Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ares was an American science fiction and fantasy wargame magazine published first by Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) and then by TSR, Inc., between 1980 and 1984. Each issue included a complete board wargame with a foldout map, die-cut counters, and rules.
SPI launched Ares in 1980 after the 1977 publication of Metagaming Concepts's science fiction microgame OGRE proved enormously popular and sparked competitors to develop their own microgames. Ares was designed as a bi-monthly science fiction and fantasy companion to SPI's existing military wargame magazine Strategy and Tactics.
SPI published 11 issues of Ares and had Issue 12 prepared for print when TSR unexpectedly took over the company in 1982. TSR released Issue 12, which included a game called Star Traders for use with the Universe roleplaying game system.
TSR reduced Ares from bi-monthly to quarterly publication, then stopped printing it as a standalone magazine after Issue 17. Beginning with Issue 84 of Dragon magazine in April 1984, TSR ran an Ares section inside Dragon that covered games like Gamma World, Marvel Super Heroes, and Star Frontiers until Issue 111 in July 1986.
Reviews of the first issue were largely negative about the bundled game WorldKiller. Jerry Epperson in The Space Gamer No. 28 called it a disappointment, game designer Greg Costikyan in Fantastic described WorldKiller as "a dog," and Hamish Wilson in Phoenix Issue 26 said the magazine "lacks form, shape and direction" despite its professional appearance.
Michael Anderson of One Small Step Games launched a successful Kickstarter in February 2014 to revive Ares as a new magazine. Subsequent issues appeared in December 2015, September 2016, and January 2017.