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Welcome to Game of the Week! Each week there will be a new featured game on this page. The game may be good, average or diabolically bad, it really doesn't matter! Just look at the pics, read the text and enjoy the nostalgia! :-) Game of the Week! is open to contributions so if you would like to contribute a game article for this page you're more than welcome to! Every article we receive will be considered!
Spitfire Ace
1984 Microprose
Programmed by Ronald G. Verovsky
 
Most text of the present article comes from the feature on Flight Simulators, as published in the sixth issue of the British C64 magazine ZZAP!64 (October 1985).
 

 

SPITFIRE ACE
US Gold, £9.95 cass, £12.95 disk

Spitfire Ace by US Gold is a simulator that attempts to challenge your flying skill and knowledge of air-to-air combat techniques. As the title suggests, you are in control of that famous World War II fighter . . . the Spitfire. There are nine different scenarios and your aim is to complete five missions so you can win the accolade of Spitfire Ace. These missions range from easy to hard, the easiest being the shooting down of a Stuka above Malta, whilst the most difficult is to engage in combat with Germany's new prototype jet.

The screen layout is the now rather standard view of the inside of a cockpit. The instrument readings you need are displayed as a straight numerical output. The data available to you includes your speed, the aircraft's course as a compass bearing, altitude, ammo left and power. The upper portion of the screen is where all the action takes place, being a pictorial view of the outside world. In the middle of your screen is a gunsight for use with the plane's machine guns. It's also handy for deciding quickly whether you are going up or down; when the horizon is above the sight, you are diving and when it's below, you are climbing. You are also supplied with a rear view mirror. This is fine on easy levels but once you start to progress, you'll find that most of the later missions are night flights where a rear view mirror is a bit useless.

Joystick control is very simple -- left and right for banking, up and down for dive and climb. Fire activates the machine guns, but as you only have forty rounds of ammunition it's wise to be frugal . . . and accurate!

In combat you are flying above a fairly featureless landscape (in fact it's just green ground and blue sky). The planes are rather small sprites that on closer approach reveal little or no extra detail. Because the game is quite slow, a dogfight that you would expect to be quite exciting can in fact be rather dull.

Upon finishing a mission you are given one of three ratings; victory, no result or loss. If you bail out there's a chance you might be captures and if you are then you get a loss, otherwise you're awarded a no result status.

The documentation accompanying this package is quite nice, as it explains the capabilities of the simulator to the full. Spitfire Ace is not really a full simulator and suffers for it -- we feel that this is more of a game than a true flight simulator.

Graphics 59%
Interaction 77%
Authenticity 56%
Overall 58%

 

Htmlized by Dimitris Kiminas (28 Jan 2003)

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