Personal Compuer Games


Airstrike
By English
Atari 400/800

 
Published in Personal Computer Games #2

Airstrike

This is a carbon copy of the arcade game where you fly over a mountainous landscape, bombing fuel depots and ammunition stores (an act which miraculously increases your stock of both). There are, of course, the statutory guided missiles and flying saucers.

As if this were not enough, there are what appear to be clouds in the sky which you have to fly around. Any attempt to fly through these clouds explodes your aircraft.

The occasion for all this mayhem and navigational skill is pretty standard: your planet is at war with the Planet Cyclon and you, ego-maniac that you are, have volunteered for the most hazardous mission of the war, namely a solo attack on the fortress of Gemini, 40 kilometers south of the planet's capital state of Hermon.

The distance has little significance, at least for players with my sort of reflexes, as you are bound to be hit by a rocket, or fly into a mountain avoiding same.

The graphics generated in this game are excellent. I had to take the manual's word for the existence of 'sliding airlocks blocking the way', once you have got past a certain number of missiles. But according to the close print on the cassette folder which serves as the manual, there are such things. You have to blow them open in order to proceed, and they may, it seems, be surrounded by enemy fighters.

If you fly unscathed all through the first scrolling screenful, you go to the next level, signalled by a different colour, and are handicapped by being able to take on board less fuel and less ammunition. This means, of course, that you have to be even more suicidal in your bombing.

If you enjoyed the arcade game you will have to look at a great many games programs to find a better home computer version than this one.

TH

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