A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

© 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...

Title screen from M1 Tank Platoon. © 1989, 2020 MicroProse/Interplay Entertainment  If you read my last post in A Certain Point of View, you know that this weekend I purchased M1 Tank Platoon, an armored warfare sim developed and published in 1989 by the original MicroProse Software and reissued by Interplay Entertainment two years ago.   This was one of my favorite games when I started playing computer games programmed for MS-DOS/Windows. Since I didn’t purchase it until 1990 – I had to “share” my copy of M1 Tank Platoon with a friend that owned an “IBM clone” – the common term for MS-DOS-based machines at the time – I can’t claim I acquired it when MicroProse first released it, but I did own/play M1 Tank Platoon during the runup to Operation Desert Storm in 1990 and for years later – in my own PC then – after the collapse of the Soviet Union. M1 Tank Platoon isn't just an M1 Abrams tank simulation; it's also a primer in armored land combat in the 1980s. © 1989, 2020 MicroP...

© 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 ...

Package of the DOS version of M1 Tank Platoon (C) 1989 MicroProse Software In 1989 - that annus mirabilis marked by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Soviet domination in Eastern Europe, MicroProse Software published the original version of M1 Tank Platoon: The Definitive Simulation of Armored Land Warfare.  Part vehicle simulator and part real-time tactics map-based game, M1 Tank Platoon was the first tank warfare game to break away from the "one tank against the entire Red Army" trope in other games set in a conventional World War III scenario. Instead, M1 Tank Platoon put the player in command of a four-tank platoon of M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks and, depending on the mission type selected, a wide array of supporting forces that included M2/M3 Bradleys, AH-64 Apache attack helos, OH-58 Kiowa scout helicopters, A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jets, Improved TOW Vehicles, infantry squads, 107mm mortars, 155mm artillery, and Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) ...

"Main Title" screen from MicroProse's M1 Tank Platoon. (C) 1989 MicroProse Software In the late 1980s and early 1990s, MicroProse Software was one of the most innovative and successful computer and video game publishing companies in the world. Co-founded by retired Air Force pilot  "Wild Bill" Stealey and Sid Meier, the Maryland-based company created some of the gaming industry's most popular titles, including Silent Service, its sequel Silent Service II, the three-game F-15 Strike Eagle series, Red Storm Rising, and the classic world history simulation Sid Meier's Civilization.  Although MicroProse's catalog included games from various genres, many of its titles were military simulators. This isn't surprising; the company's co-founder was a veteran, and many of its best-selling games were simulators of combat aircraft ( F-15 Strike Eagle, F-19 Stealth Fighter ), submarines ( Red Storm Rising, Silent Service II ) and even helicopters (...