One of the best C-64 games I've ever played. Also I've learned a lot about special operations :) Namely it was better to keep a low profile, crawl a lot and use the knife, in this way you didn't attract a lot of attention.
I used to play this awesome game when I was 5 years old, back in 1987. Right after kindergarten I'd run straight to the commodore 64/128 > Load "*" ,8 ,1 enter > Run enter
Das Spiel war seiner Zeit meilenweit voraus! Wirklich erstaunlich was man mit dem kleinen C64 programmieren konnte. Habe das Spiel in meiner Kindheit gespielt und war sehr begeistert.
My favourite mission was always Knock Out Enemy Radar Array because of the ability to get the enemy troops to walk over the cracks in the ice river and fall in of their own accord!
That freedom of deployment, is very cool! I wished that Metal Gear Solid 3 had that feature as well. It is fun that you can approach the mission in your own way.
One of my favorite Microprose games, beaten only by M1 Tank Platoon. I always wanted a version where "you saw the world through your character's eyes" since the first FPS was a long way off. Finally we got games like Metal Gear and other great stealth action along with Doom, SOCOM et cetera.
I played the heck out of this back in the day, so ahead of its time! Today I'm playing a game called Tacticool, that I feel they may have gotten their idea from C64 Airborne Ranger.
I remember the LONGGGGGGG loading times on this one... And once you got in this game, it was maybe 10 secs before you got spotted or killed and needed to wait the whole loading crap again and again!
watching this after playing the game 30-some years ago makes me realize how hilariously bad the AI for the enemy soldiers is. There were a few times that you should've gotten your head blown off though. Man the nostalgia for this game is real. I'll have to try and find a way to play this again, it was so good, especially for the time.
Ahead of it's time in many ways. Free deployment and freedom of approach (strategic placement of the ammo bags too), complex objectives, crawling, sprinting, stealth, encouraging avoiding enemy contact, limited primary weapon ammo, bunch of different weapons, ability to turn and aim 360 incrimentally (all this was difficult to pull off with a joystick with just one button). Most of this was unheard of in other games. Memorable theme music too
There were two missions I could never complete, regardless of how often I tried: "Create a Diversion" and "Delayed Sabotage". Voila, now I've seen it all..
The PC version improved graphics (your Ranger now wears overwhites on Arctic missions), control options, and adds the ability to tailor the load of your 3 drop pods. Audio suffers with PC Speaker but having a Tandy alleviates that. Atari ST and Amiga ports are best of all but [outside of a single compilation I found] appear to have never been published in the US.
Don't knock the C=64 for overall quality and playability. "Defender of the Crown" was first released on the Amiga but the game was just pretty graphics and not much playability. They hadn't thought out the game mechanics that well. When the same game appeared on the Commodore 64, it was a blast. Graphics not on par with the Amiga but very good for the Commodore 64. Great music and sound effects. And very playable, addictive strategy gameplay. Though I played it so many times that now I have a 'sure win' strategy. It involves taking out the most northern Norman castle in the first couple of turns. So you'll just have a few men, a catapult and Robin Hood's support. But destroying the enemy wall sufficiently lowers enemy morale so you win 99/100 times in the ensuing battle. Then it's a matter of being good at raiding (exploit: enemy can't harm you if you keep defense up - in real life or harder game mechanics, you'd still get hit). Of course you should have to rescue a damsel in distress (it almost always comes up), that way you get another Saxon castle (without any men...) which means one less rival Saxon to worry about. The satisfaction you get after wiping the powerful Norman army off of the battlefield once you have built a decent army yourself... Then keep building up, raid a bit and take a territory now and then untill the last Norman lord only has the single castle left and you can humiliate him by building up a mega force, destroying his castle walls and reducing his garrisson with sickness and fire projectiles. Then your 100+ knights army sweep the insects off of the field! Of course it's possible to complete the game much sooner but after all the trouble the Normans made me go through, I always wanted the satisfaction to crush them with a 10 to 1 power ratio in battle.
@@AudieHolland I'm not knocking anything: alongside Gunship, Pirates!, Stealth Fighter and Red Storm Rising, MicroProse simulations on C64 were both the original versions and impressive considering their technical limitations; that does not change the fact that just to play these games in general the 16-bit versions are an improvement (as they should be).
Could you do a video exclusively on the creating a diversion mission? I've been attempting this mission since the game released. I see you finished it, but I never seem to get a mission accomplished even after destroying most of the map.
In create a diversion mission, first you cannot engage any combat before buzzer sound (1:40:03 in my video). Then you can engage combat and need to make constant noises through the whole mission. Best way to do this is to shoot with assault riffle every now and then, even in the air if there is no enemies around. Also, you can't call early pick up , because you need to do noise until the mission timer goes to zero and be in pick up point when it does. If I do remember correctly, there is another buzzer sound if you didn't make enough noise and mission is a failure.
Loved it back in the 80s, especially the feeling of progression by being promoted every now and then. Not that the rank mattered game-play-wise as far as I recollect, but it counted towards your high score, of course. At some point during the first mission in your video, it looks like the shading/coloring of your character's uniform changes. It never occurred to me that this probably was the game's way of telling you that you are hidden from enemies, but I am not sure if this was indeed the case. I was also fond of how the mission was split between "planning stage" and "execution stage", with the former giving you a pretty good idea of what resistance you would be encountering on the ground. Wasn't this game indexed (prohibited) not long after release? I don't recall exactly.
I remember playing a version where you could select the contents of the bag to be airdropped. Maybe it was a version different than the C64? It was the Atari 800XL, I think.
Itse olen pelannut tätä aikoinaan isäni 286:lla. PC versiossa ainakin sai alussa valita mitä asepussukkaan halusi laittaa: sinkoja, lippaita, kranaatteja tms. Eri aseet veivät tietyn verran tilaa ja fyysisia dimensiota, ja laukun sai täyttää miten itse halusi. Tämän jälkeen oli osio, missä näitä laukkuja pudotettiin pitkin maastoa. Tehtävän aikana ne sitten ilmaantuivat kohdissa jonne olit ne pudottanut ja sait täydennyksiä laukun sisällön mukaan. Porttauksen yhteydessä lienee tapahtunut myös joitakin selkeitä uudistuksia?
This game was the absolute shit - I never got through the levels this quick thou - I used to love taking my time getting into the covert aspect of it all.
I absolutely LOVED this game when I was a kid.
One of the best C-64 games I've ever played. Also I've learned a lot about special operations :)
Namely it was better to keep a low profile, crawl a lot and use the knife, in this way you didn't attract a lot of attention.
I used to play this awesome game when I was 5 years old, back in 1987. Right after kindergarten I'd run straight to the commodore 64/128
> Load "*" ,8 ,1 enter
> Run enter
1:28:20 loved that when I figured out you can get the enemy uniform from the guard and walk around in enemy territory in disguise.
dam it never figured that out myself lol
Missed this one, looks like a cross between Commando and Rambo... now I need to get an old C64 even more lol
Das Spiel war seiner Zeit meilenweit voraus! Wirklich erstaunlich was man mit dem kleinen C64 programmieren konnte. Habe das Spiel in meiner Kindheit gespielt und war sehr begeistert.
My favourite mission was always Knock Out Enemy Radar Array because of the ability to get the enemy troops to walk over the cracks in the ice river and fall in of their own accord!
And you can do even more cracks with grenades =)
Used to own this on C64, Brings back memories.
That freedom of deployment, is very cool! I wished that Metal Gear Solid 3 had that feature as well.
It is fun that you can approach the mission in your own way.
One of my favorite Microprose games, beaten only by M1 Tank Platoon. I always wanted a version where "you saw the world through your character's eyes" since the first FPS was a long way off. Finally we got games like Metal Gear and other great stealth action along with Doom, SOCOM et cetera.
My favorite memory from this game was the time I popped up from a ditch, tricking two enemy soldiers into friendly fire.
I played the heck out of this back in the day, so ahead of its time! Today I'm playing a game called Tacticool, that I feel they may have gotten their idea from C64 Airborne Ranger.
Loved this game - especially the overlay on the keyboard👌🏼
I remember the LONGGGGGGG loading times on this one... And once you got in this game, it was maybe 10 secs before you got spotted or killed and needed to wait the whole loading crap again and again!
@DerDude1977 Back then i was about 6 or 7 maybe? So yeah, might figure it.
watching this after playing the game 30-some years ago makes me realize how hilariously bad the AI for the enemy soldiers is. There were a few times that you should've gotten your head blown off though. Man the nostalgia for this game is real. I'll have to try and find a way to play this again, it was so good, especially for the time.
I love how your sight has a shadow. EPIC. Played this game endlessly as a kid but I was not nearly as good at it as you are!
Spent many weekend mornings with my cereals playing this game and many other gems in the late 80'ies C= 64C 😍
best game i had, i was so young, i was so bad at it :D
but man this game was ahead of its time :D
I personally never played the game but as a kid I watched my dad play it and thought it was the coolest game ever
Loved this game.
C64 made me discover the joy of watching other people play videogames
Loved this game and the first Castle Wolfenstein.
Ahead of it's time in many ways. Free deployment and freedom of approach (strategic placement of the ammo bags too), complex objectives, crawling, sprinting, stealth, encouraging avoiding enemy contact, limited primary weapon ammo, bunch of different weapons, ability to turn and aim 360 incrimentally (all this was difficult to pull off with a joystick with just one button). Most of this was unheard of in other games. Memorable theme music too
I could never get to the end of any of these missions.
Wahnsinn, Micro prose, habe kein Wort verstanden aber gezogt , war fett
There were two missions I could never complete, regardless of how often I tried: "Create a Diversion" and "Delayed Sabotage". Voila, now I've seen it all..
Windows keys (VICE):
Call helicopter/recall=Tilde (§)
Map=Caps lock or Esc
Run=Up/left/right arrow
Crouch=Space
First Aid=Delete
The PC version improved graphics (your Ranger now wears overwhites on Arctic missions), control options, and adds the ability to tailor the load of your 3 drop pods. Audio suffers with PC Speaker but having a Tandy alleviates that. Atari ST and Amiga ports are best of all but [outside of a single compilation I found] appear to have never been published in the US.
Don't knock the C=64 for overall quality and playability.
"Defender of the Crown" was first released on the Amiga but the game was just pretty graphics and not much playability. They hadn't thought out the game mechanics that well.
When the same game appeared on the Commodore 64, it was a blast. Graphics not on par with the Amiga but very good for the Commodore 64. Great music and sound effects. And very playable, addictive strategy gameplay.
Though I played it so many times that now I have a 'sure win' strategy. It involves taking out the most northern Norman castle in the first couple of turns. So you'll just have a few men, a catapult and Robin Hood's support. But destroying the enemy wall sufficiently lowers enemy morale so you win 99/100 times in the ensuing battle.
Then it's a matter of being good at raiding (exploit: enemy can't harm you if you keep defense up - in real life or harder game mechanics, you'd still get hit).
Of course you should have to rescue a damsel in distress (it almost always comes up), that way you get another Saxon castle (without any men...) which means one less rival Saxon to worry about.
The satisfaction you get after wiping the powerful Norman army off of the battlefield once you have built a decent army yourself... Then keep building up, raid a bit and take a territory now and then untill the last Norman lord only has the single castle left and you can humiliate him by building up a mega force, destroying his castle walls and reducing his garrisson with sickness and fire projectiles.
Then your 100+ knights army sweep the insects off of the field!
Of course it's possible to complete the game much sooner but after all the trouble the Normans made me go through, I always wanted the satisfaction to crush them with a 10 to 1 power ratio in battle.
@@AudieHolland I'm not knocking anything: alongside Gunship, Pirates!, Stealth Fighter and Red Storm Rising, MicroProse simulations on C64 were both the original versions and impressive considering their technical limitations; that does not change the fact that just to play these games in general the 16-bit versions are an improvement (as they should be).
Olisihan se pitänyt arvata että Commodore pelaaja on suomalainen :)
Wonderful game
Could you do a video exclusively on the creating a diversion mission? I've been attempting this mission since the game released. I see you finished it, but I never seem to get a mission accomplished even after destroying most of the map.
In create a diversion mission, first you cannot engage any combat before buzzer sound (1:40:03 in my video). Then you can engage combat and need to make constant noises through the whole mission. Best way to do this is to shoot with assault riffle every now and then, even in the air if there is no enemies around. Also, you can't call early pick up , because you need to do noise until the mission timer goes to zero and be in pick up point when it does. If I do remember correctly, there is another buzzer sound if you didn't make enough noise and mission is a failure.
Loved it back in the 80s, especially the feeling of progression by being promoted every now and then. Not that the rank mattered game-play-wise as far as I recollect, but it counted towards your high score, of course.
At some point during the first mission in your video, it looks like the shading/coloring of your character's uniform changes. It never occurred to me that this probably was the game's way of telling you that you are hidden from enemies, but I am not sure if this was indeed the case.
I was also fond of how the mission was split between "planning stage" and "execution stage", with the former giving you a pretty good idea of what resistance you would be encountering on the ground.
Wasn't this game indexed (prohibited) not long after release? I don't recall exactly.
Your color changes when you are at the pickup zone or taking damage.
Best 8-bit version was on C64
I remember playing a version where you could select the contents of the bag to be airdropped. Maybe it was a version different than the C64? It was the Atari 800XL, I think.
When I played this game I liked to sneak around and silently kill the enemies with the knife.
The Great Grandfather of PUBG.
Itse olen pelannut tätä aikoinaan isäni 286:lla. PC versiossa ainakin sai alussa valita mitä asepussukkaan halusi laittaa: sinkoja, lippaita, kranaatteja tms. Eri aseet veivät tietyn verran tilaa ja fyysisia dimensiota, ja laukun sai täyttää miten itse halusi. Tämän jälkeen oli osio, missä näitä laukkuja pudotettiin pitkin maastoa. Tehtävän aikana ne sitten ilmaantuivat kohdissa jonne olit ne pudottanut ja sait täydennyksiä laukun sisällön mukaan. Porttauksen yhteydessä lienee tapahtunut myös joitakin selkeitä uudistuksia?
Godfater of stealth games. (Stealth not included)
Yeah was this before Metal Gear ?
OMG loved this game :D
kiedys jak w to gralem wydawalo mi sie ze to pelne 3 d z fotorealistyczna grafika... ah ta sila nostalgi
bought a sealed version of this game a few yrs ago but it didnt stay sealed.
looks tough af
Great game!
AI working smarter than in any ubisoft game
This game looks so advanced, almost like its not c64.
Its the best Microprose game NOT designed by Sid Meier
i remember the infinite loading times.... ;-)
Any remakes on Android?
Big like
good job!
Thanks!
Love the old farting music
Graphics are crude, but it's still a great game
This game was the absolute shit - I never got through the levels this quick thou - I used to love taking my time getting into the covert aspect of it all.
Can be original PUBG
I loved this game
Hideo Kojima would be proud.