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...

Silent Service II torpedo-firing cutscene. (C)1990 MicroProse Software In 1990, the now-defunct video game and computer simulation publisher MicroProse Software released Silent Service II, a submarine simulation game set in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II. Developed by MicroProse’s in-house MPS Labs, the game is a sequel to 1985’s best-selling Silent Service. It is a single-player game that puts you in command of a U.S. Navy submarine during America’s war with Japan in various areas of Earth’s largest ocean. The game’s design team – led by the project’s main designer Arnold Hendrick and programmer Roy B. Gibson – took advantage of improvements in computer technology (such as more powerful CPUs, better sound cards, and VGA graphics) to create a more realistic and enjoyable gaming experience that took its cues from Sid Meier’s original game but was a bigger and better simulation. In Silent Service II , players can: Choose Boats from Nine Dif...

Screenshot of the "Main Title" game-is-loading screen from Silent Service II. (C) 1990 MicroProse Labs In the late 1980s and early 1990s, around the same time that I started working as a freelance writer and writing consultant in Miami, I spent much of my free time playing computer games. I went out with friends to the movies or to eat at inexpensive chain restaurants such as Denny's or Ruby Tuesday's, but I mostly stayed at home and spent countless hours at my computer desk playing my favorite games and simulations.  This era was also the Golden Age of the now-vanished MicroProse Software, a company co-founded by Sid Meier and retired Air Force Col. William "Wild Bill" Stealey in 1982. Based in Hunt Valley, Maryland, MicroProse was one of the first companies to publish easy-to-play yet challenging strategy games ( NATO Commander, Crusade in Europe, Conflict in Vietnam ) and simulations with a military flavor to them ( F-15 Strike Eagle, Gunship ). ...