The Atomic Games Legacy : V for Victory

[ikrananka]

I'm pleased to announce that I have just published the first video in a series covering the incredible computer wargaming legacy left by Atomic Games. This first video covers the creation of Atomic Games in 1989 and the development and release of their first game in the V for Victory series, D-Day : Utah Beach.

I spent a lot of time researching this video and believe there may well be some things in this video that you didn't know before.

I hope that you enjoy this video and that you find it informative. I'm always trying to improve and so please let me know what you think either in the video comments section or by replying to this post.

https://youtu.be/6Vf_7UOKbhg

[sPzAbt653]

Well done ! Always good to see something about this excellent series that I spent many hours with back in the day. A great supply and attachment system that I've not seen picked up by any other game. I will still occasionally enjoy them using DBGL, and used the scale and scope to design a scenario for TOAW: tm.asp?m=4027597

[ikrananka]

Thanks

I agree that the supply and attachment system was very well done. Very realistic to be able to reattach units between HQs.

Very cool scenario you created for TOAW - well done. Did you take a look at the map in Atomic Games' World at War game D-Day : America Invades? This covers much of the same area as your scenario.

I see someone mentions The Atlantic Wall game in your thread. I forgot that it was Joe Balkoski that designed that game. He wrote the introduction in the Utah Beach Battlebook that I cover in my video.

[sPzAbt653]

Did you take a look at the map in Atomic Games' World at War game D-Day : America Invades?

Absolutely! The scenario scale was based on America Invades and the other V4V Normandy games. Sadly the mechanics aren't the same, but it is still a lot of fun to play.

[ikrananka]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Did you take a look at the map in Atomic Games' World at War game D-Day : America Invades?

Absolutely! The scenario scale was based on America Invades and the other V4V Normandy games. Sadly the mechanics aren't the same, but it is still a lot of fun to play.

Cool - I'll have to give TOAW a try one day. But V for Victory and World at War first [:)]

[JamesM]

It is interesting they partnered with 360 Pacific. Any game I brought from them felt very buggy, the one game that was closest to being ready was Harpoon 2. Wasn't 360 who released Patriot in 91/92 about the first Gulf war, there was a playable enjoyable computer game there somewhere but I could not find it.

[zakblood]

still have the boxed game in my collection

Code: Select all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W-p8RNb5v0

[ikrananka]

ORIGINAL: jamesm
It is interesting they partnered with 360 Pacific.

At the end of the day it's the developer who is responsible for bug fixing, but they may only do this when the publisher provides funding, e.g. as part of the original contractual agreement. This was the issue with the World at War series of games in that Avalon Hill did not provide (sufficient? / any?) funding for bug fixing and as such Atomic barely patched those games and as a result the World at War series is well known for its bugs.

Just FYI, here's the paragraph in the Utah Beach Battlebook where Three-Sixty coming on board is discussed:

"We actually didn't have any contact with Three-Sixty until July 1991, only six months before Version 1.0 was released. At that time, we were looking for a new publisher, having just terminated our contract with a smaller company. We made an appointment with Three-Sixty's product development office in Bryan, Texas and showed them what we had. Less than two hours after we left Bryan, Three-Sixty's President, Tom Frisna, called Keith from California and the rest, as they say, is history!"

According to Wikipedia, Three-Sixty published Patriot in 1993.

[demyansk]

What do I have to do to play these games? I still have three of them.

[Greybriar]

ORIGINAL: demjansk

What do I have to do to play these games? I still have three of them.

You might try using DOSBox.

[ikrananka]

ORIGINAL: demjansk

What do I have to do to play these games? I still have three of them.

If these are the DOS versions, then yes, use DosBox. Personally I use the D-Fend Reloaded Frontend as it makes setting up the DosBox configuration file and running the games so much easier. D-Fend Reloaded also comes with DosBox included so it's just one installation. I install D-Fend Reloaded as a "Portable" installation - this means I can simply copy and paste the entire D-Fend Reloaded install folder to any other location, which also includes the games in D-Fend's subdirectories, and run them without ANY installation. SO, you could put the entire D-Fend folder onto a USB flash drive for example, and play the game off of the flash drive.

I only needed to tweak a few settings to get the V4V games running perfectly. Under CPU I changed CPU Cycles from Auto to a fixed value of 15000. Auto made the game run far too slowly. Under graphics I changed Full Screen Resolution to 0x0 which forces DosBox to use the native resolution of the screen. I also set Render to Overlay and the video card to svga_s3.

The non-default parts of my DosBox configuration file are below.

[sdl]
fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=0x0
windowresolution=1280x960
output=overlay
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true
usescancodes=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=D:\Users\[Username]\Documents\D-Fend Reloaded\mapper.map

[dosbox]
machine=svga_s3
captures=D:\Users\[Username]\Documents\D-Fend Reloaded\Capture\V4V\
memsize=16

[render]
frameskip=0
aspect=false
scaler=none

[cpu]
core=auto
cputype=auto
cycles=fixed 15000
cycleup=500
cycledown=20

For the World at War games the same settings work except that I needed to increase the CPU Cycles to 30000 to get the game running at a normal speed.

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: ikrananka2

ORIGINAL: demjansk

What do I have to do to play these games? I still have three of them.

If these are the DOS versions, then yes, use DosBox. Personally I use the D-Fend Reloaded Frontend as it makes setting up the DosBox configuration file and running the games so much easier. D-Fend Reloaded also comes with DosBox included so it's just one installation.

O only needed to tweak a few settings to get the V4V games running perfectly. Under CPU I changed CPU Cycles from Auto to a fixed value of 15000. Auto made the game run far too slowly. Under graphics I changed Full Screen Resolution to 0x0 which forces DosBox to use the native resolution of the screen. I also set Render to Overlay and the video card to svga_s3.

The non-default parts of my configuration file are below.

[sdl]
fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=0x0
windowresolution=1280x960
output=overlay
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true
usescancodes=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=D:\Users\[Username]\Documents\D-Fend Reloaded\mapper.map

[dosbox]
machine=svga_s3
captures=D:\Users\[Username]\Documents\D-Fend Reloaded\Capture\V4V\
memsize=16

[render]
frameskip=0
aspect=false
scaler=none

[cpu]
core=auto
cputype=auto
cycles=fixed 15000
cycleup=500
cycledown=20

For the World at War games the same settings work except that I needed to increase the CPU Cycles to 30000 to get the game running at a normal speed.

+1 good to know.

[sPzAbt653]

In addition to D-Fend Reloaded, there is one called DosBox Game Launcher [DBGL] which in some cases works better.

[ikrananka]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

In addition to D-Fend Reloaded, there is one called DosBox Game Launcher [DBGL] which in some cases works better.

I've not tried DosBox Game Launcher - looks good. Can you describe how it sometimes works better?

[sPzAbt653]

Something about being a little faster, but I'm not technically proficient so I can't report why, but it is.

[ikrananka]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Something about being a little faster, but I'm not technically proficient so I can't report why, but it is.

Hmm - I'll have to look into that. I'm assuming that the speed benefit is with the interface and not DosBox.

[Fred98]

Great video! I look forward to the next one.

[jcrohio]

Always wanted to get into this series. Your videos have edged me into trying them. Thanks!!!

[ikrananka]

ORIGINAL: jcrohio

Always wanted to get into this series. Your videos have edged me into trying them. Thanks!!!

Cool - have fun with them - they really are still so good.

[hingram]

You can get the V4V games as Abandonware but they really show their age.