Old Gamers Never Die: A Quick Update on 'Crusade in Europe'

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© 1985, 2022 MicroProse/Atari

 The last time I played the Operation Market-Garden scenario in Crusade of Europe - before my Apple IIe's monitor died on me - I was either 31 or 32 and it was still the mid-1990s.


I recently bought the reissued Crusade in Europe by Atari (they took a 1985 game and tweaked it a bit so it would work on modern PCs) for $6.99. I still remembered how to play - heck, I spent countless hours playing that game when I was in college - but until today I stuck to the Normandy scenarios.

© 1985, 2022 MicroProse/Atari



Tonight - since I really don't do anything exciting here - I decided to try Operation Market-Garden: "A Bridge Too Far."

© 1985, 2022 MicroProse/Atari



I thought the computer would beat me since in real life the Allies did not gain a victory in Market-Garden. When I played the game regularly, sometimes I won, but most of the time I lost.

Well, tonight I can honestly say...I did what Montgomery could not do in 1944.

© 1985, 2022 MicroProse/Atari



Comments

  1. Ali McCartneyAugust 20, 2022 at 6:19 PM

    Wow, it's hard to believe the graphics back then look so primitive! But at the time, it's what we were used to. Congrats on winning the campaign!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alex Diaz-GranadosAugust 20, 2022 at 7:28 PM

      Those mid-1980s graphics sure were, shall we say, rudimentary. Back then, we were so thrilled to even have computers at home, much less play cool games with them.

      The Market-Garden battle is the second hardest for a player leading the Allied forces, mainly because the terrain sucks, air support is minimal, and your land forces must stick to the roads. The Dutch countryside (at least in 1944) was full of swampy, too-hard-for-tanks-to-pass-terrain, plus the Germans try to "pinch" that highway from Eindhoven to Arnhem by launching counterattacks from the east and west.

      The toughest battle in Crusade in Europe, though, is the Battle of the Bulge.

      Delete

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