Battlehawks 1942

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs

GAME DESIGNER:Lawrence Holland & Noah Falstein
GAME DEVELOPER:LucasFilm Games
GAME PUBLISHER:LucasFilm Games
Copyright 1988, LucasFilm Games

Ohh boy this was my first flight sim. Back then, I didnt even have a joystick, but this one really made me buy one. The whole premise for this game is simple: you are either an American or a Japanese, flying fighters, dive-bombers and torpedo bombers against the enemy. The action can be pretty hectic sometimes. The graphics are pure 89 16 color EGA, and the best sound hardware supported is Adlib, but even so, this game can capture ones imagination. The only problem is unfortunately pretty annoying. As the computers going around back in 89 were incapable of moving the large amounts of polygons needed for a flight sim, every aircraft and ship is a sprite, a 2D drawing, which changes regarding the angle of sight you have on the object. However, the sprites are drawn in angle intervals, for example, if you were 5 degrees to the left of the 6 oclock position of a fighter, it would draw it as if it was dead ahead of you. If you were 60 degrees from his six, it would draw it side on. This made deflection shooting (shooting ahead of the enemy plane, forcing it to fly into your bullets) very hard. Torpedoing was also difficult. Flight modelling isnt really realistic, but gameplay is pretty furious when enemy fighters approach, and the game is fun.

Even so, this is a great game, and one that deserves a place in every nostalgic flight sim fans shelf. The most recent game that portrayed this scenery was Microproses 1994 1942: The Pacific Air War, an excellent game that also mixed in tactical naval ops as well as some of the best WW2 Pacific theatre aircraft modelling ever, which could be regulated to your preferences.