Birds of a Feather

[Bob McDob]

Vision isn't the only mid-'90s engine still going strong today. SimHQ recently ran an article about fan updates to European Air War, the successor to 1942: Pacific Air War, released by Microprose in 1998.

Pretty impressive graphics for 256 colors. The article has some other neat stories, including this one about game development; specifically, showing off to the boss.

EAW was "way over budget", ready to be axed if it didn't show immediate results, with huge gaping holes in the game. "Brand" mentioned a few. If you fired your guns, your wings fell off. Planes now and then flew backward. You couldn't take off or land. The AI (Artificial Intelligence) aircraft shot down their own teammates for no discernible reason. "Brand" didn't use the name, but the new lead programmer hired to fix things up fast — or else — was one Ted Kawahito, known as "TK" and currently the sparkplug behind Strike Fighters Project 1 with a community here at SimHQ.

What do you think "TK" worked on first? Did he attack the horrible holes in the game? No. "He built a new camera object. One that would jump immediately to wherever "cool" things were happening. Sometimes, the cool camera would focus on a plane executing an impressive evasive action to shake the enemy. Sometimes, the camera would follow a bomb from the bay of a B-17, down to the ground in a cool tracking shot where you watched the Earth come rushing up at the camera. Sometimes, the cool cam would focus on a firefight, or on a plane that just got shot down, and was now a fireball, barreling toward the ground at terrific speed."

"Brand" said he wanted to scream, "That doesn't help us! We've got real issues, and you're screwing around with the camera!"

At one of the next meetings with studio execs sharpening their questions and their money axes, Kawahito turned to the CoolCam. "One of the execs threw out a tough question, designed to show how far over budget we were. "Tom" put down the joystick, and hit the "cool cam" button. Then he turned around to answer the question. While he was answering the question, every eye in the room was on the screen as one amazing scene showed after another. I looked at the execs, and I swear, some of them were gaping. No one was listening to Tom as he answered the question, and when he finished, he picked up the joystick, and jumped back into the game."

The money problem eased up. More programmers were hired. Meetings with execs "dwindled to nothing". Finally, " ... we shipped a hell of a game." The CoolCam did it. "I swear, that camera saved the project," "Brand" said.

I never got into EAW when it first came out, opting for the much-flashier WWII Fighters, but this might make me have to give the game a second look.

 

[Jason_Ryock]

I have to say, I got to the end of that post and the last thing I read was the last line of your signature, and I thought how fitting it was that that sig was at the bottom of that story.

I think that "coolcam" thing is a perfect example of the, "If it's stupid, and it works, then it ain't stupid." quote, and it goes to show you that sometimes the stupid ideas really are the best.

On the subject though, I don't know when Falcon 4.0 came out, but that game too has a large Fan community following and developing it, along with the Allegiance Community...which is a bit more tight? If that's a good word to use, with who they let modify the game.

 

[Bob McDob]

I think the idea deserves more than a "lawl execs are stupid so let's put on a trick for them" take; it's the reality of ... well, pretty much anything. It's simply marketing; a layperson isn't necessarily going to understand the intricacies of game coding and the debugging process, but they *do* appreciate something tangiable and visible.

Fun (?) fact, the aforementioned designer, Tsuyoshi Kawahito, also had a long career at the Jane's division of Origin, working on the most intense of their flight simulations (the Longbow and F-15 games). Interestingly, he seems to have taken a break between the two to work on the X-Com: Interceptor game for Microprose; this wouldn't be terribly notable except that the music design included Laura Barrett - who did the score for Wings of Glory. The game industry really is a small world (well, at least back then - I have no idea how it is today).

 

[Maj.Striker]

I think the idea deserves more than a "lawl execs are stupid so let's put on a trick for them" take; it's the reality of ... well, pretty much anything. It's simply marketing; a layperson isn't necessarily going to understand the intricacies of game coding and the debugging process, but they *do* appreciate something tangiable and visible.

Fun (?) fact, the aforementioned designer, Tsuyoshi Kawahito, also had a long career at the Jane's division of Origin, working on the most intense of their flight simulations (the Longbow and F-15 games). Interestingly, he seems to have taken a break between the two to work on the X-Com: Interceptor game for Microprose; this wouldn't be terribly notable except that the music design included Laura Barrett - who did the score for Wings of Glory. The game industry really is a small world (well, at least back then - I have no idea how it is today).

Hmm, I don't think I've played an aircraft game since Falcon 4.0...which was probably the most incredible let down experience I've ever had. There was no cool dogfight action (ala Strike Commander) and for it supposedly being such a "realistic" game I was able to do some pretty unrealistic things. One time I landed my plane completely vertical! (when the plane stopped my nose was point straight towards the sun, nothing blew up!) Crazy. IAF was a little better but still not what I wanted. The last good airplane game I played was probably Aces over the Pacific. The best one I ever played was Strike commander.

 

[Eder]

European Air War is the best WW2 flight sim ever, and I've pretty much tried them all.

 

[Ghost]

Better than IL-Stumnrovik?
I played it and its expansions and it is great