A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

A view from the periscope from my not-so-new game "Cold Waters."  © 2017 Killerfish Games  As you might recall, I have a Steam account that I opened when I bought Sid Meier's Civilization V in the Spring of 2015. I still lived in Miami then, and though she only had a few short months to live, my mom was still alive. And because I was so damn busy, tired, and stressed out by my dual role as homeowner-to-be and my dying mother's primary caregiver, I just thought Steam was for that game and didn't bother to learn that it was a company that not only helped Civ V work well online, but it was a source for downloadable games from various developers and publishers.  I started buying downloads of games from Steam directly about a year-and-a-half after I moved to Lithia, Florida, in 2016. I did so because streaming/downloading games in the 21st Century is as routine as buying "in-the-box" games that you installed with floppies (the late 1980s to early '90s) or...

© 1989, 2020 MicroProse/Interplay Entertainment  As you know, this old grognard cut his wargaming teeth back in the 1980s. First, of course, with strategy games such as Avalon Hill's 1984 Gulf Strike, SSI's Conflict 1985, and MicroProse Software's Command Series trilogy ( Crusade in Europe, Decision in the Desert, and Conflict in Vietnam ). Later, when I made the transition from my first computer (an Apple IIe that I received in 1987 from my dad's brother Sixto), I started playing simulations of modern aircraft ( F-15 Strike Eagle III, Red Storm Rising, and F-117A Nighthawk: Stealth Fighter 2.0. ) One game that I played a lot between 1992 and 1995 was MicroProse's M1 Tank Platoon, a simulation of armored land warfare in the late Cold War period set in a World War III scenario pitting a U.S. Army tank platoon against Soviet-led Warsaw Pact forces invading West Germany.  Designed by Arnold Hendrick and programmed by a MicroProse team led by Scott Spanburg and Darrell ...

  Waging Virtual Combat in the War that Could Have Been   © 2017 Killerfish Games If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I came of age during the last stages of the Cold War between the United States (land of my birth) and the Soviet Union. That “war in peacetime” between the world’s superpowers dominated at least half my life. My mom was pregnant with me during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, and I grew up under the shadow of a possible showdown between the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact. In order to cope with “Cold War-gone-hot” anxiety, I tried to reduce my fear of a war with the Soviet Union by learning as much about Soviet military technology and strategic/tactical thought. I also did the same for U.S./NATO military hardware, strategy, and tactical doctrine. I spent countless hours at the public library branch closest to my house, poring over the most recent edition of Jane’s Fightin...