European Air War - Jump Right into Action (STILL ROCKS IN 2025)

Playing EAW (Microprose, 1998) in 2024. FW-190D vs B-24D and P-51D escorts. This game still plays and looks quite good, and surprisingly aged better than Il- 2 (to my taste). At least attacks on bombers' formations looks pretty close to historical footage.

One of the definite flight simulators by Microprose, an all time classic.

#eaw #gameplay #retrogames

[kewkabe]

I was a programmer on this at Microprose and coded the bailout sequence (0:14) based on my nightmares of getting sucked out of a plane. You weren't level when you bailed so I think you got the random outcome that your parachute was ripped off your back when you hit the tail, but you were still conscious (other options being you were knocked out, or you survived the bailout with parachute intact that would deploy after a random short time). I think here you could have moved the mouse during freefall to stop the spin, fall flat and maybe live since you were over water, which I coded as an option. I spent way too much time on it when we were trying to rush out the V1.1 patch after initial release.

[johnnybakblast]

This is the one combat flight sim that felt like you were flying at 20, 000 feet.

[DataRew]

I still remember when my dad brought this game home when it was new, I FLIPPED OUT.

[Warmaker]

Late war Luftwaffe campaign was a real pain. Most of the time you were doing bomber intercept missions, but you dread seeing that box of bombers while a large formation of American fighters were flying above them. Nothing but trouble. The other thing that made the campaign harsher was when you became a squadron commander. You assigned pilots, aircraft, loadouts, etc. It was painful watching losing your experienced squadron members over time. Their replacements were of course nowhere near as good as they were and as the war progressed, you got even fewer of them. I recall watching my squadron regularly sending 12 or so planes up every intercept mission. Then 8. Then we were lucky to send up 4 planes. Meanwhile there was an entire American fighter group escorting the bombers you were tasked to intercept.

I still remember how much I hated trying to intercept RAF Mosquitos. Those damn things were fast and hard to catch. You needed to have superior altitude and great intercept course to dive in on them with higher speed. If you didn't have that, then you weren't getting them. It was frustrating trying to get them, but they still drop their bombs. With no more ordnance weighing them down, the damn Mosquitos got even faster.

Campaigns in 1943 when the various air forces were still more even were pretty fun. Go Allied or German, you were good to go. Early war stuff like Battle of Britain was fun. Late war was a curbstomp, so if you did Allied campaign it was easy, while for Luftwaffe it was a lot harder.

[Fischbroetchenk]

Back in the day when Murican Devs made sure to get good German voice acting that is not just gramatically but also historically correct. It´s unlikely for anyone aside native German speakers to know this but 95% of games, especially WW2 games with German voice acting in it are so bad they´ve become quite the meme in the military nerd community. Most of the time you immediately hear it´s just some OG Cowboy that had either the best grade in German in the Voice acting studio or talks two words more than the others. OR it´s the same guy writing lines sending it to a German voice acting studio and said studio has no idea about military jargon.

As an example of such a meme, the english "fall back!" is often translated to "zurückfallen!" which is the literal translation but it´s hilariously bad and not used at all. In German it´s "zurückziehen or zieht euch zurück"(Deriving from the word "Rückzug") which would translate to "pull back" so the crucial difference here is that in english they fall and in german they pull.

Also a funny classic is when they translate "fire in the hole" which is pure US military jargon. Still you have Wehrmacht soldiers shouting "feuer im Loch!" which is fucking hilarious because people would either be confused as hell or laugh their asses off thinking you ate to spicy stuff and the second burn is in action.

[VoodooMcVee]

Yeah, Microprose. Back in the day, if that name was on a box, you could buy it blindly and be sure to get a decent and fun simulation game, no matter the genre.

[uncletedscabin]

Wow, this takes me back. One of the last flight sims my father was able to play before he passed away in '99. Together we went from Air Warrior to Warbirds to EAW.

[jamesd]

I loved this game and spent hours and hours playing it, there was nothing out there that could touch it. I've still got my big box version of the game in the loft.

[hkja]

I played this game when it was released. So many lovely hours spent

[brettroach]

This game was so great, you just gave me such a wave of nostalgia. I remember booting this up after school and just having a blast.

[nateweter]

Man does this bring back memories. I would love a modern version of this game.

[thejetfighter]

Good old sims. They have their magic! Nice video 😀

[foxth]

What’s sad is if this were re rendered it would probably play better than most releases today. It aged well despite graphics.

[strizhi]

Holy crap ive been looking for this for so long.. its been 20 years since I played it and couldn't remember the name!! This is incredible and brings tons of memories!!! 10/10

[antartis]

This gem of a game is eternal! The number of mods on it are insane ! Spanish civil war, Finnish war, desert war, it was simply unmatchable

[rwd]

Spent countless hours on this when it came out. A truly classic game.

[pontopresto]

This game is a masterpiece. Along with The Aces of the Deep It was my dad's favorite game.

[Uajd-hbqs]

For me, Microprose and the IL-2 series are the leaders in aviation combat. They both bring so much that hasn’t been replicated by any other game or even themselves.

[tailfirst]

I remember seeing flocks of ducks etc. Awesome game!! The one I really wish they had updated to same graphics as EAW was the older Pacific Air War - playing the strategic game in that was awesome - with being able to jump into one of the planes and fly being icing on top. Wings OF Prey is another excellent sim that has that indefinable immersion "thing".

[Andrew-zz]

Still have this game and all manuals etc that came in the box!