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101: THE AIRBORNE INVASION OF NORMANDY
Developed by: Empire
Games (1998)
Genre: Tactical World War Two Infantry sim
System Requirements: Windows 95, P200 recommended, 250 MB HDD Space, CD
ROM, 2MB SVGA Card, Mouse.
OVERVIEW: Empire's 101: The Airborne Invasion of Normandy is a tactical (i.e. squad/individual vehicle) World War Two game that simulates the D-Day airborne operation. Historically, the airborne drops were a mess with paratroops scattered all over the Normandy countryside with small groups of soldiers rallying together to meet their objectives. For more info. on this I recommend checking out the book and/or the movie "The Longest Day" (the books was written by Cornelius Ryan), "Saving Private Ryan" and John Keegan's fine "Six Armies at Normandy".
101 simulates the surprise and confusion of the airborne drop extremely well- actually almost too well. Players are given specific mission objectives (i.e. ambush enemy troop elements or destroy artillery bunker) to accomplish in order to make the invasion a little smoother (and tie down the Germans by having to deal with paratroops running about wreaking havoc behind lines). The player then puts together a unit of 18 men chosen from the officer's and enlisted men's barracks, equips them and heads off to France. This aspect is pretty realistic since each soldier has his own individual skills, personality- and hang ups (coward, alcoholic, nut case, etc.) so player's have to make some tough choices on who to take along. Equipping and placing you squad on the Dakota transport is also very realistic. Food and other "morale oriented" supplies must be taken and the placement of critical personnel in the jump order (i.e. the stick) can somewhat help matters when it's time to jump. And here's where the "super realism" takes place- almost to the point of frustration!
Each paratroop exits the plane over the drop zone (or DZ), but just like in real life they tend to get scattered all over the place (along with the equipment bags). So out of 18 men you may find yourself on the drop zone with eight guys and a single equipment bag- the rest are lost and/or missing. Now what do you do? Well, you piece together a unit and head off to the objective using whatever one has on hand to achieve success.
The animation and menu graphics are excellent. You actually watch your troops jump out the door and land (somewhere)- it's pretty neat. The actual game graphics is just a step below Microsoft's Close Combat but is good none the less. The scale in 101 is actually a little smaller than Close Combat- instead of groups of soldiers, you control each individual paratrooper. It's a real time turn based game so each soldier gets a specific number of action points to spend in order to climb out of his parachute harness, run, shoot, hide, search, etc per turn. Sometimes this is frustrating because it takes so long (it seems) for the soldiers to perform certain actions (like climbing out of the chute harness). But the game flows pretty well.
My only gripe is that in making the game very detailed (i.e. scattering troops and equipment) is that it's extremely frustrating to get things done! I had one jump where only SIX guys hit the DZ (one broke his leg) and the equipment bags were lost (probably to some French farmer)- now what!!?? But at the same time it was VERY challenging to scrape everyone together (all six) and actually do something. So be prepared to have 101 test your command and control skills (along with your patience).
101 offers some very fresh elements into computer wargaming at the tactical level. I recommend this one to anyone who (a) is interested in World War Two and/or D-Day, (b) tabletop miniature wargamers and (c) looking for a challenging historical game.
THE SCOUTING REPORT:
THE PROS:
THE CONS:
Review by Steven Ellis