Bram Stoker's Dracula: A Grave Example

Bram Stoker's Dracula is kinda a funny movie. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1992. The film is quite a big departure from the novel yet is somehow the only film to hit on most key elements of the novel. Its also got a novel adaption that was written by a guy who also wanted to write the novel adaption of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a film similar in nature to BSD. I couldn't find the source for that little factoid, but Coppola was originally going to direct before the second worst British entertainer to enter America handled it. I have never seen any of these things, this is just what I've heard about them. I mean, I own the films, they came with Underworld, but I've never seen them. Its really something I should change one of these days, but eh.
Adaptions of BSD are on all major systems in '93. You've got the NES, Sega Master System, Gameboy and Game Gear, which is apparently one of the worst games of all time according to some magazine no one has ever heard of. A slick looking Genesis and SNES game. An Amiga game that nobody cares about. A Sega CD game that uses digital actors and backgrounds, to the enjoyment of absolutely no one. And this fucking thing for DOS.
I've mentioned before that this isn't my first time playing a lot of straight, unarguable FPS games. BSD is where we shift the crap factor from "Good for its day" to "This is terrible". From "What do you expect?" to "Are you kidding me?". From "Important historical background" to "Blatant padding so I don't have to play the game".

The intro music is jamming, so I'd better get started. This game does have an interesting first, the first appearance of the CyClones style shooting mechanic in a FPS. We also have the first appearance of an inventory system and changing the height of your character. These would go to make a few more appearances, with this inventory system going on to be the bane of anyone buying a shareware CD in the later half of the decade. Pie in the Sky, people, Pie in the Sky.

GETTING IT TO RUN:
There's nothing fancy needed here, just make sure you use dracula.bat instead of drac.exe or you'll be stuck with PC speaker.

Cemetery:
Hmm, maybe my old experience with this game is untrue. Its confusing to understand the controls, since nobody ever bothered putting the manual online. The accompanying text file lists no use key, so I guess the items are the only thing I'll be using. Fortunately, I can play something roughly akin to a modern FPS here, another first. You can't turn with the mouse*, but the ASDZXC cluster offers you something like modern movement...just with manual turning. Like a real human being.

The forest is a nice spooky, but let's not forget, large level. There's two more parts connected on this level. I've got like 53 coffins to destroy. The right click is both the attack and use key...space changes weapons, which I do whenever I need to use something. I'm sure I'll need a lot of ammo to kill all these infinitely respawning undead hanging around.
You see, the game functions sort of like you're killing vampires. Enemies respawn from coffins, until you use holy wafers to destroy them. The text file says they're from another dimension or some weird thing that doesn't have anything to do with Dracula unless somebody popped him in Doom. Items are on the ground and you need to use them to get them.
This level is supposed to be a forest. Because of graphical limitations it looks more like an in-door garden. Is it really that hard to draw a new wall texture? Full of obelisks and impaled corpses. Really jabbing home that Vlad the Impaler thing, are we? Sometimes from a distance an obelisk and a corpse together look like some kind of hooded figure. The forest part is done by having a lot of dead trees around. This would be more effective if the ground wasn't green.

This game was so hopeful until the fighting started. I start off knifing this dude. First time...its not great, but its not bad either. The dude comes back alive. Thanks...he gets me a few times. Ah, so the knife is not a good weapon. How about the gun?

Elsewhere, against a skeleton, he goes down with one hit. Something tells me I shouldn't abuse that too much. The sound that plays when an enemy is killed is a triumphant horn. It sounds like I'm shooting a horn. Sound isn't great, but the music is. That leaves me with two options, knife guy, risk damage. Shoot guy, risk death against Dracula later.
Skeletons are weaker than the zombies, but both die just as fast against the gun.
I find a way further down, its locked, but I have the key, I don't remember where I got it, I should have put that down. The rest of the level is seemingly locked off to me at this point, the only other place I can find is another locked door. The locked door out, apparently, as it needs a crystal key and the manual says Dracula gives the crystal key. Its hard to tell. The forest section is a big, confusing mess. Its not really any bigger than a Wolfenstein level, but a combination of being open, everything looking the same and fog that shortens your range after 15 feet makes for some fun times wandering around aimlessly.

The underground doesn't look as bad with the fog. There's a skeleton, or zombie. Whoever did the graphics for the enemies was lazy. No wonder nobody remembers this game. I kill him a few times, then destroy his dimensional portal. There are two doors here. One, won't budge, the other, is locked. I said at the start of this level that maybe my old experience is untrue. That sentence is untrue. So I begin my journey back, across the graveyard. Yes. That's what I want to be doing. Not playing something of arguable quality, like Dark Seed. The jewel case of Dark Seed taunts me. I find a monster, just one I found before. I can't reach him yet. I don't know how I'll reach him. There's another one behind me. Not right behind me, just a way behind me, out and about. A knife seems a crappy weapon against skeletons, but that could just be my fondness of Neverwinter Nights coloring my perception of things. Not in this game, two hits and they're down.

The skeleton was guarding a area that looks like it has doors, but really doesn't. Five people are credited under the graphics sections and none of them thought this was a bad idea? This, as it turns out, helps me none and I'm back at the locked door. Then I get lost, find a few more items, and then return to the way down. Clearly, I've missed something vital in the forest. There's an area with two monsters that has a door down, I'm supposed to get there from the underground I think. I have three already known options, with the potential that I missed something. Could there be secret walls? That's a mechanic I think someone would mention when writing a manual, but I'm no hotshot licensed game developer.

As it turns out, they were doors. They're just very difficult to open. Right up against the wall, multiple times. I think just now I've gotten farther than anyone else has in five years. You're supposed to activate a particular hotspot, like a real door or an adventure game designed by a colossal monster. That is some harsh design for a licensed title. The interior has a bunch rooms with health and bullets, plus a single wafer. The back door has a golden key and lots of holy wafers. Back to the underground.
The music changes whenever you either fight or go down stairs. Fighting has fighting music, obviously. It ends up like the first few notes of any battle music, annoying through the amount of times you'll have to hear it. The stairs, on the other hand, gives a weird building crescendo that sounds kinda like rushing through stairs. The regular music is some moody stuff, but has some weird static in the background, I don't know what that's about. At first I thought it might have been stepping sounds, there are in the PC Speaker soundset, but it happens even when paused.

The path leads me to another stairway down. No alternate path, only another locked door. The stairs lead to another locked door and another set of stairs.

Pressure pads, something this game may be the first FPS to do. I don't know or care. What I do know, is that this is probably a trap, so I won't go here yet. I find a silver key up here. Maybe this key will unlock the previous door...except because I just assumed it was locked because when I activate it, it just opens. It leads to a fourway path. It has a spinner on it, as in like in the old RPGs like Dungeon Master and Wizardry. Of all the things to take from that game, they take arguably the most annoying aspect of it.
The area has a lot of doors that need a lot of keys to get by. Fortunately, the silver key opens one of them. This game is weird, it has the illusion of being open, but you've really just got to do a series of predetermined events in order to win. Can you figure out that the developer of this game before and after this did a bunch of RPGs? Bloodwych and the Legend series. You know, games that were interesting, but heavily flawed and unplayable whenever you actually got past the character creation. This is just a weird experiment by a RPG guy disguised as a licensed title. Or a licensed title quickly and crappily made because they had the RPG guy do it. Strange.

This is a button. Who knows what the button will do? It opens a door. Behind the door is another door, locked this time, but also with a bunch of bullets and a teleporter. That teleports me 15 feet back. Mysterious pressure pad it is. That just takes me down to the cross hallway, but lets me know that stairs can go up multiple levels.
I...uh...this puts me in a difficult place. I've got a lot more than three things to obsessively search now, I've got a lot of ground to cover. I don't want to do that. I really don't. I need a break from this, this thing takes like three of the worst design decisions you could take from both RPGs and shooters and just combines them in a way I haven't seen a proper FPS/RPG ever do. I'm at the 2 hour mark and I'm just barely skating by on not just giving up.

*You can, but you do this by left-clicking. You can't move while attacking if you exclusively use the mouse. Times were tough before people figured out how to use a mouse and not suck.

Expansion Pack 1: A-10 Tank Killer - Desert Storm

Name:A-10 Tank Killer: Desert Storm
Number:1
For:A-10 Tank Killer
Year:1991
Publisher:Sierra
Developer:Dynamix
Genre:Flight Simulation
Difficulty:4/5
Time:12 hours

And so, we finish a beautiful chapter in flight simulation history. As we've learned, it was not always this bright and beautiful flower. Like a bird, this game started off unable to fly and almost completely useless, but now, other smaller creatures live in fear of it. That also might as well be a metaphor for the final campaign, Desert Storm. Now, unlike Central Europe, Desert Storm actually happened. This means we can compare how the game plays to the real thing. And I will. I'm also fairly certain that this lasted as long as the real Desert Storm campaign.

We're going to be seeing a lot of each other

Our new CO is Colonel Pitt, he's no non-sense and straight to the point. Or nobody working on the game cared now. Right away I get to hear about two things that are new to this campaign, the marines and SCUD launchers. The former, because we were in an actual war, and the latter because...the developer never heard of it. Probably. The USS Roosevelt* is launching an A-6 Intruder towards the SCUD. I have to clear out any SAM launchers in order for the missile to hit its target. Thanks guys. Why can't you let the marines do that? Oh, wait, they don't actually do anything! Another pilot shall assist me. Which will no doubt cause the marines to snicker in my direction whenever I inevitably lose the first twenty times.

A change of scenery, this sure will be interesting to tak-

WHOA! WHOA! WHOA!

That's one way to get rid of people "accidentally" bombing home base. Its nice to have a different vision below me for once. I check the map for targets. Can you say "metric ton"? There's so many you might as well have sent a Nighthawk in to bomb the SCUDs. Jesus. Soon enough my problems reach a peak, my ally flies directly into the reach of one of the big SAMs. If I ever manage to make a mod for this game, you know exactly what's going to happen to any pilots introduced on the first mission. However, luckily for the dumbass a Blackhawk appears to save them. By save, I mean I have to ensure the Iraqis with their T-62s and rusty AKMs don't turn him into pig chow. I have to add that I love flying over the desert, at least for now.
I start trying to gun down the side targets, and wouldn't you know it, but the SCUD launches. I'm not sure if my crash after can be blamed on my bad flying or knowing there's nothing I can do.

I bet F-15 pilots don't have this problem

Second time around, take out AA guns, easy-peasy. The tanks encircling the A-6? I use up most of my missile allotment, but hey, I don't have to pay for the replacements. The SCUD launcher isn't really trying to get away, who could blame him, he's under SAM cover. Against another plane he'd be safe, but no one is safe from me. Sure, the first time around I lost part of my wing, and tail, but that just gives me a challenge...except I spiral into the ground trying to do a vertical spin.

Third time's the charm. It was beautiful, getting enemy SAMs on my targeting system just long enough for me to hit them, then flying underneath. One missile, one kill on each target. Dodging enemy SAMs like this was a ballet. Beautiful. Beautiful.

So...you're saying we'll be going on a SCUD HUNT?

Mission two, Scud Hunt. In which I hunt SCUDs. I have to figure out where the SCUDs are while dodging the neverending supply of AA the Iraqis have. There are some helicopters in the nearby city too, that I should take out. Its worth pointing out that there are 2 confirmed air kills by an A-10 in Desert Storm. Both against helicopters. Judging by what I know about the A-10, this isn't surprising. Barring a lucky application of 12.7mm ammo they have no way of defending against a plane.

This isn't everything, trust me

I try to pull my previous slick anti-anti-air maneuver, which doesn't work because they stacked their SAMs in such a way that it doesn't work. I manage to find a SCUD, which apparently isn't the primary one, I guess they're bait. Some helicopters I have to take out are fleeing as well, I take them out too. My plane's been heavily damaged, which isn't really good for finding the remaining SAMs. So, I start over and try again.

This time, I'm going to be sneakier. Don't dive like I'm in an action movie. Drop a missile, get out of the way, rush toward the SCUD and the HINDs. That leaves me the other SCUDs. I guess I'd better fly across the northern border for this one. And what do you know, but I find the SCUDs, guarded by a single SAM. Sure, it gets me, but all I have left are some helicopters. Easy. Turn around, get hit by another SAM as I go south. Missing my wing now. I can't go through anymore AA, leaving me in a bit of a pickle as to approaching the city.

Hang on, this wasn't in the briefing

As it turns out, the mission designers were sneaky and added something special to the area. A secret airbase. Complete with a MiG for me to destroy. By the way, killing a MiG? Fiction so far. But then, just because you have a hammer, not everything is a nail. I take my time with this one, using all my fancy munitions. Not completely devastated, but they've had some setbacks now.

That's a question I don't think you'll like the answer to

Going all the way across the map to take out some helicopters with one good wing is not easy. Aiming is also not easy. I suspect I have mentioned this in the past. Its difficult, and I have a few close calls with the ground, but my objectives are finished.

I feel cheated by the ending briefing. Nobody bothers to mention that I destroyed most of an enemy base by myself. The base game would mention it. He's just slobbering over my skill at hitting almost defenseless targets. I feel like Desert Storm is insulting me. The hardest part of this level, when you get down to it, is finding the enemy SCUDs.

Pitt questions the Iraqi military strategy...

...before explaining Iraqi military strategy

Mission 3, Track Town, assist some M1s in recapturing a town. I'm sure it'll be a boatload of enemy tanks that I can really take my time on. Sure, Pitt says more tanks are coming, but I have a pretty good shot at gunning them all down. He continues by asking me to make it as painless as possible for us. Sure.

I'm on the ground again?

I'd say that the strategy the Iraqis are trying to pull is very poor if they don't take out a nearby airfield, but then, it is the Iraqis. Trying to pull a Vietnam is the extent of their strategic brilliance. I've got a fair bit of distance to cover and it doesn't look like I have much time. Looks like a bit of AA, but nothing too troublesome...Helicopters are on the map, I'm guessing they'll be going after friendlies. You have to approach the enemy tanks so that when you go on the attack you're going north or south, so you can gun down the enemy continuously while attacking.

I can save it!

Wow, I didn't realize how bad their air cover really was. Only a single AA gun, the rest just tanks. Guys, you didn't even need to bring the tanks, I got this! See, look at those HINDs that I missed because I was trying to take out all the armor! See? They're shooting at your tanks. Guys? Guys? What's with all the funny smoke? Guys?

Who do they have left? They're all dead!

Round two, this time I'm going to do the same things, but hit them. There's nothing clever I can add to that. Tanks, almost all scrap. HINDs? Gone. A few enemy tanks sneak in and suddenly they're just freaking gunning down all my allies. The game says the mission is over, but I say screw it, there's an allied tank left. So I gun down the rest of the T-62s and, what do you know? Pitt says I secured the town. That's good enough for me, regardless of what the debriefing says.

Sneaky game, trying to pull one on me

What do you know, I won. Got 25 ground vehicles. That's some impressive numbers.

No, not special forces!

Mission four, Teamwork, help a special forces unit infiltrate an enemy base to destroy some hardened hangers. When I said I was good at this game, I meant destroying things. Because effectively the A-10 is an anti-ground platform. I mean, gees, infiltration? I need another 'copter covering me because I'm good, but I'm not THAT good. I have to find some chemical weapons too. That's great. Complete stealth. I'm sure that won't be hard**. You know, pilots of the real A-10 said it was a stealth plane in a pinch, because above a certain height at night it was essentially invisible to ground forces. All of the planes that were downed happened during the day. This mission is during the day, because Dynamix hadn't coded in the night sections yet. I have to wait until Red Baron for that. The game gives me a loadout of all anti-ground ordinance, but I'd be crazy if I didn't suspect I'll need some different stuff after a few tries.

You have more confidence than I do

Make up your mind with the up/down stuff, game. The mission starts off with you speeding towards the target, some ways behind our protected copter. I, quite naturally, speed towards the base so I can take out their SAMs. Some of the MiGs take off. Okay, this time I'll bring a Durandal. Easy. Not as I imagine. But I do get the MiGs after they take off, including one air-to-air kill.***
As an aside, I want to talk about the chemical weapons convey. You know where it is, the enemy knows where it is, nobody's hiding right now. That's it, that's the end of the joke. The secondary objective is basically a timer running in the background. Attempting to figure out what I'm doing wrong in the single mission section reveals that somewhere along the line I seriously screwed up and got the harder than hard version. Its worth pointing out at this point that I have done nothing to indicate that I screwed up anything that would lead to me having to fight MiGs. Did I not do enough damage against the base in the previous mission? This is some real difficult stuff. Not in a good way. You've got to rush through this too. The Blackhawk pilot is as bright as a black hole. He will literally throw himself into the enemies SAMs if they haven't been destroyed.

You can write something for this, but I find a secret base and nothing?

You know, I can't remember when I started Desert Storm. July? Solely because of this. At this point I'm trying to figure out what to do via the mission select and cheating to get everything. I'm still not avoiding losing the other part of the team. You know, in a real war, while there are pilots that will ignore your orders, either by being headstrong or by not hearing you, the pilot of a very vulnerable copter will probably hang back if you tell them to hang back while you clean out the enemy SAMs. Absolute commitment to the pre-planned mission is something that only happened to these kinds of missions in Vietnam. At this point, I have to weigh in whether or not I really need this mission completed to make my life easier.
So, I just don't complete the mission as planned. This game works better when its me against the enemy, and presumably I can take down any future MiGs on my own, or I'll just throw in the town because of the game's garbage. Taking out the convoy isn't any more difficult than any other defenseless ground target. The MiGs want to stay on the ground until the copter is pressed right up against them. At this point the game tells me the mission is over. Technically it is, but I want to see if I can't screw them out of a few tanks at the very least.

I end up biting the loss of an engine on the second SAM launcher. Let me tell you, you don't really want to futz around with your targeting system in a target rich environment under threat of death. We'll say ten minutes of diving the tanks very carefully with a machine gun.

This happened too. I wasn't aware Saddam has alien tech. Eventually, I just give up. Its hard to hit targets when you have to spend a minute getting air.

Have you ever heard of The Emperor's New Clothes?

Pitt whines about my failure. Whether or not I ever really had a chance, I'll leave up to other people, and also anyone who says he can play this game better than myself. He doesn't even give me credit for taking out the convoy. Meanwhile, the mission summary calls it a success. I got as many points as the first mission. Whisky Tango Foxtrot.

Mission five, Sandstorm. Now its time for our regularly scheduled Iraqi asskicking. The ground war has begun, and I'm part of it. In an A-10, of course, with my old friend Captain Stokes. I need to take out the artillery, then provide air support. With special consideration to one group of tanks, they have the only translator in the area. Well, this isn't going to end badly or anything.

You know, we meet each other so many times I'm starting to suspect the writers in this game didn't want to go to the trouble of making another character.

I'm shocked that Stokes gets gunned down like some kind of plot determined death. Hmm, he wants me to follow him slowly, if I race past him will he survive? Yes, he does. This is of some questionable utility, he'll take out some of the artillery. Some. More than he claims he actually has. The mission goes south the second our tanks hit any resistance. Pitt tries to pull the same Lucy crap that Cord used to, but it just isn't the same. Oh, the mission briefing says that the translator is with Task Force 4, but he's really with Task Force 3. This mission pack is such a sierrashow.

I succeed, in a sense. The game tells me its a partial failure. Half my allied tanks were gone, but there wasn't any surviving enemy forces. I was worried for a second, there were a ton of enemy tanks that weren't on the map. Its not really that difficult when you've got the big SAM out of the way. I'm sure I could get it perfectly if I practiced a few more times, but my patience is starting to wear thin if that isn't already apparent.

Mission six, Royal Flush. Time to take on the Republican Guard. Unfortunately, they've built up their defenses while we had limited sorties during a sandstorm. I'm pretty sure that wasn't a concern during the real war, but what do I know, I just read about it after the fact. Their tanks are thusly dug in. Meanwhile I also have to take out their AA...because I'm going to have a wingman taking out their hardened bunkers. Hopefully this time, they'll actually disappear.

They've definitely got a good defense going here. They're in a square grouping, very dense. Unfortunately for them, now I'm on fire, dancing across their AA defenses like a god of war. Of course, a god of war would use the cannon. Now this imitation god of war has to deal with thirty tanks with just a single gun. As it turns out, being dug-in means they're more difficult to kill. Like say, a low angle a certain plane is known for doing when I'm in the cockpit. You'll never guess who hit the ground again.

Second time, it goes well. Once again the AA is demolished, with minor damages. The tanks take out a couple of our platoons, but by and by large they are squashed by my might. I begin mopping up the retreating forces, because that's just what I do. A couple of guys fleeing north through a bridge. No problem. Take out number 1 before he reaches it, but number 2 makes the bridge. No problem I think. I keep missing as the bridge gets closer and closer until...not again.

Would you prefer if I nuked them?

Final attempt, down go the AA, down go one group of our tanks, then down go them all. Once again the game says there are less dug-in tanks than there really are. Eventually it gets to the point where I can nice and leisurely strafe them. Pitt keeps whining about missions with great results. The guy writing him has issues with authority figures.

The final mission, Coup de Grace. Attack Kuwait. By attack, I of course mean, destroy their command post in the city. They have it narrowed to two places, both related to telecommunications. Not any other building where there will be civilian casualties. There's also a mobile command post somewhere. I must do this before their air defenses come in. Knowing my luck, I can get away with a little after. Of course, there's also the usual tank killing business.

Is Cord dead? Did I miss his funeral?

The area has a city in a tiny peninsula almost completely undefended, save by a single line of air and ground defense on its southern border. My primary targets are in close proximity to each other, and no doubt civvie targets. Aircraft are moving in, are they MiGs or are they HINDs? The answer to that question determines if I'm scrap or not. As I advance on one of the SAMs, I encounter a couple of AAs unmentioned on the map. Thanks, Intelligence.
My words about Military Intelligence soon turn from sarcastic to hateful. The city is teeming with AA guns. Someone screwed up somewhere, either by accident or intent. You know, Pitt always did have it out for me. Doesn't impact my destruction of the non-mobile command posts, but I still have to find the mobile one. My luck improves further, their air power is a HIND patrol.

You smell that? That's the smell of victory. Sure, I use a couple of missiles on him instead of just one, but that doesn't cause the enemy to flee any slower. Those HINDs become my first fleeing target. Now its an all you can eat buffet of tanks and AA guns. The AA guns are spicy, so I'll be a bit careful with those. Supply truck? Don't mind if I-That's an ambulance? Uh, don't mind me, I'm just going to take out some AA guns. Armor? All of it gone.

Oh, now you have to go and make me do something else after killing off all the things I had to kill. Another supply truck? Well, I'm already in trouble-that's a lot of trucks. Several runs worth, because going full blast causes the gun to overheat here. That looks like that, I think the marines can manage to take out the AA guns on their own.

Pitt actually congratulates me for a job well done. He doesn't even get upset that I blew up an ambulance. I do think that will affect whether or not I get a medal, however. So, that's that.
I forgot to take a screenshot of my final score. Oh, no, however will anyone know if they're better than me at this game?
Now, let's compare this to the real thing:
[ ] Flying high in the air, outside of SAM and AA range.
[ ] Really dusty desert, obscuring ground visibility.
[ ] Long flights that really get the most out of the A-10. Not really, its more like a standard thing.
[X] Gunning down so many targets they literally save their planes from the boneyard.
[ ] Constant support from friendly planes.
[ ] Your fellow A-10 pilots, helping clean up Saddam.
There you have it, this game is very unrealistic in terms of its depiction of Desert Storm. On the other hand, this is a nearly 30 year old game. You aren't exactly going to feel like you're right there. However, another fun thing I discovered is that the first mission kind of happened later on in the Balkans, except with a F-117 being rescued. This was also made in '90, '91. During the Gulf War.
With that in mind, let's see what points I give it in what categories. Because this is an expansion, categories that don't change from the base game aren't counted.

Enemies:
I think the big improvements are SCUDs and things that seem like enemies but are not. There are also AA guns, which function as a heavily delayed SAM. Its definitely an improvement. 3/10

Levels:
I absolutely hate Teamwork. That is possibly the worst mission in a flight sim I'll ever play for quite some time. I'm including the barely playable games from the early '80s in that. The rest are all fine, but I don't think I'll ever play through the campaign of this one ever again. 6/10

Atmosphere:
I like the desert atmosphere. This kind of 3D is better at doing that compared to say, forests in Germany. It still feels like a simulation though. 4/10

Graphics:
Minor changes, no change from the base game's 3/10.

Story:
I didn't realize how much effort was put into the base game's dialog. It feels lightyears ahead of this. With tons of options I don't think anyone has seen for 20 years. There are only rare touches of this here. 1/10

That's 17 out of 50. If you count the unchanged stuff that would be 31, but we don't. Slightly worse than the base game is a good comparison. Completely missable if you didn't like the base game.

*Big stick Roosevelt, not other one.
**I want to point out that this isn't necessarily the game having crap stealth, I'm just terrible at it.
***As opposed to air-to-takeoff which is how I've been getting all my MiG kills so far.

Game 16: Hellcat Ace

Name:Hellcat Ace
Number:16
Year:1982
Publisher:Microprose
Developer:Microprose
Genre:Flight Sim
Difficulty:3/5
Time:1 hour

The Commodore 64 was far before my time and I never bothered emulating one before now. This is, of course, because of the machine's reputation as an arcade-style game machine, with some text adventures thrown in. This is not entirely true, seeing as the machine has some 10,000 odd games. That's more than the PS2, Wii and DS, currently thought of as the shovelware kings*. Depending on whether or not these games are in a single zip file or not, you could put them on a CD or a DVD. With this in mind, it isn't surprising I've started with the first game on the console according to my list. I have no strong feelings here in either direction.
Hellcat Ace, is of course, the first game of Sid Meier, the American McGee of strategy games. Before F-15, before the '80s were anything but the '70s without disco, flared pants and big ties. I don't really know what people in 1982 thought modern warfare would be like, beyond not Vietnam. I don't really know what it would be like, so WWII seems like a good idea. Remember, this is 1982, so there weren't 100 other WWII games on the market. Not ones where you flew a plane or even felt the action. Of course, this was 1982, where you didn't really know how to make a game for the home market. The manual for the Atari 8-bit computer mentions using two joysticks. Great. That's just what I wanted. I don't have two joysticks, let's just home my joystick with another stick on top does the trick.

I am offered several missions that I'm sure anyone who knows the history of the Pacific front of WWII, but I do not. I know a few of them. Let me try the first mission. Ohf, this is confusing, my joystick isn't doing anything. Maybe I should press the button?

Wow, you can practically hear what score I'm going to give the controls to this game! You're supposed to use two joysticks in this version too, but here's the kicker, joy 1 is effectively joy 2 and joy 2 is effectively joy 1. What this should mean is I should have my keyboard as joystick 1 and my actual joystick as joystick 2. I don't really care though, I don't think it'll effect anything too much. There's also some obnoxious "Japanese" music that I don't know the name of. Okay, let's do this properly this time.

Three bursts of bullets later and I've won the mission. What. More obnoxious music. Next up, Pearl Harbor.

This one is actually troublesome. I couldn't get a bead on him this time, tried speeding up, accidentally bailed. Why do we even need a bailout function in a game this old? Second time? Blamo. Next, Wake Harbor, against a fighter this time. Will it be a challenge?

Once again, the Japanese face defeat in a one-against-one contest in which they never shoot at me. Next, Coral Sea. Ha, nothing but hits. Next...

Oh, this isn't going to be easy, is it?

Wow, that's really lame.

I've given up on trying to give a blow-by-blow of this, each mission is effectively the same. Any difficulty is in wrangling the controls.

Then comes the mission against Admiral Yamamoto. The difficulty thing is not really any different here, except that Yamamoto flies around like a madman and takes more damage than any other plane so far. He actually shoots back. That doesn't change the source of difficulty, that changes the level. We're not really in the good kind of game, really, but this is at least a surprise. Will the next mission offer a similar surprise? No, we're back to the same old. But Leyte Gulf, that says fighterS, plural. Oh, I'm sorry, that was a lie. Iwo Jima, shoot down the Japanese Ace, same freaking thing. Kamikaze, today's Japanese sentence is Massugu Na No Jigoku. Straight to Hell. As in, that fight got sent Massugu Na No Jigoku. The difficulty is ramping up, but that depends on the level setting, not the actual mission.
You know what happens when you win the final mission? It loops. There could be a difference if you beat all the missions in one go. I don't care.

Weapons:
A single gun. 1/10

Enemies:
A single plane. 0/10

Non-Enemies:
None 0/10

Levels:
Despite day and night missions, different altitudes, there's no difference between anything. 0/10

Player Agency:
If 1/4th of your control scheme involves an eject button, even if I'm sure the actual C64 had a more appropriate joystick, you need to fix it. Otherwise, its okay in flight sim terms. 3/10

Interactivity:
None. 0/10

Atmosphere:
None. 0/10

Graphics:
The game looks very weird. The moon turns with you, the plane doesn't look quite right, nor does the horizon. 1/10

Story:
None. 0/10

Sound/Music:
I don't mind the Atari sound effects, but I do mind whatever the godawful music was in this. 0/10

5. That's 5. While I suppose it's more playable than some higher up on the score list, its also less of a shooter.

*Realistically, Windows now kicks the ass of all of them, solely due to Steam. Yeah, there's tons of crap before that, but Steam made it so you could make money off releasing garbage. Actual garbage, not just low-quality crap. But its not really a problem unless you seek it out. If you're a player that is, if you're a developer...