Battlefront: Corps Level Command in World War II
Game Meta:“Battlefront: Corps Level Command in World War II” is a turn-based strategy/war simulation game. A recreation of the land battles of World War II, it offers the following scenarios: Crete (1941), Stalingrad (1942), Saipan (1944) and Bastogne (1944-5). It includes a complete scenario editor, which is unusual in that it enables creation of new terrain types, and can even be invoked mid-game. This is one of the first series of games in which software micromanaged the actions of the individual units, such as battalions or artillery assets.
The Battlefront game system, released in 1986 for the Apple II and the Commodore 64, was designed for land battles of the Second World War. It simulated the challenges of real command, including those of managing supply and troop fatigue. In response to player requests and fresh design enhancements, SSG released new iterations of their systems adding additional features. Battlefront update Battle of Normandy (1987) added climate types, so scenarios could be created for regions beyond Europe.
This game is part of the Apple Collection that is held at Museum Victoria.
Screenshots:
Load Scenarios, C64
Scenario Game Options, C64
Battlefront, Titles, C64
Box Art:
Box Art, Front, C64
Box Art, Back, C64
Battlefront, Packaging with Portraits, Apple II
Box Art, Front, Apple II
Box Art, Front, C64, USA
Inside Cover Left, C64, USA
Inside Cover Right, C64, USA
Inside Cover Far Right, C64, USA
Box Art, Back, C64, USA
Disk, C64, USA
Manuals and Walkthroughs (PDF):
Review, Computer Gaming World 1986, Issue 21, pp. 28,29,50 & 51, Full Page Ad, Computer Gaming World 1986, Issue 21, pp. 36.
Comments from lemon64.com
The Paradroid – 2011-07-02
Immersive but very difficult
sapper_astro – 2009-11-02
4 Great scenarios, and plenty of very tough combat no matter which sides you pick. I remember making many a scenario in my younger days.
Unfortunately, the battlefront system (as used in the other games in the series; Rommel, Halls of Montezuma, Battles in Normandy, Panzer Battles, etc) does not contain any campaigns. So the games do not have the same effect on me as the brilliant “Russia – the great war in the east”.
I just loved all the Battlefront games. One had to use one’s imagination to play the game. Excellent memories. 🙂
It is interesting thinking back to those days as Battlefront came about at the first really difficult time SSG encountered. After the successes of Reach for the Stars and Carriers Ian and I really felt that any game we made would be successful. Europe Ablaze proved us both wrong.
We had started on an American Civil War game and had spent about six months on the project before I decided that it had to stop. I presented Ian with a substitute project based on ‘Operation Apocalypse’ , the second game I had made. He simply took the paper and said that he would see me the next day. The next day arrived and when I walked in I was handed a new game design that incorporated many of the ideas I had outlined. We both agreed that this would have to be carried out fast.
14 weeks later we sold the first copy of ‘Battlefront’. I don’t think I have ever worked harder in my life. The one thing that will always stick with me was at lunch with Ian one day when he suddenly remembered that the name had to be at the printer by 2pm. We had 2 hours to come up with it so we had a sheet of paper in which we submitted possible names and the one at the top at 2pm was it. We then resumed work….
After that we tried to analyse what the target audience would like to play rather than just go and do our own thing. Ian tried to get the grand American civil war game but it never eventuated. We did, however, do a series of civil war battles to appease him.