Friday, November 16, 2007

Lemmings and the Luftwaffe

Some friendly online political banter with a good buddy of mine who, inexplicably, manages to vote incorrectly in every possible election reminded me of one of my favorite computer video games from yesteryear.

Yes, it was Lemmings. Go check out the link...some very interesting trivia about game design and stuff.

Another game that I truly, truly loved in the early days of computer games was Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, from LucasArts. I used to get up an hour early in the morning so that I could play this game before making breakfast for the family and going to work. It was a multi-faceted and challenging flight simulator, basically, that enabled you to fight WWII's air war over Europe. My favorite fighter plane was the P-51 Mustang, very closely followed by the P-38 Lightning which could rain an unbelievable torrent of death and destruction on the Nazis. The most difficult was the B-17 Bomber. Spectacularly rendered, it actually let you toggle amongst the pilot seat, various gunner turrets, and the bombardier's station to conduct battle. Flying one of those deep into Germany, doing some damage, and then flying all the way across Europe to land back on British soil was no easy task, even in the virtual realm. It was a difficult game to win and highly addictive.

If I had either of these today, I would get nothing done, I'm sure.

1 comment:

DaveG said...

I had the Secret Weapons game too. In fact, I think for some number of years I had every flight sim ever made. I started with SubLogic Flight Sim for the TRS-80, so I'm constantly amazed at how far they have progressed, and what you can get today for almost no money at all. Well, except for the cost of a high-end PC, anyway.