Your First NWS?

[XabbaRus]

Originally Posted by Bill Nichols

Mine was the one I wrote myself in Basic for the Apple II, way back when computers had only 48 kB of memory

My program was eventually published by Simulations Canada as 'Grey Seas, Grey Skies'.

Bill what happened to that Sturgeon class control simulator you were working on a year or so ago?

[Bill Nichols]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

Bill what happened to that Sturgeon class control simulator you were working on a year or so ago?

Too many projects, not enough time

[Tgio]

Originally Posted by Smaragdadler

Here is your emulator:
CUT
And here are the games:
CUT

I've been lucky as usual... It hangs after I attach the image of disk 2. Will look on the net for another image.
Boys, I still can't belive the astonishing work done byMP.

[XabbaRus]

How I remember names like Sid Meier and Max Riga.

What happened to Microprose and for that matter Orion who made Wing Commander series.

It seems that there are no smallish independent sim makers.

Sierra were good too. Also is Lucas Arts still going, I loved the Day of the Tentacle and the Start Wars sims.

[bishop]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

Also is Lucas Arts still going, I loved the Day of the Tentacle and the Start Wars sims.

Larry Holland, who wrote the Star Wars series, also made 3 great WWII sims for Lucasarts, Battlehawks 1942, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe and one of my all time favorites, Their Finest Hour:The Battle of Britain. TFH also had one of the best manuals ever made for a game.

[LuftWolf]

The manual of Their Finest Hour was the absolute origin of my interest in military matters. An absolutely amazing inclusion for an amazing game.

[Tgio]

How about "F-14 fleet defender"? While you were flying your own missions you can see other air/sea battles going on... Fantastic!

[bishop]

Originally Posted by Tgio

How about "F-14 fleet defender"? While you were flying your own missions you can see other air/sea battles going on... Fantastic!

Fleet Defender is my favorite modern jet sim, ever. I still play it on an old Win98 machine, those 80's era cold war campaigns over the North Cape are a still a blast to play...

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by OKO

but technically speaking, FA18 is probably better, especially on ground attack, where the choice of weapons and sort of engament are really amazing.

At the risk of diverting this thread but I think F4 (espicially the new allied force version) is probebly the most "technically accurate" espicially when it comes to ground pounding. Little details are what makes the difference. Things like not being able to see through mountains with radar, not being able to pick a target out clearly from 40 miles out. The degree of uncertainty when you lock a target and afraid to launch because you dont know if its friend or foe.

But all the "technical" aspects put aside what sets F4 apart from other games is its dynamic campaign. No small technical feat which has not been duplicated since. I mean here is a war where your actions really do have a direct impact on the outcome. Here is a war where you can look out the canopy and literaly see it for your own eyes.

Ill be frank I was dissapointed with DW's "campaign". It seems canned restrictive and lacks scope.

[Wim Libaers]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

How I remember names like Sid Meier and Max Riga.

What happened to Microprose and for that matter Orion who made Wing Commander series.

It seems that there are no smallish independent sim makers.

Sierra were good too. Also is Lucas Arts still going, I loved the Day of the Tentacle and the Start Wars sims.

Origin, not Orion. If you liked Wing Commander, I'd recommend:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/
And remakes of Privateer:
http://priv.solsector.net/
http://wcuniverse.sourceforge.net/
differences between the two remakes are explained here:
http://priv.solsector.net/faq_d01.htm
there's also (very early version, more ambitious):
http://wcu.solsector.net/

Of course, the original games are still available, sometimes even dowloadable with DOS emulator included, but their legal status is somewhat questionable so I'm not posting links. Besides, the control is much better in the remakes, with 4-axis joystick support. the original control schemes were (IMHO) rather awkward.

Originally Posted by SteamWake

At the risk of diverting this thread but I think F4 (espicially the new allied force version) is probebly the most "technically accurate" espicially when it comes to ground pounding. Little details are what makes the difference. Things like not being able to see through mountains with radar, not being able to pick a target out clearly from 40 miles out. The degree of uncertainty when you lock a target and afraid to launch because you dont know if its friend or foe.

But all the "technical" aspects put aside what sets F4 apart from other games is its dynamic campaign. No small technical feat which has not been duplicated since. I mean here is a war where your actions really do have a direct impact on the outcome. Here is a war where you can look out the canopy and literaly see it for your own eyes.

Of course, F/A-18 had its advantages too:
More weapons, especially GPS-guided weapons (a major deficiency of Falcon 4).
Fewer bugs. People are complaining about buildings floating in the air in the Balkans, making them too hard to hit. Such issues (which should be fixed) have a rather big impact on ground attack realism.

Not being able to see through mountains and identification are features that are also present in other sims.

[Amizaur]

"Little details are what makes the difference"

And it's so true in ALL simulation games

My firstnaval game? Silent Service on my uncle's Atari 65XE about 17 years ago . Great game, I was 13 or so and my Mam said I could sit over it quiet for several hours and only my red ears showed my excitement wwhen I was aprroaching a convoy
Then was Pirates! on my own Amiga 500 about 15 years ago
And yes, the Great Giana Sisters too for me the greatest platform/arcade game ever!
And not much later after Pirates! - the immortal HARPOON, on Amiga too!
Played it for YEARS as long as different little bugs and poor AI of computer enemy killed all playability for me (it's not funny when you know where and when the enemy will show and can win nearly every scenario with zero losses playing each side) . But this was at least 5 years after I first played it, so very long . And even today I would love to play Harpoon with human player as opponent
What beside this... Great 688 Attack Sub on Amiga too, great game then, Red Storm Rising and it's campaigns... I was dreaming then about a sub sim that would join best aspects of both games into one even better
Later well not much more, because I had still an Amiga (and I have it even today, though very rarely use it now). There were not much good naval sims on Amiga those years... So only few years ago when I bought a PC I tried SC (immediately next day upgraded it to SCX so didn't play stock SC more than a day ) and loved it, tried also Harpoon 2 but although more realistic, I didn't liked it as much as old Harpoon. And still it wasn't possible to play with human opponent. So I switched to other wargames like Steel Panthers WaW and the GREAT Combat Mission series. And now is DW which becomes really great game when the most important bugs are being fixed and it's modding potential shows up

P.S. Yeah, the time goes on... When was the last time you seen the classic words "Game Over" on your monitor ?

[XabbaRus]

Origin that was it.

what happened to them?

Anyway I am downloading all three, just what I have been looking for for ages.

Cheers mate

[LuftWolf]

I'm a little surprised no one has mentioned the classic "Wolfpack".

It was one of the first games to model "both sides" playing, as you could play as a destroyer and U-boat, as well as technical progression, the early destroyers didn't have much technology and the later ones had active/passive sonar, hedghogs, radar, etc.

Also, you could have proper Wolfpack tactics, switching from boat to boat.

I think it had MP too, but I don't remember too clearly.

[darksythe]

@ LW Does this mean your back from your trip?

[LuftWolf]

Hey yeah!

I'm not sure I'm going to get online tonight, but tomorrow for sure, I'm going to try to dive in the mid-afternoon or evening.

ICQ me.

Cheers,
David