64 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
64 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
|
||
FIRST OVER GERMANY
|
||
|
||
In FIRST OVER GERMANY (FOG), you command a B-17, the famous "flying fortress"
|
||
bomber of World War II. The game offers several training missions, starting with
|
||
gunnery practice and formation flying, and ending with a transatlantic flight to
|
||
England. Once in England, you and your crew will perform 25 combat missions, all
|
||
taken from the actual missions of the 306th Bomber Group. (This review is based
|
||
on the IBM-PC version.)
|
||
|
||
FOG is without a doubt the crudest simulation of flight in a commercial game
|
||
today. The only "three-dimensional views" in the game are those that depict
|
||
attacking aircraft, and they're laughably reminiscent of simple home arcade
|
||
games of 10 years ago. The most common screen display is an overhead view of the
|
||
B-17 or B-17 formation above an ugly approximation of the local terrain.
|
||
|
||
While FOG does support EGA graphics, the images are so poorly drawn, and the
|
||
color choices so terrible, that you'll suspect you're playing in CGA mode. For
|
||
example, most land appears as solid yellow, dotted with sporadic black V's --
|
||
perhaps to represent wheat fields? The sound quality is awful as well,
|
||
consisting of a constant engine drone, an occasional warning tone, and a muted
|
||
"brat" when you fire on enemy planes.
|
||
|
||
The action itself is terribly dull and mechanical. The bombing missions, though
|
||
directed at different targets, share a monotonous similarity. On each mission,
|
||
you take off, join formation, fly to the target, shoot at enemy fighters, bomb
|
||
the target, return to base, and land.
|
||
|
||
Shooting at attacking planes is particularly frustrating. First you must select
|
||
which of the flying fortress's seven machine gun positions you'll use. Should
|
||
you select a position from which you can't see the plane, or should the chosen
|
||
gun be out of commission, you're out of luck: The fighter gets a free attack.
|
||
(Apparently, the rest of the crew is asleep.)
|
||
|
||
Fortunately, selecting a gun from the attack angle (i.e., 9 o'clock high)
|
||
becomes fairly automatic after a while. On any of the guns, though, the
|
||
crosshairs move incredibly slowly, eliminating player skill entirely. Either
|
||
it's very easy to line up the gun before the fighter attacks, or it's
|
||
impossible. Most of the time, your fire will have no effect, even if it's
|
||
perfectly on target. While this is fairly realistic (since the B-17s relied for
|
||
protection more on massed formation firepower than individual gunnery skill), it
|
||
makes for a terrible game.
|
||
|
||
Flight isn't much better. Without the cockpit views of other flight games,
|
||
flying degenerates into watching your current X,Y position, heading, and
|
||
altitude. Bombing is largely a matter of waiting for the bombsight to read 0,0
|
||
and hoping the flak doesn't blow you out of the air. Landing is the only
|
||
difficult part, since 70 MPH crosswinds seem to be common at the airbase. Of
|
||
course, they only apply to the approach, not the actual landing.
|
||
|
||
The IBM version of FOG relies on an off-disk protection scheme that's invoked
|
||
only once per game. The program requires DOS 2.0 or higher and 384K of RAM. It
|
||
supports CGA or EGA graphics adaptors, but no sound cards. My copy of the game
|
||
was supplied on 5-1/4" disks; there was no indication that 3-1/2" disks are
|
||
available.
|
||
|
||
In short, FIRST OVER GERMANY lacks excitement, and asks for no hard decisions
|
||
or arcade skill. Not recommended.
|
||
|
||
FIRST OVER GERMANY is published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. and distributed
|
||
by Electronic Arts.
|
||
|
||
*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
|
||
|