One of the oldest and greatest tank-sims,
This tank sim was not at all pleasing to look at very much. You have your choice of square polygons with tank tubes sticking out of them and your choice of "trees" meaning green triangles with a square at the bottom or enemy soldiers that looked like cross walk figures albeit with less detail.
No, what I am talking about is this game had "SOUL" to it. From the time you turned on the Abrams' turbine engine to the point where you get Warsaw Pact T-72's and T-80's locked on and then burning with a SABOT round, you got the real feeling you were inside a real Abrams tank!
That said, this was 1991, and no there was not ALOT of detail to be had inside or outside the tank, but you had a good selection of looking at your 3-D battlespace from the Driver's POV, the gunner, or the commander from his cupola. Night vision (more like IR) was available and turned the landscape into an eerie red and gray landscape. You had your choice of SABOT, HEAT, and the experimental AXE round which you could go after Hinds with. The gameplay was very solid, because you would be cruising along (with the governor OFF) and suddenly there will be 5 maybe 6 Soviet armored vehicles in your way. Included were the BRDM1 thru 3, T-55 up to an experimental tank called the FST-1, BTR's, HINDS, soviet soldiers with SAGGER ATGM's and other types too (SPIRAL and SONGSTER I think) all trying to take you down! Allied vehicles played a limited role for sure, but were around too (Bradleys, M113's, and M60's too!) but mostly they just sat around waiting to get shot!
Damage models were great for the time. Your armor was very tough but eventually equipment would start getting damaged or even destroyed. If your main gun went, say good bye to your momma! Same with the engine, the tank targeting computer which let you lock on a target, your gunner's view screen, your smoke grenades, your technical map, and even the co-ax MG would go. This felt alot like the old classic "Star Raiders" game on the A400 which I had too, where you could miss the little things but get any further damage and you are a burning hulk on the battlefield.
Animations were present like the cool messages from your tank crew, one might be from the gunner saying "TARGET DESTROYED" or "ENGINE DAMAGED". It made you feel like you were in the middle of the Essen in W. Germany trying to hold off the Warsaw Pact Forces all by your lonesome. The era this game was set in was a fictional WP invasion through the Fulda Gap in Germany around 1990 (right when the cold war was pretty much GONE!) The campaign has about 10-12 levels (if memory serves) and you can either play each alone or bunch them up and play for the victory to get to Moscow (which after the game ends, shows a newspaper headline reading about NATO winning and going all the way to that city) or defeat (same newspaper animation this time with the headline "SOVIETS REACH PARIS!")
I thought this game should be considered one of the 100 greatest games of all time but that is just me right?
"T-72 Destroyed"