Nostalgia is personal and subjective and much of what we recall in the retro community is, if not from our own childhood memories, at least from the same era. Presumably, we all knew there was more out there than what we had: some experienced by going to friends' houses and playing their alternative game consoles or computer programs, the rest falling under the category of "what we lacked the means to experience back then but can afford to now since we're grown adults with income." Since in this life we can't have it all (and probably wouldn't want to anyway because of the lack of focus that would bring), the next best thing is to concentrate on what caught our interest and grow it from there. For yours truly, MicroProse is such a developer of interest. The history of MicroProse (which, as of this past year, is once again an active game company under the tutelage of one of its original co-founders) is available from many sources, so the details will be spared here. I had no idea about it all when I was young, but it turns out they were a computer gaming pioneer alongside houses from the early 80s Atari 8-bit & Apple II scenes such as the original Lucasfilm Games and Electronic Arts. Built on the programming talent of Sid Meier and the sales acumen of "Wild Bill" Stealey, MicroProse had a diverse line-up from the beginning but earned its rep in the realm of military simulations. This is the genre through which my dad and I got introduced to them, so I can safely credit MicroProse with my lifelong interest what one fellow retro blogger referred to as the "simulation-industrial complex." While I do recall playing a choppy Silent Service II on the old 386 as I happened to take to submarine command moreso than my dad, what we both enjoyed equally was his last acquisition before he moved on. Soon after MicroProse merged with Spectrum Holobyte but before they consolidated fully under the MicroProse name, both companies re-released on CD-ROM some of their classic and contemporary titles under a budget label they called "Player's Choice" (definitely not the same as used by Nintendo). While the Player's Choice line was full-size boxes great for catching attention on store shelves, since they were simple discs with a common technical guide it was more reasonable to distribute them in independent jewel cases, which occurred for the following under a new label called "RomZon!": - F-19 Stealth Fighter
- Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon
- NFL Coaches Club Football
- Return of the Phantom
- Dragonsphere
- SpaceKids
F-19 Stealth Fighter was what my dad picked up. Each disc had the complete game documentation in an early HTML-type format only readable by the included program and full of hyperlinks that certainly made viewing it on-screen a different, not necessarily better or worse, experience than reading the large manuals that defined the genre of the time. The most defining feature of the CDs, and what opened up a bigger world in my eyes, was the plethora of demos included along with unique hi-res promotional screens for each. Another unique feature was the menu interface. While there was nothing stopping installation the old-fashioned way by copying from disc directory, that misses out on part of the unique experience in a similar manner to skipping out on the Windows installations for Dynamix's Aces: Complete Collector's Edition. The graphic system of big red buttons with keyboard shortcuts were identical to that used in perhaps MicroProse's grandest simulation up to that point: Fleet Defender. While including some on-disk demos with a retail game was normal by the mid-90s, the sheer number available on RomZon! CDs did so much to promote the company itself with its long timeline and diversity of genres. I wish I could post screenshots to give a better idea, however my old RomZon disc went defunct from age and abuse decades ago and I've not availed myself of the opportunity to acquire a replacement. On the occasion I got bored with F-19 (I'll admit to enjoying the included F-117A Stealth Fighter 2.0 demo more because of the audiovisual upgrades) I would check out the demos. Some my young self couldn't figure out how to play well at the time (i.e. Gunship 2000), but this shareware-like "try before you buy" opportunity stuck with me all this time until today when acquiring secondhand copies can be a cinch. Through RomZon! I was introduced to the likes of Railroad Tycoon, X-COM, Pirates! Gold (which would lead to a distinct appreciation for the original version), F-15 Strike Eagle III (thus I got its prequels too), and the unique management responsibilities of Sid Meier's Civilization & Colonization along with SimTex's Master of Orion & Master of Magic that may have been responsible for spawning my interest in logistical strategy games. While this is not where my electronic gaming affinity began, experiencing MicroProse in the mid-90s through snippets of its catalog dating back to the late 80s certainly shaped my gaming focus. While I try to branch out on occasion, I still keep coming back to hitting that Soviet weapons site on the European front or seeking a more efficient means of taking the war to Cydonia while having fun tailoring my squads' equipment to an advanced version of the modern military fireteam. Doing so reminds me of why, at a certain point, I stopped caring that much about contemporary gaming: the days before flashy graphics and narratives getting played out for you merely by advancing levels was when it was more about players' imaginations and self-imposed challenges that had them coming back for more. At the risk of sounding cliché, they just don't make them like they used to anymore. On that note, the fact that a retrogaming resurgence has occurred over the past decade plus proves demand is there, thus so still is the opportunity for imaginative player-defined gaming to be taken to a new era. Perhaps the new MicroProse reborn in 2019 will be a part of it. MicroProse library, courtesy of MobyGames: https://www.mobygames.com/company/microprose-software-inc The new MicroProse: https://www.microprose.com/
MicroProse history from the other gaming company formed by Bill Stealey: https://corporate-ient.com/microprose/
Digital Antiquarian overview of early MicroProse history, goes into more impressive detail than seen in other sources: https://www.filfre.net/2015/03/microproses-simulation-industrial-complex-or-the-ballad-of-sid-and-wild-bill/
Retro365 blog includes an impressive MicroProse collection, including some I do not have: https://retro365.blog/2017/05/12/a-bit-from-my-personal-collection-microprose-the-early-years/