SEAL Team

[max power 21]

Has anyone tried this thing?  I had it when it came out.  It's a vietnam war infantry sim first published in 1993.  It was one of the first 3d games that I can remember.  The game centres around the deployment of SEAL teams in (I think) the first half of the vietnam war.  This game was not as expansive as OFP was some 8 years later, but it was much more focussed and detailed.

You play the role of the pointman in a 4 man team.  You can choose your pointman and team from a (I think) platoon sized database of SEALs, each of whom have strengths and weaknesses.  As you do missions, the SEALs gain stats and become better soldiers.  This has all the usual obvious effects, but also means that if you don't rotate out your team that when you lose some guys, you'll be left with green newbies.

The game had a lot of things that would be familiar to ofp players: it had formation control, and orders to your team on how they should manage their stance, and how aggressive they should be.  It took place in a full 3d (fairly open) world, with problems that were basically up to you to solve as you saw fit.

This game featured a lot of things that people called for from OFP and ArmA:  It has a system of hand signals, suppression and morale effects (like surrenders), and a non-hitpoint based wounding system with medical effects where you wouldn't die right away from any particular shot but you would weaken and eventually die.  This made it necessary to use another of the game's features: your support units.

This game had a support suite in it where you could at any time call for support from the units that inserted you or were going to pick you up, or other units operating in the area.  The support units were PT boats, Seawolf helicopters, or cobra gunships, or a combination of those.

The characters each had quite an array of period weapons to choose from, but they were not represented on the character sprites.

The characters in the game were 2d sprites, and the backgrounds and vehicles were rendered in full 3d.  Despite the sparseness of the backgrounds, the devs made good use of the environment.  You could tell if the enemy was close (and they you) if the wildlife in the area was disturbed.  If you ran into bushes or trees, they would make noise, and the stance that you took would affect your chances of being spotted.

If anyone here is into retro gaming and can find a copy of this somewhere, I'm sure that if you can figure it out, it could entertain you for as long as you can stand its dated looks and controls.

Apparently moby games didn't want me hotlinking their images.

Here's a link to the gallery: http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/seal-team/screenshots

[Snake Man 401]

Vietnam: The Experience, SEAL Team manuscript.

[max power 21]

Is that a plug? I would really just rather discuss SEAL team rather than VtE.

[Second 0]

SEAL Team was otherwise great, but killing enemy with smallarms fire was ridiciulously hard when comparing to explosive stuff.  I never understood was it me doing something wrong or was it game's less nice feature to model vietnam's hitting procetage for smallarms, but not for launchergrenades (they are said to be deadly, but i doupt each 1-2 grenades killed something like in game).

I think that atleast once i charged at VC with my Stoner and i scored like over 10 hits (i emptied whole 200? round mag in one long charge at enemy) but bugger didnt' die, and then i needed to start reload... during that time he just killed me with one or two shots (which was bit of a miracle actually as usually they didnt' hit or kill me either).

Only good way to kill enemy was to use 40mm launchergrenades and handgrenades. Game was bit ruined when all my men carried just M79 and alot of grenades and alot of handgrenades.

But game was great. No question about that. Great memories from great missions and great situations. >Sigh<

But yeah. I'm not very retro guy. Game has to released after something like -98

[Snake Man 401]

Is that a plug?  I would really just rather discuss SEAL team rather than VtE.

Sorry man, I thought someone would find Vietnam era SEAL Team action in OFP/ArmA interesting.

[max power 21]

Is that a plug?  I would really just rather discuss SEAL team rather than VtE.

Sorry man, I thought someone would find Vietnam era SEAL Team action in OFP/ArmA interesting.

That may be, but you didn't write anything in the post, just some link. Besides, you can't really produce anything analogous to the SEALteam experience in ArmA anyways. The mechanics are too different. In the end you might have some interesting Special Operations missions in a Vietnam setting in VtE but you won't be able to recapture SEAL team.

[mr_centipede 31]

Yes... the old memories. I was too young then to grasp the modern tactics like I am today. Reading over the manual, now I can comprehend the value of split teams and various formations. The controls are also more forgiving, ie you dont have to keep pressing forward to move forward. Just tap forward once, you will move forward slow speed, press one more time you will run. Maybe not practical in todays standard for precission. But man, really reduce the stress on my finger for that long walk and creeping and sneaking.

The missions/campaign was great too. It had a semi-dynamic campaign. A branching mission I think that its called. Fail too many mission and you are forced to retire.

Overall it was a great game. truly CLASSICS. I went to abandonia and it's ESA protected game. Is there anyplace I can buy this? And I wonder how it would play out in XP with 2gb of ram?

[max power 21]

Yes... the old memories. I was too young then to grasp the modern tactics like I am today. Reading over the manual, now I can comprehend the value of split teams and various formations. The controls are also more forgiving, ie you dont have to keep pressing forward to move forward. Just tap forward once, you will move forward slow speed, press one more time you will run. Maybe not practical in todays standard for precission. But man, really reduce the stress on my finger for that long walk and creeping and sneaking.

The missions/campaign was great too. It had a semi-dynamic campaign. A branching mission I think that its called. Fail too many mission and you are forced to retire.

Overall it was a great game. truly CLASSICS. I went to abandonia and it's ESA protected game. Is there anyplace I can buy this? And I wonder how it would play out in XP with 2gb of ram?

You can play all these old DOS games on a dos machine emulator called 'dosbox'.  There is a great gui front end for it called 'D-Fend' (for Dosbox FrontEND' ).  The only limit I've found is on the speed of your machine and the complexity of the emulation.  So, sometimes it's necessary to turn off features that you aren't using (like Tandy or Disney sound emulation).  Dosbox also interfaces with all your hardware so it's possible to use devices like a Saitek x52 in old dos games.  I like retro gaming and I have emulators for the amiga and all kinds of stuff and Dosbox with D-Fend is the easiest one to use that I've found.  I'm sure there are programs that Dosbox can't run properly but I've not found one in my own experience.

[nubbin77 0]

I remember buying it excitedly, only to find my computer wouldn't run it.

[Placebo 28]

Yep I played it when it first came out, awesome game for the time

[fasad 1]

Only good way to kill enemy was to use 40mm launchergrenades and handgrenades. Game was bit ruined when all my men carried just M79 and alot of grenades and alot of handgrenades.

But game was great. No question about that. Great memories from great missions and great situations. >Sigh<

I agree, the rifles were really ineffective and to my recollection, the rounds seemed to travel very slowly. Still, I recall it was quite an enjoyable game once you figured it out. One problem I had was predicting how easily the enemy could see my troops, since I could easily see them through the mostly open jungle.

[mr_centipede 31]

On the rifles effectiveness, I think maybe they added dispersion/hit probability based on range. if you still remember, the game is a bit like flightsims on ground. with target diamond and such. with out of range is white(less hit prob) yellow when the target is in range ( 50-50 chance of hit) and red is extremely close (you can surely hit the target with 1 or 2 ENTER keypress). of course, simulating the jungle environment with very thick undergrowth, it probably realistic.

during those days, I was really think the marriage of flightsims kinda HUD into soldier sim was really golden, and could spawn more games its kind... but what we get was more doom and duke nukem forever that will take forever to release. if it ever get release. then it will take forever to reach the stores and would take forever more to install and finally Duke Nukem Forever will forever be remembered to live up to its name... sorry for the rant.

anyway at least now we got OFP and ARMA and ARMA2 and ofcourse OFP2

back to seal team... I think the features that I like the most are the combat support and insertion and extraction procedure. no magic mission complete once the objective completed. you have to be extracted for the mission to be completed. I like huey for extraction

[Second 0]

I downloaded it (freeware it seems to be nowdays) and played a bit. LOL it took about 40 hits (from less than 200 rounds fired) to take out 3 enemies... From which one was taken out with frag handgrenade! Just like i remembered. It ain't the hitting possiblities but the fact that it's very hard to kill enemy even if it is hit, with bullets. anythign which explodes is another thing.

It surely feels odd to play with sprites when man has just 8 directions of which it is presented. Yeah far too retro for me. Altough i love those gray berets some wear.

Fasad: I was too young to even think about how easily enemy spots me, it was run and gun mostly for me.

[mr_centipede 31]

wow.. you downloaded it? where? I really missed that game... care to provide a link?

[Second 0]

eee... In fact now that i started to search i'm not so sure is it really freeware. I though it was mentioned in one magazine, but i find no info to back this up.

And i noway wish to encourage people into piracy, so... Damn

[mr_centipede 31]

yeah I thought so... because last time I check it was esa protected software... since you downloaded it, I thought maybe it was no longer protected... so never mind.

[Second 0]

yeah I thought so... because last time I check it was esa protected software... since you downloaded it, I thought maybe it was no longer protected... so never mind.

Where can you check such things?

I found wiki-page which presented some games as freeware (SEAL Team wasn't on list), but i dont' know is it realiable.

[mr_centipede 31]

www.abandonia.com

many old games are there, some microprose classic like pizza tycoon is there... great game.

and here is the link to seal team page:

http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/260/SEAL+Team.html

it says no go.

same for my other all time fav :Syndicate from Bullfrog

[sneakysix 0]

lol. i remember this and many more like it.

reminds me of the old tape deck weee,beeee,bluuu,.weeee sounds coming from loading my games. Oh I recall Match Day and bad graphics football too.

Oops no wait Im really showing my age its Commando on Commadore 16 i was thinking of

Commando

[http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=commando&page=detail&id=490]

[sv5000 127]

Top game

The booby traps were well implemented as well, it was a very engaging game.

[max power 21]

I had totally forgotten about the booby traps. Man. I was too young when I first played it to really be able to make use of everything it offered... this thread is sure jogging my memory of what it was like. The thing I remember most about it is being suppressed. I guess I was a like inelegant when it game to tactics.

[mr_centipede 31]

Sorry resurrecting this, but yesterday, I went over to www.abandonia.com and found out that SEAL Team is no longer protected by ESA, so that means we can download it for free... But the site seems down at the moment, so cant give a direct link.

Man, what a game it was and still is. Everything is immersive, from the briefings to debriefing... I hope BIS ARMA2 had that kind of debriefing. In the game, it's called POST MISSION REPORT... very nice statistics there. How many enemy killed/captured, rounds fired, grenade thrown, etc. I like it a lot

Now, I'm struggling for the manual or at least some key cards. Also trying to effectively use my split team :)

[Andi 10]

Ironically, I played this game on my laptop when I was in Vietnam last year. I found it rather hard to master, and I'm quite the unpatient personality so after 2 or 3 missions, I just gave up because of the constant dying or not hitting anything. I never tried the M79 tactics though :p

[mr_centipede 31]

agree on the impatient part.. ALT-T is your friend. Time Compression... hehe. My tactic was, go prone, cease fire, move forward and ALT-T...

Back to present, the controls are kinda clunky now, and no free-look is really frustrating