Here we go again – To round out the Early Period of my computer gaming, here is a closer look at four titles that I remember quite distinctly, along with casual mentions of a few others.
Hellcats Over the Pacific (1991)
I began to learn a little bit about World War II and World War I when I played the combat/flight simulators based off of these conflicts. I think I really got into the WWII stuff after I read an account of the Battle of Midway from the point of view of the American torpedo bombers (note: this is getting turned into a questionable movie about Midway featuring Nick Jonas which I’m probably going to go watch anyway). Basically the story I read is they happened upon the defenseless Japanese ships by accident, which were refueling and reloading so the Japanese had all their fighter-bombers on deck when the Americans attacked. Fun fact: The Hellcat was not invented until after the Battle of Midway, so it did not partake.
But in terms of this game I mainly just played the demos and shot down Japanese fighters time after time. The demo was randomly generated which made it replayable. This title was particularly memorable because the graphics were quite good for the time and the Japanese fighters were bright yellow, which made them quite easy to track, along with the guns of the Hellcat which conveniently shot out black dots as bullets. There was also an instant replay and bombing function built-in to the simulator.
Honorable Mention: An F-16 simulator that I don’t remember the name of, but allowed me to learn about the different missile types used by that fighter jet (Sparrow, AIM-120 etc.)
U-Boat – and Battle of Britain (1994)
This game was from the perspective of German U-Boat sailors operating in and near the Atlantic. You would go on missions to find merchant vessels, or destroy military ships, which got progressively difficult (some of the merchant ships would surprise you with weapons or were actually destroyers). I remember trying to sink a battleship, that did not go well. If you didn’t destroy the enemy at a first sneak attack you likely had to run away or dive deep, and hope that the enemy didn’t sink you. It was very suspenseful waiting for the depth charges to go off and dealing with “battle damage” while underwater – the sound was very atmospheric. Of course all the Germans on the U-boat are speaking English with a German accent. This was another fun game to play with my dad.
The Battle of Britain came with U-Boat and was an interesting simulator around the titular air battle. You would be in charge of directing British fighter planes (Spitfires, mostly) towards incoming German bombers and fighters as shown on a radar screen. It was pretty difficult to anticipate the movements of the Luftwaffe, usually the Germans won when I played the simulation – meant to show how difficult the battle was for Britain, I suppose.
Comanche (1992)
In this game the 3D graphics are getting noticeably better, so it’s getting harder to run it on our old Mac. But Comanche was a great game that pit you as an American assault helicopter pilot against Russians, warlords and drug runners, etc. The variety of enemies was interesting and the missions were fairly engrossing but not overly difficult. This is where I learned about the stinger and Hellfire missiles at an early age.
This was one of the games where the user manual was super detailed and interesting, starting a trend where I enjoyed reading user manuals and strategy guides as much as the games themselves. In the guide, it introduces the player-character as a US pilot who used to fly fixed-wing aircraft and was now being trained for what was then a prototype Comanche. If you think about it, most of the coverage of American military helicopters are Black Hawks (like in the movie) or Apaches, not this helicopter.
SimCity 2000 (1993)
This one is a classic. Maxxis would later make the best-selling computer game at the time, The Sims, but started out with this city-building simulator. It was recommended for urban planners, which is how my father started playing it. At first it was too difficult for me so I ended up using a lot of cheat codes and turning natural disasters “off.” The classic natural disaster was the alien robot that would cause havoc on the city from high above in the sky.
In the game, you can build residential, commercial or industrial zones and had to provide for everything like hospitals and police stations, schools, waterworks, power lines and power plants, and parks and so on. I think one of the most interesting parts about this game was the high-tech power plants that were available later in the game, like a dish to convert energy beamed from the sun’s rays or a fusion power plant. In addition, there were Arcos, which are massive self-contained structures that would increase your population substantially. These had a heavy influence on my thinking and sci-fi writing.
That’s it for now. Next time we will begin the Landmark Period of my computer gaming, from when I was 7 to 11 years old, where my gaming…habit?…really took shape.