Crossbow Reviews

7800 Rank: 50th Genre Rank: (Flight Sim) 3rd Awards: 4th Worst Interpretation, 10th Worst Value You Think Ole John is Proud of This Title Screen Now? Pros: The game tries to fool you into thinking you are actually looking at polygons Cons: Not as convincing as Ace of Aces or F-14 as far as simulation goes You'll Feel Awfully Important Behind this Big, Fancy Cockpit. Or is That Inadequate?

Overview: This game is one of three known (airplane) flight simulators made for the Atari 7800 system. In this game you get to pilot the nimble and deadly F-18 a.k.a. Hornet on a series of 4 different missions designed to test your reflexes and dog fighting skills against the enemies which threaten U.S. Freedom and way of life. Take off, avoid collisions with ground, target, and air-based obstacles, refuel if needed, and land to victory. It sure sounds like fun! However, I have a completely different story to tell.

Graphics: This game does feature some of the best graphics the 7800 is able to provide. It is appears as if we are actually looking at polygons! Yes that's right, I didn't studder...Polys! Not many of them but enough to get the job done! And all of this occurring on '84 technology hardware! Don't get too excited. The landscape and ground obstacles are the only things that are polys. The enemy tanks and helicopters are just 2D sprites as near as I can tell. The cockpit is where the whole view of the action is played from and thankfully the cockpit looks pretty decent color wise. So while the landscape looks nice for a 7800 game the rest of the graphics are really sub par. The tanks you shoot at are really barely discernable as being tanks. And the helicopters and jets that come in the later missions look the same and therefore neither really looks like what they should either. The missile graphics are nice but those move so fast you can't really see them. The explosion effect is basically a poof of smoke that consists of maybe 2 frames of animation. The worst explosions are the ones saved for the bomb drop missions. All you get on those is a flash on the screen and the explosion sound to indicate you hit the target. If you miss you see nothing and hear nothing. Colors are horrible in this game. The first mission especially makes this noticeable as the landscape consists of yellow ground with brown cacti and brown mesas sticking up from the ground. The only thing that looks different in color is the hangers and bridges...but they only consist of two colors being white walls and red roofs. The colors improve a tiny bit once you get to the other missions. But only so far as they include blue for water and green for ground you can land on. I would say the best color/graphics scheme is saved for the last mission.

Sound: Well the game has sound. That is about all that can be said. There is a drum cadence that is played at the title screen, however it is forgettable and certainly isn't anything impressive. There is zero music in the game as it only consists of in-game sound effects. For instance you have your basic engine sound that sounds the same as any other engine sound you've heard in any of another dozen Atari games. The missile explosion sound is nice and convincing but still familiar with another Atari game I have played...(Starmaster I think). Otherwise, there is little sound actually in the game. There are no sounds played for the enemy tanks or planes. I will add that the engine sound will get softer or louder depending on how much throttle you have to the engines.

Gameplay: The controls are easy to learn and use in F-18 but you have to be prepared for the fact that this plane doesn't really act like a real plane. More on this later. But basically you do push up to dive and down to climb. Left to go left, right to go right. You do have to use both joystick buttons on the 7800 controller for this game as the right button handles the engine throttle control and the left fires your missiles. Sometimes you have to drop bombs or drop cargo in the game on some missions. This is done by use of one of the difficulty switches. The other difficulty switch controls your ejection seat. Again the missions, while having varied things to do are all basically the same main objective take out all tanks, helicopters, or planes, refuel if needed and drop a bomb or cargo payload on a specific location. The only thing that changes from mission to mission is the scenery and placement of the objectives.

Interpretation: This category is usually reserved for games that are remakes of arcade games we have played. But I also feel this category applies to games that are supposed to be simulations or represent a specific thing, sports games should fall into this also . Well, F-18 fails totally in this account. The main problem isn't the mission objectives or the enemies. The problem is that I simply do not feel like I am flying in a plane at all! The plane does not bank when you turn...it simply moves left or right in a level plane. When you climb or dive the horizon does not change perspective at all! Again the plane is basically moving straight up and down. It actually feels more like your driving a huge 70's Buick Skylark on Ice than flying a plane at all. Enemies possess zero AI as far as I can tell. The tanks will come from either the left or right hand side of the screen...and either stand totally still or move left or right, but they do not shoot at you or even point a turret in your direction. Planes and helicopters are almost exactly the same. Helicopters don't move and stay in one place...but planes will move at least towards you. The helicopters and planes do launch missiles as you, but they never move left or right or even try and dodge your attacks. Another totally unrealistic feature is the fact that we are flying a semi state of the art fighter jet and yet we are only given two weapons? Yeap, there are no machine guns so standard on actual fighter planes. We have 20 of the same exact missile type of which is never explained in the manual. Also knowing when to drop your cargo and bombs is a guessing game. You basically have to take into account how long it takes the item to drop to the target in addition to your speed. But the lack of a real "Drop" indicator just doesn't make sense. All in all the game doesn't feel like a simulation of any kind. It barely feels like an arcade game since there isn't enough action going on either.

Value: Mileage will vary with the game. There isn't a two player mode of any kind. The missions never randomize in that the objectives and enemies are always in the same place each time you play. Once you memorize where all the objectives and enemies are located, then you only have the small task of mastering the planes awkward movements to the controls. It took me only a few days of playing this game to achieve the highest rating. Yes, no score either...just a rank at the end to indicate how poor or awesome you are at flying the mission. In all there is really nothing about this game to make a person pick it up and play it from time to time. If you need this to complete your collection, then by all means pick it up. Otherwise, Ace of Aces or even F-14: Tomcat are better games and more convincing as simulators.





The Only F-18 Hornet Review on the net!:
CV's Atari 7800 Panoramic Froo-Froo: 2.5 out of 5.0 (Weak)



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