fun with all the maps they’ve put in the game. Want to put spearman on top of a hill and see if mammoths will be able to climb up and kill them? Well, why not! Want to see how many peasants it takes to take down a Da Vinci tank? (You can Google that, if you are interested) You can in this mode!
So, apologize to your CPU. Cover your ears against the noise of your fans and create cartoony looking battlefields to your own liking.
Campaigns
The campaigns are where the initial fun starts. During the campaign players will be forced to be creative with the budget they’ll be given. Each unit you’ll place will cost you money. The better a unit is, the more money they cost. But in TABS, it’s not all about the strength of a particular unit. It’s about the placement and strategy of this googly eyed archer or Viking warlord.
There are a couple of campaigns based around certain themes. Personally I’ve finished the Viking campaign. A short set of objectives where you either fight against Viking armies or fight as a Viking yourself.
And while your hard work is over, you’ve placed all the units on the battlefield that you need, you can marvel at the ragdoll physics, funny characters and strange noises that happen on your screen. This way every battle, while completely out of your control, stays interesting to behold.
Beta? Alpha? Early access? Game preview!
TABS is in game preview on both Xbox and PC. This means the game has not released in its final state yet. The developers are still working on new additions to the game. Landfall, the developer behind TABS, has made a nice website where you can see what is in the game right now and what they’re adding in the future.
They’ve already committed to bringing new factions, new maps and a unit creator into the game. We’ll have to wait and see when that’ll arrive.
Meanwhile I’d say; go enjoy this fun little game and make sure you don’t melt your Xbox while watching funny little spearmen kill one another. TABS isn’t a game that will be enjoyable to everyone, but it might just be you are just as interested in a cartoony ragdoll battle simulator as I am.
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator is available on Xbox One and PC in Xbox Game Pass. It’s currently in game preview.
