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Release Date: 1987
The long Falcon simulation legacy of hardcore simulations of the F-16 fighter plane begins here. The plane's electronic displays and radars are simulated fully, with 4 styles of HUD. Not only can your plane barrel-roll and scissor, the enemy planes can too, with Artificial Intelligence recreating the moves of a real pilot. You have the choice of flying one of 12 missions - with awards for flying missions at higher skill levels. It has different ground attack and air-to-air weapons, although these were also limited by several factors. For dogfighting, AIM-9J missiles were not as reliable as newer AIM-9L missiles - and were useless for head-on attack - but were typically the only missiles available. Because they were guided, AGM-65 missiles were easier to use than "iron dumb bombs" like the Mk 84, but ineffective against strengthened targets. An ECM pod provides defense against enemy missiles, but occupies an external hardpoint that could be used for additional weapons or fuel. The enemy occupied the western areas of the game's playable map - itself a large square divided into 9 smaller squares. Enemy targets were fixed sites on the ground. For defense, the unnamed enemy was limited to MiG-21 interceptors, and ground-launched missiles - either the SA-2, which was launched from identified and fixed sites on the ground, or SA-7 missiles, which could be fired from portable launchers, and could therefore appear anywhere. This was one of the earliest games to offer head-to-head play by linking two machines. It comes with a massive manual, detailing all those functions. Originally on MSX in 1984 and Mac in 1987, it used bitmapped 3D MiG-21s as adversaries, several years before Origin's Wing Commander used a similar graphics engine. It was ported for the PC, but no longer used bitmapped graphics; instead, the adversaries were displayed using primitive polygon graphics. |
