European Air War

Development

During the development process, the game was nearly cancelled many times, when half of the team and the head producer quit during the "great exodus" of MicroProse in 1996. The remaining team faced tough questions regarding every obvious bug, such as "wings falling off of planes after shooting guns", "planes crashing into ground will fly into outer space" and such infamous bugs. When a new programmer is recruited into the team, you'd thought the programmer would start squashing the bugs. Instead, the programmer went on to program a "CoolCam" feature, that will randomly pick out a dogfight, a flaming wreck going down to the ground, a B-17 dropping bombs, and so on and so forth. The existing team said nothing, as it's likely the project was doomed. So at the next weekly meeting, instead of answering the tough questions the management has, the new programmer levelled the plane, and hit the CoolCam button. The management is captivated, but kept asking the question. The team hemmed and hawed, deflecting the question. The next question went completely unanswered as everybody was captivated by the CoolCam focusing on various actions around the player's plane.

Subsequent weekly meetings became much easier as the management became less critical and more encouraging. The game eventually was released in 1998, and received high praises from all segments. All because one new programmer saw the need for the one missing feature nobody else saw: the CoolCam.

A link to the article "The Cool Cam", which is the basis of this information, can be found in the related links section.

German version

The German version of this game was changed: All swastika markings on the German planes have been removed. This change can be reversed by applying the US-version patch to an installation of the German version.

Mods

Fans of the game have created mods for the terrain textures and plane textures. You can now fly planes marked like the famous squadrons, such as the 357th. Terrain patches will let you simulate winter, spring, or fall colors.

Awards

• Computer Gaming World
  • April 1999 (Issue #177) – Best Simulation of the Year

Information also contributed by Kasey Chang and NGC 5194