A brief history from my perspective pt I : days with Commodore 64
First flight sims I flew were almost as old as I was back then, on a Commodore 64 :).
They could hardly be called simulators mostly, but some of them like Ace of Aces, which put us in controls of a Mosquito did actually had seperate engine boost controls etc. It had different missions like air combat, bombing submarines etc and we could load up rockets, bombs or even additional gun ammo.
Another WW II title was, Dam Busters. It, presumable put us in control of a Lancaster or similar large bomber, in a dam busting mission, had many stations of aircraft available besides the cockpit.
Both of these titles were among the more difficult games on a C64, and for their day, they would pretty much be study sims, with different stations and some engine management modeled, even if flight model is not even rudimentary by today's standarts.
Keeping on with WW II theme, there was Spitfire Ace, which was among the first titles by famed game designer Sid Meier. I had played it not too much and unfortunately don't have many memories of it. I only recall it's graphics weren't that great even by C64 standarts. Not that I was ever much of a eye candy craver, as long as atmosphere and realism was there, I was a happy camper in any game.
There also was the ACE (Air Combat Emulator, flight titles in C 64 sure loved the word ace...). This one put us in controls of a jet, had a theater of operations large for it's day, and various enemy units from aircraft to ground forces and all the way to ships appear at various sites on the map. We had flares against missiles, our own air to air or air to ground missiles and a gun, besides specialized anti ship missiles (which, were nothing more than air to ground missiles that can be fired on ships instead, and less could be loaded on the plane). It also had takeoffs, landings and wait for it... air to air refueling! I spent many hours on this one. It wasn't necessarily a study level sim, but was nevertheless great fun and had great immersion for the day. It was also in a modern jet settings with missiles and all :). Number of units we could meet were numbered not much more than fingers on a hand ; tank, sam, helicopter, fighter, advanced fighter and ship.
There was also TOP-GUN, playing on popularity of the movie, it was a very very simple, split screen head to head dogfight of two F-14s. Aircraft were kind of 3D actually (oh I didn't mention that all previous titles were 2D did I?), in the sense that they were green wireframes of F-14 :). We had missiles, that liked to put the miss in missile, and a gun. It was simple, very very simple, but was also one of the first glimpses of multiplayer dogfighting.
Another title that had split screen head to head gameplay was sequel to ACE, the ACE 2, which pits F-18 and MiG-21 against each other, with slightly different looking "cockpits", and identical capabilities. I didn't play it much on C64, may be I only saw it on PC with an emulator not sure.
Among the diskettes given to me, I even had a Space Shutte Simulator. But I didn't spend too much time with it, as a kid, if it didn't shoot, it didn't cut it for me. At least back then, it was so...
Many years later, I have seen on a PC using C64 emulator, Fighter Bomber, which not only had some awesome aircraft in it to fly like Tornado, F-4E and MiG-27, and had actually low poly 3D models in gameplay, I was astonished to see that for Commodore 64. But it was after my time with C64.
I never had an Amiga, but used an Atari ST, but can't recall any sims I had on that one.
These were the ones I have started to both fuel and quench at the same time, my everlasting interest in realistic air combat & aerobatics. They were very simple by today's standarts and they were not even 3D, I'm sure most folks can't even imagine what's a flight sim in 2D like :).
In all these titles, we were lone wolves, with no allied units to help our cause. We were winning a war alone, Hollywood style :). Having in memory and CPU a battle with two actual sides, while still running player aircraft itself, was mostly beyond the abilities of C64.
Still, these were popular titles in their time, and as evident from me playing them a decade after their release as a kid, were still somewhat popular afterwards. They kind of started the flight simulation genre, and was part of my sim history.
As we come to PC as a platform, more interesting stuff will follow in pt II.
They could hardly be called simulators mostly, but some of them like Ace of Aces, which put us in controls of a Mosquito did actually had seperate engine boost controls etc. It had different missions like air combat, bombing submarines etc and we could load up rockets, bombs or even additional gun ammo.
Another WW II title was, Dam Busters. It, presumable put us in control of a Lancaster or similar large bomber, in a dam busting mission, had many stations of aircraft available besides the cockpit.
Both of these titles were among the more difficult games on a C64, and for their day, they would pretty much be study sims, with different stations and some engine management modeled, even if flight model is not even rudimentary by today's standarts.
Keeping on with WW II theme, there was Spitfire Ace, which was among the first titles by famed game designer Sid Meier. I had played it not too much and unfortunately don't have many memories of it. I only recall it's graphics weren't that great even by C64 standarts. Not that I was ever much of a eye candy craver, as long as atmosphere and realism was there, I was a happy camper in any game.
There also was the ACE (Air Combat Emulator, flight titles in C 64 sure loved the word ace...). This one put us in controls of a jet, had a theater of operations large for it's day, and various enemy units from aircraft to ground forces and all the way to ships appear at various sites on the map. We had flares against missiles, our own air to air or air to ground missiles and a gun, besides specialized anti ship missiles (which, were nothing more than air to ground missiles that can be fired on ships instead, and less could be loaded on the plane). It also had takeoffs, landings and wait for it... air to air refueling! I spent many hours on this one. It wasn't necessarily a study level sim, but was nevertheless great fun and had great immersion for the day. It was also in a modern jet settings with missiles and all :). Number of units we could meet were numbered not much more than fingers on a hand ; tank, sam, helicopter, fighter, advanced fighter and ship.
There was also TOP-GUN, playing on popularity of the movie, it was a very very simple, split screen head to head dogfight of two F-14s. Aircraft were kind of 3D actually (oh I didn't mention that all previous titles were 2D did I?), in the sense that they were green wireframes of F-14 :). We had missiles, that liked to put the miss in missile, and a gun. It was simple, very very simple, but was also one of the first glimpses of multiplayer dogfighting.
Another title that had split screen head to head gameplay was sequel to ACE, the ACE 2, which pits F-18 and MiG-21 against each other, with slightly different looking "cockpits", and identical capabilities. I didn't play it much on C64, may be I only saw it on PC with an emulator not sure.
Among the diskettes given to me, I even had a Space Shutte Simulator. But I didn't spend too much time with it, as a kid, if it didn't shoot, it didn't cut it for me. At least back then, it was so...
Many years later, I have seen on a PC using C64 emulator, Fighter Bomber, which not only had some awesome aircraft in it to fly like Tornado, F-4E and MiG-27, and had actually low poly 3D models in gameplay, I was astonished to see that for Commodore 64. But it was after my time with C64.
I never had an Amiga, but used an Atari ST, but can't recall any sims I had on that one.
These were the ones I have started to both fuel and quench at the same time, my everlasting interest in realistic air combat & aerobatics. They were very simple by today's standarts and they were not even 3D, I'm sure most folks can't even imagine what's a flight sim in 2D like :).
In all these titles, we were lone wolves, with no allied units to help our cause. We were winning a war alone, Hollywood style :). Having in memory and CPU a battle with two actual sides, while still running player aircraft itself, was mostly beyond the abilities of C64.
Still, these were popular titles in their time, and as evident from me playing them a decade after their release as a kid, were still somewhat popular afterwards. They kind of started the flight simulation genre, and was part of my sim history.
As we come to PC as a platform, more interesting stuff will follow in pt II.
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