Amiga Collections: MegaDisc/MegaDisc 27 (1992-03)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)(Disk 1 of 2)[WB].zip/MegaDisc 27 (1992-03)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)(Disk 1 of 2)[WB].adf/Flight_Sims/Red_Baron/Red_Baron

Text File | 1992-03-30 | 5KB | 96 lines

                RED BARON - from Dynamix

              review by K.Tremaine


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   As you might expect this is a World War I biplane simulator which revolves
  excusively around fighters. It comes on three disks which can be easily
  installed on your hard-disk and is not copy protected although you will
  need to refer to one of the six maps during a campaign. A comprehensive
  manual covers historical aspects of the WWI air war, aircraft and tactics
  (interesting reading while you are waiting for the game updates!). I
  suppose that the sticker on the box saying "RECOM'D 14 MHZ CPU OR FASTER"
  warns you but golly the responses during the action is s-l-o-w if you do
  not have an accelerator and you have high detail, however you can adjust
  many of the settings and it's just about acceptable if you turn the sound
  off.  Unfortunately Dynamix do not appear to have upgraded their routines
  since their sluggish A-10 Tank-killer of a few years back.

   Red Baron offers an amazing range of flight situations from dogfights with
  famous aces from both sides, historic missions, various single missions and
  even embarking on a career (or campaign) to see if you can survive WWI.
  Dogfighting a famous Ace is a good test of your abilities or deviousness
  (as you can re-select the aircraft involved and give von Richthofen a
  Fokker Eindecker and yourself a Sopwith Snipe). In this and all other
  missions you can alter various realism parameters such as the flight model,
  weather, gun jams, sun blind spots, blackouts, realistic instruments (may
  mean only RPM meter and oil pressure gauge) and carburettor freezes. These
  affect overall difficulty and your score factor which is important if you
  have a career.

   The Career option is most involving of all as you can earn promotions and
  medals in your tour of duty. Once you reach the rank of Captain or
  Rittmeister you can choose you own personal plane and even paint it
  (unfortunately no nifty patterns just the ability to select the colour of
  the wings and fuselage but it's great fun anyway - even if you play on the
  allied side) you can also request a transfer to another aerodrome. The
  Backup Career is a very thoughtful and useful option which allows you to
  continue a good career under a new name; no-longer do you need to sneak
  into DOS and duplicate that precious Ace in case he flies into the ground.
  Careful attention to the map is important because if you land behind enemy
  lines you win a one to four month holiday from which you will finally
  escape at the cost of losing valuable flying time. Also as you progress
  you are sometimes in charge of a flight and can select the formation type
  as well as order attacks on enemy aircraft. During your career you will
  have to under take a variety of missions including patrols, dogfights,
  escort, defence of observation balloons or their destruction.

   Strictly air-to-air

   Note this is strictly air-to-air stuff no ground attack or bombing as you
  can only fly the fighters. The most important thing to remember is that
  90% of all WWI aerial victories were made from shooting up the enemy's
  behind and so that's where you need to be to progress in Red Baron because
  head-on and side-on shots are just a waste of ammunition. You can also
  record the entire mission to disk and gloat over your victories or more
  likely relive your mistakes.  Also if you get wounded it's a good idea to
  land immediately because you may start seeing red and die; it's better to
  land spend time in a hospital than end your career. Some missions may
  require you to fly at dawn, dusk or at night and this really makes life
  difficult because the planes are pretty hard to see and it's easy to pump a
  few rounds into one of your buddies (court-martial time! - you can cheat
  by turning up the brightness control but of course you would be too
  honourable to do that).

   Red Baron is a very detailed and involving World War I fighter simulaton
  but unfortunately it suffers from the same sluggish response as
  Three-Sixty's Blue Max although it is a much more polished product.  WWI
  dogfighting requires a dramatic rethink of tactics after all the jet
  simulators that you find on the Amiga scene. These biplanes just don't
  have the performance of the modern aircraft so you need to be constantly on
  guard against stalling, particularly when flying low.  On the other hand
  the simplicity of these aircraft means a lot less controls to worry about
  and they are able to land quiet easily without the need for airstrips. On
  the IBM, according to the critics, Red Baron shot down Microprose's Knights
  of the Sky to be the number one WWI simulator but after playing the Knights
  of the Sky demo I think that the roles may be reversed with the Amiga
  because the responsiveness of the aircraft in Knights of the Sky is much
  more acceptable than those in Red Baron. However once you overcome the
  sluggishness Red Baron will keep you occupied for quite some time as you
  try out new variation and tactics be it dogfighting a famous Ace or just
  trying to make it through WWI in one piece. You often find yourself saying
  "just one more mission"........



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