Roving reporter Dan Griliopoulos has left Alec in Cologne and is heading deeper into Europe, writing up the best of Gamescom as he goes.

We’re driving through the Black Forest when my thoughts turn to Wargame: European Escalation. Germany’s Schwarz Wald might be famous around the world solely as the origin of an outrageously opulent cherry cake – the schwarzwaldkirschetorte – but it’s also at the heart of the country that’s borne the brunt of European warfare for twenty centuries. That’s notable for us, as it’s also the central area that the two factions of the Cold War would likely have fought through and over if the war had turned hot, as the overwhelming Russian conventional forces pushed towards France. Wargame, the new title from the creators of RUSE, explores this area and the war that never happened, but which the world braced itself against for forty years.(more…)