Eastern Front (1941)

The Good
It's hard to describe the effect this game had on the wargaming market when it came out in '81. It was a bombshell that completely destroyed the competition.

To start with, this was the first wargame with a color smooth-scrolling map. Of course this was trivial only a few years later, but at the time it was a tour-de-force. It simply make the game seem much "larger". To put this in perspective, many "computer" wargames of the era simply listed out moves that the player had to complete on a paper map!

Additionally, the game took supplies, movement, fatigue and weather into consideration. It was much "deeper" than anything seen up to that point. The game forced the player to drive forward as quickly as possible to get room to maneuver. Failure to do so would always result in the slow and overwhelming suffocating by the hugely (numerically) superior Russian forces.

And to top it off, the computer played a half-way credible game. Of course this had a lot to do with their overwhelming numbers, but that wasn't all of it. New units appearing on the map would attempt to block your own movements, which was extremely frustrating to see in action.

When I first played it as a kid it crushed me every time. It wasn't until I went back and played it years later under emulation that I was able to beat it, and even then it was by no means assured.

Simply put, this was the supernova of computer wargaming.

The Bad
There were two things that were annoying but not fatal. One was the wait between reviewing existing orders and putting in new ones, which really didn't have to be there. The other was the slow scrolling around the map, which was a side effect of the machinery of the era.

But if there was anything that actually hurt the game was the inability to stack units. As a side effect of this, the Russian units would end up running into each other, and eventually form up into this large almost immobile blob. Of course as the Germans, you needed this to happen in order to have any chance, but it was still unrealistic and distracting.

The Bottom Line
Twenty-five years later this game is still ALMOST playable. If they had real scrolling and mouse support it would be great. Definitely beer-n-pretzels compared to some of the big games that have come out since, but just as definitely a great game anyway.