The next stop in our E3 exploration takes us to the secretive halls of Microprose. Microprose has a large room at the show with a significant amount of security present. Attendants use radio gear like Secret Service personnel, and you actually have to be escorted in to get to see what they have to offer.

The first hint that something special is going on is the new logo. The old 80's logo we've been so familiar with over the years is being replaced with a hip new stylized logo, and after seeing their latest offerings for E3, you can't help but feel that this is symbolic of the company itself. The once awesome game giant is remaking itself, breaking its bonds and preparing to rise again.

M1 Tank Platoon 2

For quite some time we were pretty much in limbo over M1 Tank Platoon 2. Microprose would always act a little circumspect whenever someone would ask about the game. Did it exist? Was it merely a concept on paper or was there an actual program? Just in time for E3 Microprose decided to lift the curtain of secrecy on their sequel to M1TP.

Microprose was acutely aware of how highly regarded their original tank simulation was, and after the unfocused disaster of Across The Rhine, they were determined to recapture the standard they originally set with M1TP. M1 Tank Platoon 2 is a demonstration of what happens when a company makes a "no-holds barred" attempt to conquer the tank sim genre once again.

The feel of M1TP2 is due in no small part to Tim Goodlett. Be glad he's working on your behalf because his attention to detail in designing the game rivals that of fine scale modelers. As senior game designer, his work is in determining how the game will play and what kind of details will be present. I questioned him at length and found that he not only knows his tanks, but also seeks the kind of perfection gamers dream about. He wants the game to be as accurate as possible otherwise HE won't be satisfied!!

First off, M1TP2 has been in development for over a year and is due around New Year's Day at the earliest. Microprose has insisted that the game actually be programmed and designed on Pentium 90's. The result is that the game has a few less polygons than some games at the show, but it runs so smoothly that I thought the demo station was using a 3d accelerator when in fact it was running totally without exotic hardware. But its worth noting that the final version will also support 3dfx...

You control a platoon of M1 tanks directly as well as various support units of different kinds indirectly. Expect the usual M60's, M113's, M2, M3, and so on. The game play takes place on a realtime tactical map and in the 3d world environment. In the tactical map you can see the terrain and obstruction layout while giving orders to the various units. In addition to the regular orders you can put a time delay on them so that you can plan ahead considerably.

This part feels a lot like the tactical map in iM1A2. You can fight all the battles from this screen or get down and dirty with the real fun in the tanks themselves. Even better is the degree of tactical control over your units. You can instruct them to merely assault the enemy, get hull-down and engage the enemy, perform a hit-and-run manuever, bypass the enemy completely, or retreat.

Tim has suggested that they might also allow tying certain orders to the master clock. The upshot is that you could theoretically order a unit to travel to waypoint 1, firing on any enemy while on the move, then find cover and engage any enemy from cover until "H-hour", by which time the other units with similar orders have all assembled and everyone performs a coordinated assault. WOW. Lets hope they get "down and dirty" with this AI programming!

The detail is expertly done on the actual models. While the polygon count is actually a little low to allow it to run well on a P90, the artists have produced some top notch artwork that makes it work very well. The tanks have beautifully animated rolling tread and turning road wheels that bounce over the terrain. SAM units have rotating radar screens with articulated launch rails and turning turrets. Bradley AFV's have tow launchers that swivel up and lock into firing position. Hind helicopters have spinning rotor heads. Even HMMMV's with TOW mounts have their ring turrets swivel to face the enemy.

To go into all the details that the game offers would take far too long for our purposes but we'll provide a few tidbits: If you drive the tank in a sloppy manner you can break the tread and immobilize yourself, like in a real tank. Penetration and overpenetration is well modeled. You can fire a sabot round straight through a treeline to hit the unit behind it, or shoot two enemies with one shot if they are lined up properly and the shot retains its energy.

The killing power of sabot tank rounds decreases over distance but missiles have the same killing power at all ranges. Reactive armor gradually loses effectiveness as it is used up in the course of a battle. If an M1's turret is hit and the ammo goes up, the blowout panels will blow off to the sides to vent the blast away from the crew. Small arms fire against the M1 will ricochet in a small shower of sparks.

But this isn't true just of the M1, the same physics and graphics detailing applies for heavily armored aircraft such as the Hind or A-10. And lest you think only the A2G and G2A engagements are modelled, let it be known that airborne units carry AA weapons and will engage EACH OTHER as well as ground units. TOW missiles have sighting flares in the tail and fly in a matter that simply *looks* like they're being steered optically.

Furthermore the game is designed to be modular, and will allow future games to interface with it even if they are more advanced in some respects. What kind of vehicles will be modeled hasn't been determined yet, but our guess leans towards the A-10 first, with the possibility of a Bradley or Apache as well (Gunship 2010?).

The campaign is dynamic with you as the "small cog in the machine". Your ability to affect the war is quite limited at first, but as you rise in rank you will be given a larger command and can have a larger effect on the war. However, you are still only a piece of the puzzle, and the war may do well or poorly despite your influence.

The terrain engine itself is very well done, possessing great depth-of-field and "fencepost" type treelines. It isn't the fanciest one around, but it does an excellent job of showing true distances at low altitude while retaining its framerate - which for followers of tank sims, is no easy matter. Finally, between the terrain engine design and the strategy options you can go "hull down" a whole lot easier than in the original M1TP (and most other tank games for that matter).

M1 Tank Platoon is simply looking fantastic. The sequel to the game that set the standard for tank sims is on it's way, and it is looking poised to do it once again.

European Air War

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1942: Pacific Air War was for many gamers the seminal work for a WWII simulator, just as Falcon 3 was for modern jets or M1 Tank Platoon was for tanks. As good as the game was it's a little long in the tooth, so it was a real disappointment at last year's E3 to see that European Air War was shaping up to look and play exactly like the original PAW except set in Europe. Many folks weren't very excited about that prospect, and Microprose has taken notice.

The Bad News is that European Air War isn't going to be out according to the original projections: a Q497 or Q198 release looks more likely. The Good News is that the delay is due to the fact that the game has been completely redone. Once again, the game was developed and programmed on P90s to help improve the speed on typical gamer's systems, but it should also support 3dfx cards and the advantages they bring, and now is designed for Windows 95 instead of DOS.

More Good News follows. While the game has been completely overhauled, the designers haven't lost the vision of the original game. For the most part the game will play a lot like the original, but with improved flight models, damage modeling, campaign play, and graphics. In other words, everything you loved about PAW is still present in EAW, but all the things that could benefit from recent advances will be improved.

Campaign play is rather pseudo-dynamic. Essentially there is a large pool of missions that you might be assigned to. They are picked somewhat at random, although usually there will be some kind of logical flow from the results of one mission to the assignment of the next mission. You will fly with a particular historical squadron from either the British, American, or German side and watch your career progress throughout the war with them.

The game takes on a bit of the role-playing feel here. The men in your squadron have seven different statistics that determine their abilities in the game. Over time, they will gain experience and improve in their skills and thus become more and more effective assets to you. This also gives you a very strong incentive to protect your men. If your men are constantly getting shot down and replaced by FNG's, you'll find that your effectiveness as a squadron will be greatly diminished.

There are other elements to the game that represent the men. You need to allow your men time to rest, so if you're always taking that ace out to fly cover for you, you'll find that his skills degrade as he becomes more and more exhausted, and the lack of experience won't help your new guys manage to become effective replacements to cover his position when he's staying at the base.

A whole new concept to military combat sims was put in to make the results of battles more realistic when compared to real events. In EAW, for the first time, morale will become a factor. Each time someone is shot down during a battle, there is a chance that that side's resolve may falter and they may attempt to break off and run home. This prevents unrealistically high kill counts for the player, and gives the chance for the player to escape a losing battle without requiring the silk elevator or worse.

Another nice touch is that as you rise in rank you will be able to customize the markings on your plane, and eventually that of the entire squadron. While this may only be a point of vanity within the game normally, it will very much come into play during multiplayer events.

There are other nice graphical details. Pieces of the aircraft can shower back when shot or break off when the airplane is destroyed. If you need to bail out, you actually have to slide the canopy back before attempting to bail. Finally, if you are hit, blood splatters against the windscreen, making a gruesome sight to watch as your favorite pilot descends for the last time.

On the machinery side, the plane's flight models will be very authentic, taking the levels from PAW several steps further. Damage and physics modeling will be quite intense. Each plane will feature 16 distinct locations that can be hit. Wingtips, wings, tailplanes, rudder, engine, even yourself in the cockpit can all be hit individually and damaged according to the exact position the bullets land.

Also as before, cardinal views and a virtual cockpit with live working instruments will be supported, giving players the situational options to fit their tastes. The game is likely to support force feedback in the final version which is a welcome sight when you're flying twitchy propeller aircraft.

EAW has gone from a questionable situation of being the typical "more of the same" sequel to being an exciting new simulation that retains the flavor of it's predecessor. Now all WWII fans have another reason to be excited over the coming sims!

Falcon 4

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We had seen the early version of Falcon 4 at the last E3, where it really didn't merit very much attention at the time. This year Falcon 4 is really coming together. It's a simple fact that Microprose simply MUST do well with Falcon 4. They have a legendary reputation with Falcon 3 that they don't want to squander. Spectrum Holobyte was surviving mostly on the success of it's Falcon series, and Microprose needs it to do well to remake its image.

The good news is that F4 is turning into a real killer. Just a glance at the latest screenshots shows how amazing the game is looking. The imagery is really the first generation of photo-quality model texturing done in sims.

As you might already know, F4 will support several methods of handling situational awareness. Cardinal views, "Padlock-in-a-box" ala US Navy Fighters, and the virtual cockpit will all be supported. Microprose wants the situational awareness solution to fit the preferences of the user - a very commendable design decision considering the extra work needed to pull it off.

The attention to detail in the game is looking very impressive. Clouds will not simply be a semi-transparent textured plane, a squarish polygon, or a solid ceiling (unless appropriate for the weather condition at the time). Game clouds will be complex polygons with irregular "puffy" shapes. This promises to make merely skimming the tops of clouds exciting. Colors become darker and subdued when flying under a cloud, and correspondingly brighter when flying out of its shadow into the clear. F-16's have the appropriate "stealth" gold tint coating to their cockpit canopies, and the other craft have a similar attention given to their models.

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Ground weapons look especially fun. While you have the traditional CCIP bomb dropping method available, there also is the Maverick EO acquisition that looks like it was taken right out of a CNN broadcast. The missiles and bombs all work according to their own flight models and so behave in a very convincing fashion.The actual explosions are truly impressive. In addition to the typical flame/smoke explosion, you also have an animated ground shock wave that blasts out over the fields - looking very much like it came straight out of a Vietnam documentary film. Finally, substantial craters are left at the impact sites of bombs as well.

Shooting down aircraft is just as impressive, though. AA missile launches are very dramatic, with great looking smoke trails. Hitting an enemy may cause them to smoke and lose power, go spiraling down out of control, or simply explode dramatically in a dead center hit. When the aircraft explode, there is the actual explosion and a rain of pieces of the aircraft trailing smoke - again just like a documentary film. Some of the pieces may actually be scorching a trail of fire across the sky as they drop, possibly resulting in a secondary explosion and further scattering - until the pieces crash into the countryside below. Finally, the puff of smoke from the initial explosion hangs around in the air for about a minute. All these factors combined with high frame rates, photo-quality textures, and detailed terrain results in a visual feast that really gives a feel for the airborne battefield.

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F4 will also have many of the things that one would naturally expect. There will be multiplayer internet play, possibly including cooperative campaigns. ACMI black box recorders will be back so you can examine your performance. F4 will run under Windows 95 and NT4, even supporting multi-processor systems. 3dfx support will be included, although visible ground textures may not be very distinct at long distances so as to fit all the textures within the small texture memory size available within the 3dfx card.

Finally, the flight model is looking extremely good. It is a very active model that looks like it will approach or surpass the flight model quality of Su-27. You really get the feeling that the Falcon is moving through some kind of fluid medium rather than merely pointing it around the sky. It won't be possible to go into further detail at the moment, but the early results are looking good.

A tremendous amount of effort has gone into making Falcon 4 live up to its legendary predecessor. In fact, one of the managers present confronted me to ask point-blank what he thought about how they were doing with their new sims. When I responded favorably he seemed quite relieved - explaining that the company had been investing a considerable amount of time and money (and therefore risk to their shareholders) to make sure that their new generation of games were something special. The way things look so far, their new philosophy should spell great news for both the company and the players.