Spearhead 1998 Tank Sim

[agathosdaimon]

i liked it, it though is perhaps the last 90s tank sim that i am yet to get working in in windows11. everything else, even m1tp2 i have eventually figure out or found a work around to get workign but not spearhead


none of the wrappers or emulation programs have worked yet for me

[RetroGamer]

Originally Posted by agathosdaimon

i liked it, it though is perhaps the last 90s tank sim that i am yet to get working in in windows11. everything else, even m1tp2 i have eventually figure out or found a work around to get workign but not spearhead


none of the wrappers or emulation programs have worked yet for me

I hear ya…trying to get old games to run properly is almost like a game itself! I have a few PCs that people just gave to me that run Windows 98 and XP.

Spearhead runs on both. I’ve been testing it all weekend and it runs the best on an old P133 with a Trident 3D Blade PCI card in Direct 3D in Win98. It looks great with my Voodoo 2 PC but there’s an artifact that shows up and bugs me,

I’m so sick of the old stuff that Spearhead is really cool. I just did all the tutorials. Looking forward to the campaign.

[RetroGamer]

I’ve been playing Spearhead for a few weeks now on a Windows 98 desktop and would like to upload some gameplay videos.

Fraps seems to only work in XP.

How does one capture 3dfx gameplay on an old machine?

As a last resort, I could upload some clips from a different PC running XP. On that machine, the direct X install is played and Fraps should work. Spearhead looks best with my voodoo2 card.

Any help is appreciated.

[RetroGamer]

This particular topic is DEAD but what the heck. Maybe somebody will read this 30 years from now.

I’ve been playing the Spearhead campaign for a while and discovered one, possibly two un-winnable missions.

Single Mission:
Lesson6_MAP_SKILLS

No matter how many times I play this, there’s no “Mission Accomplished” ending. Even after destroying everything and leading my platoon to both assigned checkpoints.

Campaign Mission:
Campaign08: Carthage 1High Speed Road March

Hah! There must be a bug in this one. I’m a pretty good gamer and I’ve played this one about 100 times now…. It abruptly ends with “Mission Failed” no matter what I do. I’m going to keep at this one and see if I can determine what’s triggering the bug. I sometimes shoot one of the buildings in order to clear the line of fire to an enemy tank hiding there and sometimes that triggers the “Mission Failed” message.

If I’m having this much trouble, the casual gamer probably turned his Spearhead CD into a coaster pretty quick back in the late ‘90s. I can see why the game failed because that’s unreasonably frustrating. I’d like to continue the campaign. There’s no way.

If anybody's completed the Spearhead campaign, let’s hear how you did it! Even if it’s 20 years from now!

I’m also running the game on a period correct legacy Windows 98 PC.

Armored Fist 3 also has an un-winnable training mission. It’s the last training mission. No matter what anybody does, it can’t be completed. What’s up with programmers doing this?

Maybe they quit midway through the project and just shipped the game out incomplete….it’s beginning to look like that’s what happened.

If I can’t beat the campaign soon, I guess I’m done with it.

It’s still a really cool 3dfx tank sim….a little frustrating right now, however.

[Polak2]

If I can’t beat the campaign soon, I guess I’m done with it.
It’s still a really cool 3dfx tank sim….a little frustrating right now, however.

You have pretty much tested thoroughly 3 older TankSims so far:
M1TP2
Armored Fist3
Spearhead

So which one out of those 3 is your choice so far to be the best?
And the next question: what next?

[RetroGamer]

Originally Posted by Polak2

You have pretty much tested thoroughly 3 older TankSims so far:
M1TP2
Armored Fist3
Spearhead

So which one out of those 3 is your choice so far to be the best?
And the next question: what next?

Hello Polak2! It’s good to hear from you again!

There’s no doubt, M1TP2 is the best. There are several campaigns, more vehicles, different terrains, different tank camouflages, videos, etc. That big manual, too!

Spearhead is somewhat “M1TP2 - Lite”:

One basic terrain - desert,
One camo scheme for vehicles - desert tan,
One campaign - and you’re hopessly stuck if you cant complete a mission.

Armored Fist 2 and 3 are almost the same game. AF2 is USMC based and is a DOS sim. AF2 has the Marines using Bradleys. I don’t think the USMC ever had Bradleys but I could be wrong. I always thought their Bradley IFV/CFV equivalent was the LAV-25. AF3 is US Army based, has smoother graphics, but is essentially the same. I’ve beaten both AF2 and 3 but I don’t enjoy them as much. You can’t manually track targets very well like we can in M1TP2, Spearhead, and Steel Beasts. I consider the AF series an exercise in proper use of terrain and avenues of approach.

AF1 is a different story. One CAN track targets with a joystick with a hat switch! I’ve beaten all 47 AF1 missions many times. That sim will always hold the #1 spot for me.

What’s next? Helicopter sims. I’m taking a break from tank sims. Steel Beasts Pro PE does not sound fun to me. World of Tanks is ok but I don’t consider that a tank sim.

I’m enjoying Comanche 4 right now and am repairing my son’s old xBox 360 (replaced several leaking capacitors) so I can play “Apache: Air Assault”. I haven’t given Gunship! A chance yet but that’s in the future.

What are you playing?

[Polak2]

What are you playing?

ARMA: Cold War Assault.
As you perhaps know it is the ArmA#1 that is re-release of Operation Flashpoint by Bohemia Interactive.

I decided to revisit most if not all of the titles in Arma Series with special focus on relearning the mechanics/tactics/strategies of the Arma games and custom mission creation/planning with emphasis on the combined arms infantry and mechanized/tank operations.
I realize that although 1st Arma is a pretty ancient title by today's standards, it has still many elements of gameplay, custom tools, and mods worth revisiting.

I admit that despite my reservations I found this title is great fun and here is why:

1. this video shows what to expect in tank handling and combat
Mission 10. "Commander"



2. few shots showing tanks:




3. and finally 2-part Video Tutorial for creating custom missions - as for now perhaps the best of all(!):

OFP/ArmA: Cold War Assault Editor Tutorial - The Basics (1 of 2)


OFP/ArmA: Cold War Assault Editor Tutorial - The Basics (2 of 2)