[theme music]
[fizz, sip]
Aahhh!
[typing]
Well, I was looking around for some games
for my Atari ST the other day
and came across the most awesome little gem:
SkyStrike.
There's precious little information on this game,
but I had heard of its authors before:
Aaron and Adam Fothergill.
This version of the game is actually the
updated SkyStrike Plus.
I just made my own disc really quick
I have no idea if it was released at retail or not,
as I've read conflicting stories regarding
Atlantis software and such.
All I know is that the game utilizes rather simple graphics and sound
and was originally created as a demo for the STOS programming kit
by some guys from the UK under the name Shadow software in 1989,
and this Plus version in 1990.
[Atari ST music]
The game starts off with a dandy little tune
and the option to play the game,
read the instruction manual or see the credits.
The manual is an absolute must
and I'm so glad it's included in-game.
Not only does it tell you the completely forgettable backstory,
but also the very pertinent list of controls and game mechanics.
This is a must-read unless you
want to drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out.
Starting the game gives you three options:
the obligatory easy, medium and hard.
These should be pretty self-explanatory
and I chose easy for recording most of this footage,
since it's, well, easier.
You are immediately inducted into the Royal Air Force
and given your objectives for Mission 1.
You start out on the runway in your Mark 14 Supermarine Spitfire
in the year 1946.
If you played Brøderbund's Wings of Fury on the Apple II or other systems,
you'll be right at home.
It's a 2D combat flight game with mostly arcade elements.
The goal is to complete missions by
destroying enemy objects,
avoiding civilian casualties and not dying.
To increase throttle and take off,
you can push right on the joystick
or press between 1 through 9 on the keyboard,
and then press U to retract the undercarriage landing gear
once you're in the air.
And from here, it's all up to you.
The game is completely open and while you have objectives,
you can largely ignore them if you want.
which is unusual for many games of this time.
The joystick button shoots your machine guns,
left plus Fire drops a bomb,
and right plus Fire shoots anti-tank rockets
and of course, hold up and down to pilot your plane.
I'd really recommend just screwing around for a while,
because that's not only incredibly fun,
but it's also kind of required to get a grip on the handling.
Being used to flight sims myself,
holding up and down to climb and decend
or turn counterclockwise and clockwise seems backwards to me.
And there's no way to change it, to my knowledge,
so you'll just have to get used to it.
Or hold the joystick upside-down, but then that makes everything else wrong.
From the start, you'll be shooting down enemy planes
and trust me when I say this is stupidly fun.
This is easily the most fun that I've had on a retro dogfighting game.
You can't see your bullets and there's no way to tell how much ammo remains
or really if you're even shooting.
so you'll have to rely on the sound to know when you are shooting.
Shoot a plane enough times or in the right spots
and you'll knock him out of the sky
with the pilot often escaping by parachute.
But you'll have to pay careful attention
because the same exact thing can happen to you
and various systems will be destroyed,
from guns to fuel lines to the engine or even the wheels.
If you get shot down, you will likely die
and that's the end of the game and you have to start over
and there are no save points.
Old school difficulty.
But you're not dead because your plane is gone.
No, you actually have five planes
and you can still have four left over and have the game end on you.
It's game over because you died.
And you've only got one life.
As long as your pilot is still alive
and you have a spare plane, you can continue playing.
This is just so cool
and is one of the biggest reasons why this game is so rad.
To not die, you'll want to try and land your plane
so you have four options.
Option 1: Bail Out.
No, not the government banking solution.
Press Escape and you'll eject from the cockpit,
flailing around in free fall,
until you open your chute by pressing Return.
If you don't do it in time, well...
Heh heh heh!
Ah, poor little guy.
[sad music]
And yes, the game is made by Englishmen, and it knows it.
Option 2: Crash or Belly Land.
If your wheels are destroyed and you're on the way down
due to a failed engine or other such disability,
it's possible to make a crash landing.
Hopefully you'll survive and hopefully you're in friendly territory.
Option 3: Land Properly at Your Base
This is pretty simple, once you get the hang of it.
But it's extremely hard to do if your plane is shot halfway to hell.
But if you land successfully, you can get repairs
and more ammo and fuel without losing a plane.
And then there's Option 4,
the pansy way out: Auto-Land.
This is only available on Easy and Medium difficulty.
Press A over your base and it will automatically land for you
but detract an increasing amount of points each time.
And that's the gist of the game, but there really is so much more to it.
For instance, one of the biggest reasons to avoid dying,
other than the whole dying thing,
is to earn plane upgrades,
which are shown at the top of the screen.
The often drop from the sky when you complete an objective
and range from more ammo, more fuel,
and aids like repairs and fire extinguishers.
There is also a bonus power-up that sometimes appears
when you fly at very high altitudes.
A UFO will show up and beam you and your plane aboard their ship,
giving you the ability to teleport from danger.
This game... wow!
I swear, this is the most fun that I've had on my Atari ST –
and actually any retro computer game – in ages.
My face was hurting, I was laughing so much at the numerous absurdities,
from the intentional humor in the game
to the unintentional fall gags.
It's too bad it's exclusive to the ST
because it's criminally entertaining and deserves a larger audience.
It's just so fun to go flying around, pushing the limits,
trying to get just *one* more plane before you land for that next mission.
Or bombing the crap out of random mansions, just because you can.
I've even managed to shoot down other planes
with my anti-tank rockets when I ran out of gun ammo.
It's one of those games where you just think to yourself,
I wonder if I can do this.
And then you do it, and then you're smiling
for the next three hours.
For instance, when I realized that the world is completely destructible
and persistent,
with the damage that you do carrying over to the next mission.
I mean, eventually, you won't have a base to go back to
if you don't repair it.
And I still haven't even begun to scratch the surface.
There are 56 freaking missions
and I've only reached Number 6!
You'll have missions where you'll have to bomb buildings,
destroy tanks, take down squadrons,
protect bases to be repaired, and on and on.
It's loads of fun and I cannot recommend it enough.
The only complaints I have are the odd-at-first controls
and the addition of some kind of multiplayer could have been amazing.
There were several other games that were similar,
like the Wings of Fury games,
the later sequel JetStrike,
and even Yomo has some similarities.
But SkyStrike has a very unique and simplified feel
that has not been duplicated in my opinion.
The limitations like no save points
and gameplay is only on one screen at a time
instead of side-scrolling
make it one of a kind experience.
If you could find it in any way at all,
especially if combat flight games interest you,
then by all means, track it down and give it a try.