This Classic Game is Still One of the Best

[KG Erwin]

I suppose this is the one of the things that gives Matrix fits, but SPWaW is still one of the best games ever, and Matrix has given up support for it. One of the obvious shortcomings is it was written in now archaic code, so for this reason alone it won't be upgraded again. So, to upgrade the game means that it would have to be redone from scratch, and their efforts have come to naught. Sure, some independent efforts have made the game better, but it's not enough. We've come to a standstill, and I don't understand it. After being involved with the game in times past, we've hit a stone wall. I wish I had an answer, but nothing is forthcoming. [&:]

As a disclaimer, I must add that I was invloved in the game's development for a while, and we came up with a definitive OOB for the USMC. The long campaign with the Marines is excellent, so I'm proud to have been a part of it. No other game can compare with it for representing the ground war in the Pacific at the tactical level.

[planner 3]

Hey Gunny, I hear the code was so old that they found a reference to it on the Rosetta Stone in ancient Egypt ? (aka Chief)

[KG Erwin]

Yeah, that's about right. [:D] The other unfortunate part about this is that the game is a notorious memory hog, so a game in progress needs to be saved periodically and one needs to exit the game and restart it.

[gabeeg]

I worked my way out of my Steel Panthers depression by installing WinSPWW2 alongside my SPWAW install. Over the last couple of years I now only play WinSPWW2 for my PBEM games. I fire up SPWAW every now and again to play against the AI, and still love it...but it is getting harder and harder to keep it going (now on Win7 x64). WinSPWW2 is still alive at least and being developed...plus the widescreen resolution support and seemless Win7 x64 support...which is huge for me. I do wish someone would do a rewrite with a modern 2D true color graphics engine (instead of the archaic 8bit color).

Steel Panthers is still the king of the hill tactical wargame even after all these years, which is a testament to the developers, contributers, scenario writers and modders involved over the years and versions. It is also surprising that some developer has not tried to use the same or similar formula of this known winner. Squad Battles is also an excellent tactical engine...but very different in scale and execution.

[jjdenver]

Is the problem with WinSPWW2 that the campaigns vs AI are not as good as SPWAW? Why doesn't someone just port the campaigns over to WinSPWW2?

[parusski]

And SPWAW is a game I still play and enjoy and relish.

[soldier1]

Yes best ever tactical war game but its been taken off my hardrive to make way for other games now (geez shogun 2 takes up so much space) but i keep a few disk copies around just in case.
I doubt we'll ever see its likes again and if we did It would likely be released in bits and peices as downloadable content, first east front then west front and so on. The scale of the SPWAW OOB with all those units is truly a thing of the past, developers are too lazy these days.