MicroProse revived as military simulator publisher

[Agesilaus]

If I was trading, I would be fine with all of those games being pure shit in exchange for Urban Strife being good.

 

[Difera]

From the Steam pages you linked, they seem to be acting mostly as a publisher for different developers.

According to a quick Google search, the Microprose brand was bought a couple of years back by some australian mil-sim dev:

https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/05/the-australian-who-brought-microprose-back-from-the-dead/

Also, the only title they announced this year that caught my attention at the time was a B-17 Flying Fortress spiritual successor called The Mighty Eight or something... Sadly, never heard much more about that one since the announcement.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

From the Steam pages you linked, they seem to be acting mostly as a publisher for different developers.

According to a quick Google search, the Microprose brand was bought a couple of years back by some australian mil-sim dev:

https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/05/the-australian-who-brought-microprose-back-from-the-dead/

Also, the only title they announced this year that caught my attention at the time was a B-17 Flying Fortress spiritual successor called The Mighty Eight or something... Sadly, never heard much more about that one since the announcement.

that would be cool. I do believe at least a couple of these will be completed for sure and are not vaporware, like sea power which is being made by the same developer that made Cold Waters-- they have a history of completing games. Also I have seen a video of second front being played and it actually looks pretty cool despite the sort of weird graphics. I agree they seem to be acting as a publisher, it still seems like a lot of games to be working on before even releasing a single one, but maybe they have the funds.

I think second Front might be the one I am waiting for most, then Task Force Admiral, then Urban Strife.

edit: Second Front Videos

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOxChfy5XZjwf8nlbtF6_oQ/videos

 

[Burning Bridges]

The business model is not clear at all. But it seemed for a long time they will try to sign every small indie project that would somehow fit the old Microprose brand. Which also means almost with certainty they will end up with 90% vaporware because many of those "games" are not more than some guy having a dream.

What is also clear is that the brand has changed hands a lot of times since the days Wild Bill Stealey and the entire Microprose revival could end up no more than a pipe dream. I have yet to see 1 good game released, and it's also not clear if there is still a market - the sim market is already in the hands of other big players and the boomer fanbase has become old and small.

The original Microprose folded after the 2000 dotcom bubble and that was one of the first omens of the decline. Many other of my beloved companies also dissapeared. eg Dynamix or SSI. A revival of this platinum age will probably never fully succeed just like all revivals of Atari hardware or software.

In any case I hate it when journalists talk as if this was a secure and established software publisher. In fact it is one of the weirdest things to come up during the last 2 years, a bit like the corpse in the Lenin mausoleum would begin to move again and people start to talk like it is a new russian revolution

 

[Nutria]

Firaxis bought up the rights to most of the good Microprose games several years ago, even the ones that they're sitting on and not doing anything with today like Covert Action. So this company really doesn't have anything to offer unless they actually prove themselves.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

edit.
https://www.microprose.com/games/the-mighty-eighth

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

edit.
https://www.microprose.com/games/the-mighty-eighth

they seem to be trying to put a lot into that game.

 

[Difera]

edit.
https://www.microprose.com/games/the-mighty-eighth

they seem to be trying to put a lot into that game.

Yeah, maybe it would be a better option to focus on doing the B-17 properly at release, this kind of feature creep tends to take time away from developing the game's core systems, not to mention the bugs. Specially if they are a small dev studio... Nevertheless, I am looking foward to this as I really enjoy doing multi-crew bomber runs on IL-2 Sturmovik. Sadly, I didn't get to play the original back in 2000, somehow it flew under my radar at the time...

As for the other games, the ones that seem to appeal more to me are Sea Power and Urban Strife.
Sea Power seems to be developed by the former lead designer of Cold Waters who started a different company, which is not a good sign on my book... If it was made by the same team from Killerfish Games it'd would have a better chance than being a "one man and his newly assembled team" project.
Urban Strife seems promising. The devs are actually working on this game for +4 years and looks like it might not turn out to be vapourware. I went to take a look at their Steam forums and they seem to be actually taking a lot of notes from Jagged Alliance 2 and Dead State. Some of the gameplay videos showcase some nice inventory management screens à la JA2.

And Second Front... well, it takes the cake for most off-putting graphics I've seen on a wargame recently... would take a spreadsheet fest style like CMO over this any day. But then again, it says it is inspired by tabletop/board wargames, so the style might be fitting to their target audience...

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Urban Strife seems promising. The devs are actually working on this game for +4 years and looks like it might not turn out to be vapourware. I went to take a look at their Steam forums and they seem to be actually taking a lot of notes from Jagged Alliance 2 and Dead State. Some of the gameplay videos showcase some nice inventory management screens à la JA2.

There's codex thread where developers are active.
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...bie-survival-rpg-now-in-private-alpha.114111/

 

[Burning Bridges]

DCS is going to release their first multiengined plane (Mosquito) which runs on an engine they have been improving for 20 years. So a full fledged B-17 sim from scratch is going to be quite a steep hill to climb.

 

[Nutria]

The 2000 B-17 game had the problem that it was released just before RAM got cheap, so it was limited to a very small number of planes in the air, probably less than 20. I've always wanted to see what's possible with better hardware.

On the other hand, that game already had the problem of the AI being too stupid to avoid collisions and more planes will only make it worse. And the apparent emphasis the new one puts on VR and co-op is exactly what I'm not interested in.

 

[CyberModuled]

Okay, first Urban Strife and now this.



Guess I might have to keep my eye on modern MicroProse after all.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Nutria]

This might actually be good. It sounds like they're taking inspiration from how real-life weapons work but only inspiration and focusing on gameplay, which reminds me of... Sky Rogue now that I think of it.

 

[grimace]

Tiny Combat Arena looks great. I want to play.

What is Sky Rogue? Got a link?

 

[grimace]

The last flight sim game I played and enjoyed was

AIRFORCE DELTA on Sega Dreamcast

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Didn't see this mentioned.


Any good?

 

[Hace El Oso]

Any good?

I looked into it this past week, I saw that it was supposed to be made in the image of the original Rainbow Six/Ghost Recon and I’m starving for something like that.

Unfortunately it’s in early access like most things now, and the emphasis is on PvP, like most things now. Commanding teams of AI like in R6/GR is supposed to come down the line, but for now gameplay seems mainly centered around running TDM MOUT/shoot house drills on training maps against people or hostile AI rather than actual missions in interesting environments like an embassy.

I haven’t bought it though, so if anyone has and can dismiss my impressions from watching gameplay and reading the dev discord, let me know. I’m so hungry I’m still tempted. And it has a Galil.

 

[ADL]

Ground Branch's PvP scene is almost entirely dead. The overwhelming majority of servers are Terrorist Hunt sessions which are fun but at this point I'd recommend Insurgency Sandstorm+ISMC mod until it develops more if PvE is the sort of thing you're looking for until Ground Branch's maps get better.

 

[Burning Bridges]

This developer has been trying for 15 years to get Ground Branch going, it is almost ridiculous. I saw it first mentioned on sites that all don't exist anymore.

This is basically Arma for people who don't know that Arma already exists.

 

[ADL]

Seems Warfare 1944 is dead and all efforts are being put towards Operation Harsh Doorstop which will be treated as a platform for all the theaters of war including WWII/Vietnam/Afghanistan. One of the modules is actually being created by the ISMC modders from the Insurgency video I posted above. Didn't know MicroProse was involved. I wonder in what capacity they're involved because I was under the impression that this was entirely crowdsourced.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

That's really interesting. I wonder if you can mix weapons and uniforms from different eras then? There was a flight sim that operated around that logic, allowing planes from the '80s to duke out against a plane from the '40s, and it had one sci-fi plane too.

 

[ADL]

I hope so. Battlefield Portal which does something similar and that looks really fun but nuBattlefield gameplay is too arcade-y for my liking.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Carrier Command 2 released.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]