Old Gamers Never Die: Trying Out 'Second Front' - My Second Purchase on Steam of a 'New MicroProse' Game

-

© 2023 Hexdraw and MicroProse

 As someone who cut his gaming teeth in the late 1980s and early '90s, I used to own and play many (at least eight-10 titles) games from the original iteration of MicroProse Software, which was originally a Maryland-based company that created and published computer and video games, most (but not all) of them being military-themed simulations and strategy games. 

Founded by Lt. Col. William "Wild Bill" Stealey (USAF, Ret.) and legendary game designer Sid Meier, MicroProse was, for a while, anyway, one of the leading gaming software creators/publishers in the world. Its best-known titles include Sid Meier's Civilization, Silent Service and Silent Service II, Red Storm Rising, Crusade in Europe, and the F-15 Strike Eagle trilogy. 

Then, after co-founder Meier left the company and the company underwent a series of ownership changes, the original Hunt Valley, MD version of MicroProse closed shop in the early 2000s, and its various intellectual properties were divvied up between some of its corporate owners, including Interplay and Atari. 

Fortunately, "old MicroProse" had a huge following, and one of the company's biggest fans was an Australian investor and game publisher named David Lagettie. In 2017, Lagettie, in collaboration with original co-founder "Wild Bill" Stealey, ponied up big bucks to buy the company "brand" (complete with the original logo) and announced the resurrection of the company as both a publisher of games developed by indie studios and, in time, creator of its own, mostly military strategy games and simulations. 

From Regiments to Second Front

Presently, I own two "new MicroProse" titles: Regiments, which was released on the last week of August 2022, and Second Front, which was released on Steam on Tuesday, January 31. 



© 2022 Bird's Eye Games and MicroProse 

The "main title" card from Second Front. © 2023 Hexdraw Games and MicroProse

If you follow this blog regularly, you know that Regiments was the first "new MicroProse" game I added to my game library since the early 1990s. It's a Cold War-turned-hot real-time strategy game set in a version of 1989 when perestroika and glasnost failed and war broke out between the U.S.-led NATO alliance and the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact. 

And because I had been waiting for two years for its release, I bought Second Front, which is a turn-based game (also at the tactical level) that is set during World War II and features land combat on both the Eastern Front (fighting between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union) and the Western (or Second) Front in Northwest Europe and Italy (fighting between the Americans and the Germans).

I have not played Second Front much yet; I've attempted the infantry tutorial on how to Advance, but even though I get slightly better at it each time I try, I still get my ass kicked by the Germans. 

At least I've learned how to get some of my GIs under cover and get them to fire at enemy troops hiding in a stone house. © 2023 Hexdraw Games and MicroProse

I must be honest. I suck at basic infantry tactics, at least presently. I did better in my first training scenario with tanks, though! 

© 2023 Hexdraw Games and MicroProse


© 2023 Hexdraw Games and MicroProse

© 2023 Hexdraw Games and MicroProse

I must have been a tank commander in a previous life. Either that, or I've played M1 Tank Platoon and Regiments often enough that I understand a few of the basic principles of armored warfare. 

I'll keep you posted on my progress in Second Front in future posts! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How many movies have been made based on Stephen King's 'It'?

-
Image
How many movies have been made based on Stephen King's It ? It  has been adapted twice for filmed audio-visual media. The first filmed version of  It was a TV limited series; the second was a duology of theatrically-released movies.  The first adaptation of Stephen King’s 1986 doorstop of a novel was a 1990 adaptation made as a two-part ABC miniseries for television. Among the cast members: Tim Reid, Harry Anderson, Annette O’Toole, John Ritter, and Richard Thomas. The miniseries also featured Tim Curry as the evil Pennywise the Clown. Adapted for television by director Tommy Lee Wallace and Lawrence D. Cohen (who also adapted King’s  Carrie  for director Brian De Palma in 1976),  It  was okay but a watered-down take on the scary novel about a group of friends who must face off against a monstrous entity known as “It” twice. Once as kids in 1960, then again as adults in 1990. (Like  11,22.63,  the TV version of It avoids the year 1958, which is where parts of  11/22/63 
Read more

Talking About Tom Clancy's 'Ryanverse': Was Jack Ryan a Republican or a Democrat?

-
Image
Harrison Ford starred in two Jack Ryan films. © 1992 Paramount Pictures On Quora, member Maya Lachman asks: Was Jack Ryan a Republican or a Democrat? My reply: If you’re talking about Tom Clancy’s iconic character John Patrick Ryan, Sr., he is depicted in the novels as being Republican, especially in most of the books that follow 1991’s  The Sum of All Fears. In the early Jack Ryan novels ( The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, The Cardinal of the Cardinal, Clear and Present Danger,  and  The Sum of All Fears ), Ryan works his way up the ranks in the Central Intelligence Agency, starting out as a recently-recruited analyst and rising all the way to Deputy Director (Intelligence), or DDI. During his time at CIA, Ryan doesn’t have much to say about politics (except in the context of U.S.-Soviet relations, in which case he is obviously a Cold War Republican), but his pre-CIA resume includes a stint as a Marine Corps lieutenant, a successful stockbroker who, despite
Read more

Movie Review: 'PT-109'

-
Image
In June of 1963, five months before the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Warner Bros. released director Leslie Martinson’s  PT-109 , an adaptation of Robert J. Donovan’s non-fiction book  PT-109: John F. Kennedy in World War II.   Starring Cliff Robertson ( Charly, Spider-Man ) as Navy Lieutenant (junior grade) John F. Kennedy and co-starring Ty Hardin, James Gregory, Robert Culp, Robert Blake, Norman Fell and even an uncredited George Takei (Hikaru Sulu of  Star Trek: The Original Series ), the film is a fairly accurate depiction of JFK’s naval service in the South Pacific as the commander of a motor torpedo boat given the Navy pennant number PT-109 (the PT standing for the Navy ship designator “Patrol Torpedo”).  Although Hollywood had made movies in which former Presidents (either living or dead) were depicted, producer Bryan Foy, under the direct guidance of Warner Bros.' head of production Jack Warner (who, in turn, was influenced by Joseph P. Kennedy, a f
Read more