Gunship 2000 wins it for me. Got goosebumps just seeing the intro. The game that led me into the Sunday evening 'fear' cos i still had no homework done. Great stuff, thanks Keith!
my funniest story in Gunship 2000 was when my threat indicator caught a mirage and I was WOW, this game even shows the desert mirages...brain pause...OMG, ITS NOT A MIRAGE MIRAGE, ITS A FIGHTER PLANE MIRAGE!!!! cracks me up to this day. :P
Definitely agree on KOTS at #1 also. Man I spent so many years playing that game. It was such a buzz going after aces when they had been spotted near a city. I can still here the tinny "dink" sound when you bomb a airfield shelter even to this day. I know we all have our faves in different orders, but I'm shocked there's no B17 Flying Fortress, F15 Strike Eagle II, Battle Of Britain, WINGS (although arguably not a flight sim) and F29 Retaliator. So many fond memories.
F-18 Interceptor I think was the first flightsim I played on the Amiga...at my friends house, because they had an Amiga 1000...and we only had a C64 at the time...but later both my brother and I got a Amiga 500, and my best flightsim on that was Combat Pilot (F-16 sim...remember getting that for christmas and spending a week just learning to land it....)
This was an excellent video, thank you very much! So glad you included flying under the Golden Gate bridge, it's literally one of the first things everyone does when they first play the game, so funny!
Interceptor with an accelerator card e.g. 030/040 was really neat. F29 with those futuristic weapons was so cool, also really good coding as it could run on a 286.
Thank you, a really nice video for us Amiga enthusiasts ... I personally had one of the first Amiga 1000s that arrived in Italy, bought roundabout because it wasn't yet available in stores. And thanks to this video, I realized that in my memory I confused "CAP" with "F18 Interceptor" ... I played the latter a lot, really fun. Ciao from Italy !!!
You missed the best flight sim game for the Amiga: Falcon! Its missions and gameplay are excellent, but it also offers interactive dogfighting (2 amigas over a serial link). I've actually held tournaments with my friends and it never got boring
I am glad to see those videos. One factor that kept me from enjoying the Amiga is that for a long time I tough the Amiga had mostly platform and arcade games. I am not good at them, and no matter how they look and play, to me they are just 100% frustration and 0% fun, so seeing so many strategy, simulation, etc has been an eye opener!
Good selection, but allowed me to contribute with a few of my own favorites. A-10 Tank Killer, F-15 Strike Eagle 2, B-17 Flying Fortress, F-117A Stealth Fighter 2, Thunderhawk.
Knights of the sky also made me into a flight sim player. The moment you noticed that you actually had improved your skills was an eye opener and encouraged you even more to reach further excellence in the noble art of arial combat. For me , especially in WW1 flight sims.
Didn't have many flight sims for Amiga and didn't even know so many good existed there, but man I spent hours on Red Baron and LHX Attach Chopper on my first "vga" pc. Luckily got Knights of the Sky which indeed was great.
About Knights of the Sky. It was one of my first PC games on my first PC I got in late 1990. (Graduated from a C64 luggable.) After playing for a little while, I noticed that it only ever took one hit to down a plane. I wrote Microprose a letter in the Post (from a high Arctic DEW Line site I was working at), and they sent me the fix on a 3.5" disk. They added the new message, "You winged him!" Whenever you scored a now non fatal hit.
I found Tornado too slow for my A500, that game revealed full potential on MS DOS. But I remember Battle of Britain Their Finest Hour from Lucasfilm, also a good sim.
i love Birds of Prey ! its dynamic battlefield is pretty unique for the time. the planes did have individual differences - especially fliyng the stealth bomber or the VTOL Harrier, as opposed to just a straight forward jet fighter. the cockpits look the same but they are not really cockpits, just a generic dial gauge display
Memory is such a strange animal. I had eight out of ten of these and many others and because at the time the graphics were cutting edge, my memory has almost…. Updated them via rose coloured glasses vision as time has moved on. So while I obviously don’t expect to see todays graphics, it can still be pretty jarring to see games I last saw after buying them so many years ago and I think, wait.. that’s not how they looked! Lol. Some of the brief snippets of theme tunes you played, brought back huge memories as well. As some others have already mentioned, some of my other faves included Armageddon and Thunderhawk.
Cheers man, yes totally agree with you on the rose tinted glasses haha. As for the music, check the dedicated video i did on amiga music - nostalgia overload!!
I forgot all about Reach for the Skies, along with Overlord and Gunship 2000 I think I likely sank my entire youth into those. Their Finest Hour was still the best though.
I don't think it does come down to just nostalgia at all. I'm teleported into these worlds when playing them again in exactly the same way. The low amount of polygons makes for a different feel that just isn't the same as hyper detail. I was playing Midwinter and Powerdrome the other day and they drew me in like nothing else. Less is definitely more for many that still play these so definitely not nostalgia
F-18 Interceptor was the best IMO due to the well designed missions. F-29 holds a place in my heart as the first flight sim I ever played. Thunderhawk was the most addictive amiga flight sim I played though. It broke my F-18 late night playing record of 5am!
Gunship 2000 was great but it was F16 Combat Pilot by Digital Intergration for me. It was that and 3D rendering that pushed me to get a GVP 030 accelerator which made the flight sims famerate nice and smooth. Great look back video.
The Intruders in Vietnam being The Yanks of course, but they try and give some jumped up romanticised idea in cinema that their occupation was such a good thing. Microprose made great games. The Formula 1 game was great too. Some great games there. Thanks Keith.
Occupation? You fail history! If anything it was the communist North Vietnam that invaded and occupied South Vietnam after the Americans had enough of the war and left them fending for themselves. (I'm not American if you haven't figured it out already) Imagine calling the US military presence in South Korea "an occupation"! (probably how the North Koreans would put it too!)
I am sorry to do this but your reply is little lacking detail and sounds asomewhat ideologically propagandistic. The situation in south Vietnam prior to the USA putting troops there was extremely unstable after the installed nationalist extremist there had been brutally oppressive murdering even civilian Buddhists as the us installed autocrat was hardline Catholic There had been an ongoing guerilla insurgency in the south before the war and it was only when the US contrived an excuse with the Gulf of Tonkin incident lie that the NV then sent troops south. Now I am not saying the north Vietnamese weren't aggressors too in some measure , I believe they had invaded Laos earlier, but the Vietnam war is not so black and white. The US were not there to help the south Vietnamese at all and even exacerbated things with propaganda wars making the NV sound far worse than they were and all the usual anti communist rhetoric. It was a larger ideological war the us was engaged in that of capitalism against what communism represented. The treatment of the US of the civilian populace there was as atrocious to say the least with the mass bombing campaigns and massacres of villagers The us were not liberators but we're just fight a proxy war, one which they would eventually lose despite all their massed firepower
I am American but I was a child during the Vietnam War. I don’t know of many Americans whom were all that excited about that war. Please don’t mistake the American people with our leaders, especially LBJ. The best part of the retro computing hobby is the escape we get from politics. At the annual KansasFest Apple ][ gathering we actually brief newcomers to avoid politics as it has no place in the hobby. I believe this approach is wise. We can all play the Germans in the Battle of Britain without being labeled Nazis. It’s simply historically interesting.
Wings and F18 Interceptor were my jam.....until Wing Commander. Then it was space flight sims for me baby! Carrier Command was a good one too but wasn't just a flight sim really. Also, do you remember Hunter?...I never did find a plane to fly. 😔
Wings was great... the remaster is quite decent as well - I love how they made the music for that! Also binged Interceptor as well as Knights of the Sky. Carrier Command was awesome, but I never was really successful back in the day - you should definitely give Carrier Command 2 a try, absolutely worth it. Such a great tribute to the original and far better than Gaea Mission. Hunter was also one of those games I couldn't get enough of. It was a blast having those open worlds with all the vehicles around - loved flying the helos in it. The plane actually doesn't exist in the game (I think I even read somewhere that the 3D model does and someone somehow managed to put it in the game, but it wouldn't react to controls), Paul Holmes wasn't able to really finish it and it got released "as is". He also intended to have a way to rotate the camera which didn't make it, which is why it's always that perspective facing north. Can't find the source of that info anymore, but I think it was an interview with him, could possibly as well have been him commenting on some videos about the game. Quite an interesting story of basically a game that got released unfinished and never got updated in a time where internet wasn't really a thing yet.
Microprose have just released "Tiny Combat Arena" - it's probably of interest to anyone watching this video. it's like a Amiga-era sim for current gen PC hardware. Almost.
There I was thinking - "What?? No Knights of the Sky?" - lo and behold it's first - and much deservingly so - on the list. Spent more hours in this than in any other flight sim for sure. Fond memories of the campaign (but jealous of my PC friends and Red Baron). The other I thought was very good was Birds of Prey (though it ranks lower on your list). I also remember fondly F19 which I had preciously played in my Speecy - absolutely loved the stealth aspect of the campaigns.
I had Dawn Patrol II: Head to Head which as I understand it was still just Dawn Patrol but with modem capability. Anyway, I thoroughly loved that game. In an era where flight sims were common the WW1 theme wasn't much so (only game I had before it for WW1 was KNIGHTS OF THE SKY!!!!!!!!!) and it was such a gem. The way it was laid out like a book and how the missions were like the narrative of that pilot especially the final missions of aviators like Albert Ball it was so compelling. I don't know if it was because I had it on PC or if it was from being an updated release but I do recall my graphics being a little better. And just after I typed this I see you have KoTS at #1. Very nice list! Again the PC version of KoTS looked nicer but it didn't have the same features; I don't think AI aircraft that had rear facing guns ever used them, and I do not think there was ever text feedback on screen when you take damage. Also it had a weird quirk that maybe the Amiga version had or not; 1 bullet was all that was needed to down any aircrat.
Great video Keith. I had a Spectrum back in the day so a bit thin on the ground for 3D flight sims! I would've given my right arm for an Amiga! Just got back into flight sims recently after buying Il 2 Stukov on PC and playing in VR! bBoy have we come a long way!
Nice Trip down memory lane, My personal favorite from the old days was F/A-18 Interceptor for sure. I know this is 3 years old, but you caught me off guard when you said there are no good flight sims these days? Have you tried IL-2 (especially in VR), it feels like you are actually in the plane and I think that title fits what you seem to enjoy. For me personally, nothing beats DCS, I love flying the F/A-18 in it and it is largely due to my days flying it on the Amiga! Thanks again for the video.
Cheers man, I've played DCS a lot but it's nothing like these old sims. IL2 is a classic but was released 22 years ago. There's nothing today that really captured this era of sim, between arcade and simulation. Todays it's one or the other.
omg F/A 18 was the first game my mate and I managed to hook two tvs together and fight one another.. I still remember screaming because missiles were exploding around my fighter..was amazing game.
Just need to say thanks for reminding me of the Birds Of Prey intro - I totally forgot about that! ps I remember seeing F18 being playing in a window in George Henry Lee and my Dad then buying the Batman pack for Christmas - probably my happiest childhood memory! pps Just want to throw in a mention of Their Finest Hour - I played that to death!
I spent so much time with Knights of The Sky, dogfighting german aces, bombing ground installations and convoys, and completing the entire WW1 campaign. I don't know if I remember correctly, but attacking observation balloons was somehow punished by message "You shot an unarmed airman!" - maybe HQ was honorable enough to forbid shooting defenceless enemies :)
Another fun one, especially for modem/serial two player gaming, is the Fighter Duel series. Not a looker in the game department or super deep story wise, but really fun play... And it felt (not saying it was, but it felt to me) realistic for what it was.
I enjoyed that, nice one. I differ with you on a couple of points: Dogfight, maybe I missed the point, but in jet combat I couldn't get near to a dogfight, it was chase the dot! I had such high hopes, still makes me cross. ;-) Also, no Falcon? Now, that had dogfighting, very cool graphics and weapons systems. Any thoughts on Tornado, F16 Combat Pilot and Red Baron? Thanks for the review.
Hmm, sounds like Flight on the Intruder uses the same sound effects as F/A-18 Interceptor. The look of the water is very reminiscent, too. I wonder if there was a licensing agreement going on there...
CAP had simple graphics but it ran so smooth with so many things happening around.. was one of the coolest in amiga...And yes, knights of the sky was my favourite FOREVER, but again, more from what was going on in the game than the graphics.
Good selection there. Microprose always did some good stuff, B17 Flying Fortress was a clever crew management game as well as 'sim'. Spent a LOT of my time in the 90s on 'Their Finest Hour' by Lucasarts myself...
@@Britonbear YES indeed! Superb game but I got to the stage where i was almos scared to take my crew up.. every mission you do they get better BUT... luck has to run out eventually
Wow, had most of them. Notice the 'Must Do' Top Gun roll and backwards camera view with F18 hahaha, yep did that along with flying under bridges. Played through Flight of the Intruder and read the novel that came with it. Wasn't that bad a story, wasn't there a film made too ? But the WW1 sims were the star once played those. Played a game called wings which was more arcade with isometric bombing and strafing run missions between the flying dog fighting patrols. What really got you though was the diary your character wrote as the story progressed and the tally of kills board for the squadron along with the inevitable losses of squadron members. Amazing how remember them so crisp and responsive and cutting edge but now.... Then with the arrival of the PS1 and its 3d games and games that were appearing on the PC dawned the end of that era. Loved that time in gaming where simulations and most games for that matter came with manuals like phone books and was it seemed a competition on who's box could be bigger on the stores shelves. Thanks for the video and refreshing my memories on some of the games there.
F18 Interceptor - Some fun stuff: Ejecting is always successful, even if you're flying upside-down, only ten feet off the ground. You get fired straight into the ground and somehow live. You can land on the water or even land the plane upside-down, but you won't be able to take off again. On the other hand, you can't land on bridges, you just fall right through them. There's a height limit to the game and you just stop when you hit it. fly straight up and at a certain point, you'll just stop moving. Go to an external view and fire some missiles. They'll just sort of float away from your plane. Dogfight - I remember not liking this at all. My memory of it is that the feel of it sucked. At least that was my opinion, compared to the likes of F18 Interceptor and Falcon.
Thank you. I remember all those games. I even remember dam busters, ace 1 and ace 2 on the c64 😂. I've always loved flight sims, and i agree they dont make any good ones any more. Why is it like that? The one from amiga i played the most must have been birds of prey.
My Favorite at that Time was F-16 Combat Pilot. The Gameplay and Planing of the Campaign was Fun. First Sortie with Harms and take out the EWR. After that the enemy Planes are out of the Picture. Next the Airfields and then.... That Playingfield was better than DCS.
The only real flightsimulator for the Amiga is in my opinion Tornado from Digital intergration. No other flightsim comes close to it's level of realism of the avionics, weapon systems and the way the aircraft is used. It's only downside is that even the Amiga A4000 couldn't run it with all graphic options on full.
The worst part was that the Amiga version did not have the Command part, the dynamic campaign. A big reason why I got a PC instead. But it was the greatest flight sim on the Amiga, no doubt. I still have the manual in the book shelf :)
There was a another "real" flight simulator that most probably never knew it even exists at all. Look up "Jet Pilot", it's from 1996 when most people have already switched over to PC. I also discovered it really late, just a few years ago... Kinda feels like the DCS of that time. Insanely good level of simulating systems. Never managed to get an analog stick to work with it in WinUAE though when I tried it...
Combat air patrol is very underrated. It also looked very nice on the Amiga at the time. Yeah there were better looking flight sims at the time but not on the Amiga. Also if you had a fast enough Amiga and turned all gfx options to max it was better than decent
Thanks for the great video! Really surprised you did not have Falcon listed, as I always thought that was the most advanced flight sim for the Amiga. Did you ever get a chance to play it?
I agree Knights of the Sky is pretty special, one of my favourites too. Lots of character and personality. What did you think of B17 Flying Fortress as that didn’t make the cut on your top ten?
That would have been my #1 with KOTS 2nd : ) I later played the PC version which was asthetically better but never got that same feeling back from the Amiga version. Trying to get your 10 men home and giving them medals. It really was awesome.
Flight sims have certainly become more of a niche genre, but I would argue the few that have been released are certainly worth playing - have you seen the latest Microsoft Flight Simulator/the preview for MSFS 2023? As an aside, I'm not really a flight sim guy, I've only messed around with them a bit over the years, but still.
I remember playing a ton of these games on pc and heard that amiga graphics were much better...I never bit the bullet and bought one, glad I didn't lol....
i see rowan made a lot of sims for amiga. coincidentially, one of the sims i've liked the most in my life comes from them, but on dos. "Air Power" it was called, and t was set in an alternative world where aircraft carriers would be giant zeppelins, instead of ships. The sim included a solid strategy part, where the player would pick one of four sides and perform diplomacy and/or assign combat tasks. he would then go on and fly these missions. All the technology was similar to what we had on earth between the 1920ies and the 1930ies. dogfights were absolutely spectacular, and the strategic part gave you a firm sense of purpose, and progression, in the missions you flew. Pity that this sim had its shares of problems, and didn't receive much attention from the public (consoles were already starting to make their devilish job of destroying gaming) Also, Microsoft copied "air power" almost completely and made a hit with the later "Crimson Skies" (never liked it much).
@@michaelholmes7147 yes the Tandy DOS version is great, hard to find the physical copies of such. unfortunately Falcon AT on msdos which also had more colour, is i find terrible in comparison to the the first Falcon game - its distance at which objects are visible is much shorter and the plane movement much choppier, it makes firing mavericks impossible to do unless you are right on the target which is quite unrealistic, and also very hard to line up for bombing when you the plane lacks fine movements
@@divinuminfernum yes you are right concerning Falcon AT. Even to this day trying to find the right CPU cycle setting in DOSBox is trickier than the first Falcon in order to play around with it at all.
@@michaelholmes7147 i have tried alot too but i suspect it was always choppy, perhaps some things were taken out to make room for the colour graphic options and slightly improved sound (very slightly) Perhaps the back then people didnt expect smooth frame rates in any case - just check out the dos game "Sands of Fire" from 360pacific, its frame rate is locked at around 2fps so i still go back to Falcon 1 often, sometimes the dosbox settings i set work perfectly for it, other times i need to tweak things again, and then also in hte game itself there are settings to speed up and slow it down as well as the fligth sensitivity settings. Probably the only real gripe i have with Falcon 1 is the fuel consumption just goes so quickly that its hard to do much before the warnings of low fuel start.
I have been trying to find an Amiga helicopter sim that i had for the longest time. The only thing i remember is i had to type "key" to get the power on to the cockpit
That's a great game but only one game. Back in the early 90's we had so many top flight sims to choose from, they were glorious days. The flight sim scene from those days is completely gone.
Exactly my thoughts ... And let's not forget IL-2 Sturmovik BOX, Rise of Flight and good old yet legendary IL-2 1946 just to mention the Creme de la Creme imho. Flight Sims might have decreased in number but seeing the giant leaps in graphical quality, depth and realism is like a dream come true for a kid of the 80ies and 90ies.
@@Air-Striegler Coming from F/A-18 Interceptor to flying the Hornet in DCS in VR is quite a journey! And I agree those flight sims are great, but especially with DCS, they're all more hardcore sims that you really need to spend a lot of time on to get something done, which can be a lot of fun in itself, but it's different to the sims of the 90s. Back then many of those nailed that getting the right spot between a "sim as real as it gets" and "just a game", and many of those had their own special charm with the menu screens and how they tried to tell the campaign story in some cases even which totally isn't even remotely the same anymore nowadays. I often see myself firing up some 90s flight sim for a "quick fix", but if I can dump 2-3 hours and want the full immersion, it's DCS all the way.
flight of the intruder is great - the dos version is fine but i just wish wish wish it had he kind of sound quality that the amiga had, as its sound is a but painful on the air
Too bad you missed out on Battlehawks 1942, Battle of Britain (BOB, Successor to Battlehawks), F16 Combat Pilot, F16 Falcon. Unless you have, give them a try. GS2000 was fun, used to hide in the railroad tunnels :o) Played lots of Interceptor in the days, now if i want to get my kicks, i start DCSWorld and spend 15 minutes getting a plane started, and then hear the afterburner roar as i take off from Groom lake, pretending to be a test pilot for the YF17 project.
Don't know some of them (especially those Rowan ones; for some reason I just missed them completely) but from those that you have there I'd say (after having spent quite a decent amount of time on it) that Birds of Prey is not really something you'd call a decent simulator. Of course, the planes differ a bit but a very small bit (like some general parameters like thrust/mass/speed/loading and that's all) so it's more like a fancy arcade. Similarily arcadeish game Dogfight is IMHO equaly not worthy of being mentioned as one of the top 10. OTOH you're definitely missing F-16 Combat Pilot and maybe Red Baron or A-10.
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Gunship 2000 wins it for me. Got goosebumps just seeing the intro. The game that led me into the Sunday evening 'fear' cos i still had no homework done. Great stuff, thanks Keith!
haha ... i remember that feeling too well
my funniest story in Gunship 2000 was when my threat indicator caught a mirage and I was WOW, this game even shows the desert mirages...brain pause...OMG, ITS NOT A MIRAGE MIRAGE, ITS A FIGHTER PLANE MIRAGE!!!! cracks me up to this day. :P
Is there anyone who didn't immediately try to fly under the Golden Gate Bridge in F/A 18? Thanks for the nostalgia trip!
B17 Flying Fortress was up there surely, flight sim, crew management, full missions to and from Germany.
Fighter bomber was great too.
Definitely agree on KOTS at #1 also. Man I spent so many years playing that game. It was such a buzz going after aces when they had been spotted near a city. I can still here the tinny "dink" sound when you bomb a airfield shelter even to this day.
I know we all have our faves in different orders, but I'm shocked there's no B17 Flying Fortress, F15 Strike Eagle II, Battle Of Britain, WINGS (although arguably not a flight sim) and F29 Retaliator. So many fond memories.
F-18 Interceptor I think was the first flightsim I played on the Amiga...at my friends house, because they had an Amiga 1000...and we only had a C64 at the time...but later both my brother and I got a Amiga 500, and my best flightsim on that was Combat Pilot (F-16 sim...remember getting that for christmas and spending a week just learning to land it....)
WINGS was my favourite then it was knights of the sky.
I loved Wings also. I managed to get to the end back in the day. The PC remaster is pretty nice too.
This was an excellent video, thank you very much! So glad you included flying under the Golden Gate bridge, it's literally one of the first things everyone does when they first play the game, so funny!
F/A 18 Interceptor was my favourite back in the day, superb game. No honourable mention for F29 Retaliator? I really liked it!
Interceptor with an accelerator card e.g. 030/040 was really neat. F29 with those futuristic weapons was so cool, also really good coding as it could run on a 286.
I loved F/A 18 Interceptor. From memory I think it was bundled with an Amiga 500 I bought.
Thank you, a really nice video for us Amiga enthusiasts ... I personally had one of the first Amiga 1000s that arrived in Italy, bought roundabout because it wasn't yet available in stores. And thanks to this video, I realized that in my memory I confused "CAP" with "F18 Interceptor" ... I played the latter a lot, really fun.
Ciao from Italy !!!
Fantastic overview!
The moving tailerons of the F-14 in Combat Air Patrol (from your video) were pretty advanced for 1993!
You missed the best flight sim game for the Amiga: Falcon! Its missions and gameplay are excellent, but it also offers interactive dogfighting (2 amigas over a serial link). I've actually held tournaments with my friends and it never got boring
A lot of games I used to love on this list. The one missing game is Their finest hour, and possible B-17 flying fortress :)
I am glad to see those videos. One factor that kept me from enjoying the Amiga is that for a long time I tough the Amiga had mostly platform and arcade games. I am not good at them, and no matter how they look and play, to me they are just 100% frustration and 0% fun, so seeing so many strategy, simulation, etc has been an eye opener!
Good selection, but allowed me to contribute with a few of my own favorites.
A-10 Tank Killer, F-15 Strike Eagle 2, B-17 Flying Fortress, F-117A Stealth Fighter 2, Thunderhawk.
Fellow Dub here living in the States. Great content. Love the channel. Amiga obsessed as a kid.
F18 Interceptor: The very best Flight Simulator I've ever played!
F18 interceptor - Many hours of fun as a kid, Best game !
Great collection of games. I'd also like to see WW1 Wings and F117A.
Nice video!
KotS was also one of my favourite Flight Sims. But I loved "Their finest hour".
Knights of the sky also made me into a flight sim player. The moment you noticed that you actually had improved your skills was an eye opener and encouraged you even more to reach further excellence in the noble art of arial combat. For me , especially in WW1 flight sims.
I had all your top 10. including lots more. Flightsims where my thing back then, so bought them all.
Didn't have many flight sims for Amiga and didn't even know so many good existed there, but man I spent hours on Red Baron and LHX Attach Chopper on my first "vga" pc. Luckily got Knights of the Sky which indeed was great.
About Knights of the Sky. It was one of my first PC games on my first PC I got in late 1990. (Graduated from a C64 luggable.) After playing for a little while, I noticed that it only ever took one hit to down a plane. I wrote Microprose a letter in the Post (from a high Arctic DEW Line site I was working at), and they sent me the fix on a 3.5" disk. They added the new message, "You winged him!" Whenever you scored a now non fatal hit.
Interceptor was amazing. I forgot about flying under that red bridge (we used to always call it the Golden Gates Bridge).
It actually is the Golden Gate Bridge.
Thunderhawk and Fighter Bomber also worth a mention
Jetpilot, Birds of Prey, Tornado, GS2000. Those are the serious simulations of the time.
Yes! + Falcon
@@aldoskyz8 : Falcon + Tornado, from "Digital Intergration" were absolutely epic, for the time.
I found Tornado too slow for my A500, that game revealed full potential on MS DOS. But I remember Battle of Britain Their Finest Hour from Lucasfilm, also a good sim.
i love Birds of Prey ! its dynamic battlefield is pretty unique for the time. the planes did have individual differences - especially fliyng the stealth bomber or the VTOL Harrier, as opposed to just a straight forward jet fighter. the cockpits look the same but they are not really cockpits, just a generic dial gauge display
Memory is such a strange animal. I had eight out of ten of these and many others and because at the time the graphics were cutting edge, my memory has almost…. Updated them via rose coloured glasses vision as time has moved on. So while I obviously don’t expect to see todays graphics, it can still be pretty jarring to see games I last saw after buying them so many years ago and I think, wait.. that’s not how they looked! Lol. Some of the brief snippets of theme tunes you played, brought back huge memories as well.
As some others have already mentioned, some of my other faves included Armageddon and Thunderhawk.
Cheers man, yes totally agree with you on the rose tinted glasses haha. As for the music, check the dedicated video i did on amiga music - nostalgia overload!!
Keith, you forgot Falcon!!
I never got into Falcon on Amiga, I loved Falcon 4.0 on PC though
I forgot all about Reach for the Skies, along with Overlord and Gunship 2000 I think I likely sank my entire youth into those. Their Finest Hour was still the best though.
I don't think it does come down to just nostalgia at all. I'm teleported into these worlds when playing them again in exactly the same way. The low amount of polygons makes for a different feel that just isn't the same as hyper detail. I was playing Midwinter and Powerdrome the other day and they drew me in like nothing else. Less is definitely more for many that still play these so definitely not nostalgia
For me its TORNADO, love it even today
F-18 Interceptor was the best IMO due to the well designed missions. F-29 holds a place in my heart as the first flight sim I ever played. Thunderhawk was the most addictive amiga flight sim I played though. It broke my F-18 late night playing record of 5am!
Never had an Amiga but I greatly enjoyed seeing your list. I did play some of those games on PC DOS however!
Awesome! My favorit Amiga flight sims are Air Combat Patrol, Gunship 2000, F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter 2.0 and Knight of the Sky.
Loved Reach for the skies, but Gunship 2000 was the ultimate game on the Amiga for me. Lost entire days on that as a kid.
Gunship 2000 was great but it was F16 Combat Pilot by Digital Intergration for me.
It was that and 3D rendering that pushed me to get a GVP 030 accelerator which made the flight sims famerate nice and smooth.
Great look back video.
The Intruders in Vietnam being The Yanks of course, but they try and give some jumped up romanticised idea in cinema that their occupation was such a good thing.
Microprose made great games. The Formula 1 game was great too.
Some great games there. Thanks Keith.
Occupation? You fail history!
If anything it was the communist North Vietnam that invaded and occupied South Vietnam after the Americans had enough of the war and left them fending for themselves.
(I'm not American if you haven't figured it out already)
Imagine calling the US military presence in South Korea "an occupation"! (probably how the North Koreans would put it too!)
I am sorry to do this but your reply is little lacking detail and sounds asomewhat ideologically propagandistic.
The situation in south Vietnam prior to the USA putting troops there was extremely unstable after the installed nationalist extremist there had been brutally oppressive murdering even civilian Buddhists as the us installed autocrat was hardline Catholic
There had been an ongoing guerilla insurgency in the south before the war and it was only when the US contrived an excuse with the Gulf of Tonkin incident lie that the NV then sent troops south. Now I am not saying the north Vietnamese weren't aggressors too in some measure , I believe they had invaded Laos earlier, but the Vietnam war is not so black and white. The US were not there to help the south Vietnamese at all and even exacerbated things with propaganda wars making the NV sound far worse than they were and all the usual anti communist rhetoric. It was a larger ideological war the us was engaged in that of capitalism against what communism represented. The treatment of the US of the civilian populace there was as atrocious to say the least with the mass bombing campaigns and massacres of villagers
The us were not liberators but we're just fight a proxy war, one which they would eventually lose despite all their massed firepower
I am American but I was a child during the Vietnam War. I don’t know of many Americans whom were all that excited about that war. Please don’t mistake the American people with our leaders, especially LBJ.
The best part of the retro computing hobby is the escape we get from politics. At the annual KansasFest Apple ][ gathering we actually brief newcomers to avoid politics as it has no place in the hobby. I believe this approach is wise.
We can all play the Germans in the Battle of Britain without being labeled Nazis. It’s simply historically interesting.
Wings and F18 Interceptor were my jam.....until Wing Commander. Then it was space flight sims for me baby!
Carrier Command was a good one too but wasn't just a flight sim really.
Also, do you remember Hunter?...I never did find a plane to fly. 😔
Wings was great... the remaster is quite decent as well - I love how they made the music for that!
Also binged Interceptor as well as Knights of the Sky.
Carrier Command was awesome, but I never was really successful back in the day - you should definitely give Carrier Command 2 a try, absolutely worth it. Such a great tribute to the original and far better than Gaea Mission.
Hunter was also one of those games I couldn't get enough of. It was a blast having those open worlds with all the vehicles around - loved flying the helos in it.
The plane actually doesn't exist in the game (I think I even read somewhere that the 3D model does and someone somehow managed to put it in the game, but it wouldn't react to controls), Paul Holmes wasn't able to really finish it and it got released "as is". He also intended to have a way to rotate the camera which didn't make it, which is why it's always that perspective facing north. Can't find the source of that info anymore, but I think it was an interview with him, could possibly as well have been him commenting on some videos about the game. Quite an interesting story of basically a game that got released unfinished and never got updated in a time where internet wasn't really a thing yet.
Their Finest Hour The Battle of Britain ? A-10 Tank Killer ?
good games, but not top ten good \m/
Maybe he didn't have an A1200 or a PIMPED A500? A-10 = A HOG! = 7-10 frames onna' vanilla A1200!
@@dallesamllhals9161 I had an Amiga 3000, the F-18 Interceptor ran super fast 😉
Microprose have just released "Tiny Combat Arena" - it's probably of interest to anyone watching this video. it's like a Amiga-era sim for current gen PC hardware. Almost.
Totally worth it!
Same with Carrier Command 2 BTW.
@@CakePrincessCelestia CC2 is pretty awesome. Love that game.
There I was thinking - "What?? No Knights of the Sky?" - lo and behold it's first - and much deservingly so - on the list. Spent more hours in this than in any other flight sim for sure. Fond memories of the campaign (but jealous of my PC friends and Red Baron). The other I thought was very good was Birds of Prey (though it ranks lower on your list). I also remember fondly F19 which I had preciously played in my Speecy - absolutely loved the stealth aspect of the campaigns.
I had Dawn Patrol II: Head to Head which as I understand it was still just Dawn Patrol but with modem capability. Anyway, I thoroughly loved that game. In an era where flight sims were common the WW1 theme wasn't much so (only game I had before it for WW1 was KNIGHTS OF THE SKY!!!!!!!!!) and it was such a gem. The way it was laid out like a book and how the missions were like the narrative of that pilot especially the final missions of aviators like Albert Ball it was so compelling. I don't know if it was because I had it on PC or if it was from being an updated release but I do recall my graphics being a little better.
And just after I typed this I see you have KoTS at #1. Very nice list!
Again the PC version of KoTS looked nicer but it didn't have the same features; I don't think AI aircraft that had rear facing guns ever used them, and I do not think there was ever text feedback on screen when you take damage.
Also it had a weird quirk that maybe the Amiga version had or not; 1 bullet was all that was needed to down any aircrat.
Birds of Prey was my go to game I loved it and still have it..F-117 was great too
Great video Keith. I had a Spectrum back in the day so a bit thin on the ground for 3D flight sims! I would've given my right arm for an Amiga! Just got back into flight sims recently after buying Il 2 Stukov on PC and playing in VR! bBoy have we come a long way!
Nice Trip down memory lane, My personal favorite from the old days was F/A-18 Interceptor for sure. I know this is 3 years old, but you caught me off guard when you said there are no good flight sims these days? Have you tried IL-2 (especially in VR), it feels like you are actually in the plane and I think that title fits what you seem to enjoy. For me personally, nothing beats DCS, I love flying the F/A-18 in it and it is largely due to my days flying it on the Amiga! Thanks again for the video.
Cheers man, I've played DCS a lot but it's nothing like these old sims. IL2 is a classic but was released 22 years ago. There's nothing today that really captured this era of sim, between arcade and simulation. Todays it's one or the other.
omg F/A 18 was the first game my mate and I managed to hook two tvs together and fight one another.. I still remember screaming because missiles were exploding around my fighter..was amazing game.
F-29 Retaliator, Fighter Bomber and Falcon were my personal favourites back in the days.
Gunship 2000 or F19 Stealth Fighter for me. Microprose were probably my favourite game company.
5:09 What does IBM PC or compatible mean? ;-D
GREAT list! Just B17 Flying Fortress(1992) missing.
Flight of the Intruder was awesome with system link. Many hours were lost being each other wingman 👌
Just need to say thanks for reminding me of the Birds Of Prey intro - I totally forgot about that!
ps I remember seeing F18 being playing in a window in George Henry Lee and my Dad then buying the Batman pack for Christmas - probably my happiest childhood memory!
pps Just want to throw in a mention of Their Finest Hour - I played that to death!
Their Finest Hour was incredible too. I had but forgotten that one!
good choice, I 'm agree... maybe f18 interceptor first or number 2
My favorite thing to do in FOTI was CAP with an A6 - I'd load it up with rocket pods and hunt MiGs that way :D
I spent so much time with Knights of The Sky, dogfighting german aces, bombing ground installations and convoys, and completing the entire WW1 campaign. I don't know if I remember correctly, but attacking observation balloons was somehow punished by message "You shot an unarmed airman!" - maybe HQ was honorable enough to forbid shooting defenceless enemies :)
Another fun one, especially for modem/serial two player gaming, is the Fighter Duel series. Not a looker in the game department or super deep story wise, but really fun play... And it felt (not saying it was, but it felt to me) realistic for what it was.
Wings was great too, fun game indeed.
I enjoyed that, nice one. I differ with you on a couple of points: Dogfight, maybe I missed the point, but in jet combat I couldn't get near to a dogfight, it was chase the dot! I had such high hopes, still makes me cross. ;-) Also, no Falcon? Now, that had dogfighting, very cool graphics and weapons systems. Any thoughts on Tornado, F16 Combat Pilot and Red Baron? Thanks for the review.
Total agreement with you on Falcon. It should be #1, as opposed not even being on the list.
Hmm, sounds like Flight on the Intruder uses the same sound effects as F/A-18 Interceptor. The look of the water is very reminiscent, too. I wonder if there was a licensing agreement going on there...
We used to link up 2 Atari St's and play Flight of the Intruder, good times 👍
CAP had simple graphics but it ran so smooth with so many things happening around.. was one of the coolest in amiga...And yes, knights of the sky was my favourite FOREVER, but again, more from what was going on in the game than the graphics.
Good selection there. Microprose always did some good stuff, B17 Flying Fortress was a clever crew management game as well as 'sim'. Spent a LOT of my time in the 90s on 'Their Finest Hour' by Lucasarts myself...
Not a flight sim but have you tried Bomber Crew? Takes multi-tasking to another level, I almost gave up at the tutorial stage.
@@Britonbear YES indeed! Superb game but I got to the stage where i was almos scared to take my crew up.. every mission you do they get better BUT... luck has to run out eventually
@@edwilson5727 I know what you mean. I went back after a break and I still haven't loaded my main save as I'm still getting back up to speed. ;-)
F-16 Combat Pilot
Most realistic flightsim on the Amiga!
Also would mention Wings as the best WWI pilot game.
Wow, had most of them. Notice the 'Must Do' Top Gun roll and backwards camera view with F18 hahaha, yep did that along with flying under bridges. Played through Flight of the Intruder and read the novel that came with it. Wasn't that bad a story, wasn't there a film made too ? But the WW1 sims were the star once played those. Played a game called wings which was more arcade with isometric bombing and strafing run missions between the flying dog fighting patrols. What really got you though was the diary your character wrote as the story progressed and the tally of kills board for the squadron along with the inevitable losses of squadron members. Amazing how remember them so crisp and responsive and cutting edge but now.... Then with the arrival of the PS1 and its 3d games and games that were appearing on the PC dawned the end of that era. Loved that time in gaming where simulations and most games for that matter came with manuals like phone books and was it seemed a competition on who's box could be bigger on the stores shelves. Thanks for the video and refreshing my memories on some of the games there.
F18 Interceptor - Some fun stuff: Ejecting is always successful, even if you're flying upside-down, only ten feet off the ground. You get fired straight into the ground and somehow live. You can land on the water or even land the plane upside-down, but you won't be able to take off again. On the other hand, you can't land on bridges, you just fall right through them. There's a height limit to the game and you just stop when you hit it. fly straight up and at a certain point, you'll just stop moving. Go to an external view and fire some missiles. They'll just sort of float away from your plane.
Dogfight - I remember not liking this at all. My memory of it is that the feel of it sucked. At least that was my opinion, compared to the likes of F18 Interceptor and Falcon.
Thank you. I remember all those games. I even remember dam busters, ace 1 and ace 2 on the c64 😂. I've always loved flight sims, and i agree they dont make any good ones any more. Why is it like that? The one from amiga i played the most must have been birds of prey.
My Favorite at that Time was F-16 Combat Pilot. The Gameplay and Planing of the Campaign was Fun. First Sortie with Harms and take out the EWR. After that the enemy Planes are out of the Picture. Next the Airfields and then.... That Playingfield was better than DCS.
@counterair173 Afraid so.
awesome to see also Reach for the Skies on the list, as its a largely forgotten battle of britain flight sim, but a good solid one i think
True, it's such a classic
Well, it was an AMIGA game first...x86 port later. Might be why?
The only real flightsimulator for the Amiga is in my opinion Tornado from Digital intergration. No other flightsim comes close to it's level of realism of the avionics, weapon systems and the way the aircraft is used. It's only downside is that even the Amiga A4000 couldn't run it with all graphic options on full.
The worst part was that the Amiga version did not have the Command part, the dynamic campaign. A big reason why I got a PC instead. But it was the greatest flight sim on the Amiga, no doubt.
I still have the manual in the book shelf :)
There was a another "real" flight simulator that most probably never knew it even exists at all. Look up "Jet Pilot", it's from 1996 when most people have already switched over to PC. I also discovered it really late, just a few years ago... Kinda feels like the DCS of that time. Insanely good level of simulating systems. Never managed to get an analog stick to work with it in WinUAE though when I tried it...
Combat air patrol is very underrated. It also looked very nice on the Amiga at the time. Yeah there were better looking flight sims at the time but not on the Amiga. Also if you had a fast enough Amiga and turned all gfx options to max it was better than decent
Some other good games are F-16 Combat Pilot, F-15 Strike Eagle 2, and TFX
I played TFX on Pc and loved it, wasn't it terrible on Amiga?
I remember it was promoted so much at the end of the Amigas life as a saviour of the system, almost the way Shenmue was promoted for the Dreamcast
@@cruachankeith TFX runs decently on a 06 system.
@@cruachankeith the Amiga version was AGA and impressive...
@@Trikipum - but not on standard Amiga's, it ran like a dog on an A1200, you needed to massively upgrade your amiga to get it playing
Thanks for the great video! Really surprised you did not have Falcon listed, as I always thought that was the most advanced flight sim for the Amiga. Did you ever get a chance to play it?
I loved gunship 2000 and F18, European Air War was a good successor to RFTS.
KOTS same for me loved it.
F29 retaliator? Nice video, thanks
I agree Knights of the Sky is pretty special, one of my favourites too. Lots of character and personality. What did you think of B17 Flying Fortress as that didn’t make the cut on your top ten?
I had it back in the day but it never clicked with me
That would have been my #1 with KOTS 2nd : ) I later played the PC version which was asthetically better but never got that same feeling back from the Amiga version. Trying to get your 10 men home and giving them medals. It really was awesome.
CAP was great for 2 Player as well - First Flightsim I used a serial cable to connect 2 Amiga's to shoot my neighbour countless times :)
Flight sims have certainly become more of a niche genre, but I would argue the few that have been released are certainly worth playing - have you seen the latest Microsoft Flight Simulator/the preview for MSFS 2023? As an aside, I'm not really a flight sim guy, I've only messed around with them a bit over the years, but still.
I remember playing a ton of these games on pc and heard that amiga graphics were much better...I never bit the bullet and bought one, glad I didn't lol....
The one that you could choose any fighter plane and it was a stand off dogfight and there was a grid with only green floor and blue sky
My number 1 was B17 Flying Fortress
do you remember "EPIC"... space flight sims... my favorite one, it was like a movie for me.
ALAS! "flight sim"? Frontier: Elite II on a 1200 was pretty "WOOOAAUW" here :-)
F/A-18 Interceptor was great.
Yeah!
Nr.4 and the Bridge!
Nr.2 was also good, but Nr.1 was way ahead of everything....it may be comparable to the release of World of Warcraft.
And what about B17 flying fortress? Played it endlessly. Oh and Megafortress....
i see rowan made a lot of sims for amiga.
coincidentially, one of the sims i've liked the most in my life comes from them, but on dos.
"Air Power" it was called, and t was set in an alternative world where aircraft carriers would be giant zeppelins, instead of ships.
The sim included a solid strategy part, where the player would pick one of four sides and perform diplomacy and/or assign combat tasks. he would then go on and fly these missions.
All the technology was similar to what we had on earth between the 1920ies and the 1930ies.
dogfights were absolutely spectacular, and the strategic part gave you a firm sense of purpose, and progression, in the missions you flew.
Pity that this sim had its shares of problems, and didn't receive much attention from the public (consoles were already starting to make their devilish job of destroying gaming)
Also, Microsoft copied "air power" almost completely and made a hit with the later "Crimson Skies" (never liked it much).
I remember that game well, was one of my favourites when i moved from amiga to pc :)
You forgot Jet Pilot ?
I'm surprised Sublogic Flight Simulator II wasn't on the list.
Falcon was pretty awesome Amiga, wth expansions, better sound, better graphics than what Dos could offer.
Falcon on the Amiga graphically put the IBM PC version to shame. There was however a nicely enhanced version for the Tandy DOS systems.
@@michaelholmes7147 yes the Tandy DOS version is great, hard to find the physical copies of such. unfortunately Falcon AT on msdos which also had more colour, is i find terrible in comparison to the the first Falcon game - its distance at which objects are visible is much shorter and the plane movement much choppier, it makes firing mavericks impossible to do unless you are right on the target which is quite unrealistic, and also very hard to line up for bombing when you the plane lacks fine movements
@@divinuminfernum yes you are right concerning Falcon AT. Even to this day trying to find the right CPU cycle setting in DOSBox is trickier than the first Falcon in order to play around with it at all.
@@michaelholmes7147 i have tried alot too but i suspect it was always choppy, perhaps some things were taken out to make room for the colour graphic options and slightly improved sound (very slightly) Perhaps the back then people didnt expect smooth frame rates in any case - just check out the dos game "Sands of Fire" from 360pacific, its frame rate is locked at around 2fps
so i still go back to Falcon 1 often, sometimes the dosbox settings i set work perfectly for it, other times i need to tweak things again, and then also in hte game itself there are settings to speed up and slow it down as well as the fligth sensitivity settings. Probably the only real gripe i have with Falcon 1 is the fuel consumption just goes so quickly that its hard to do much before the warnings of low fuel start.
Mig29 was great I used to play that on my ste
I have been trying to find an Amiga helicopter sim that i had for the longest time. The only thing i remember is i had to type "key" to get the power on to the cockpit
What about Thunderhawk from Core :)
Flight Sims aren’t so great anymore?!
DCS World is FREE and unbelievable in its detail.
That's a great game but only one game. Back in the early 90's we had so many top flight sims to choose from, they were glorious days. The flight sim scene from those days is completely gone.
Exactly my thoughts ... And let's not forget IL-2 Sturmovik BOX, Rise of Flight and good old yet legendary IL-2 1946 just to mention the Creme de la Creme imho. Flight Sims might have decreased in number but seeing the giant leaps in graphical quality, depth and realism is like a dream come true for a kid of the 80ies and 90ies.
@@Air-Striegler Coming from F/A-18 Interceptor to flying the Hornet in DCS in VR is quite a journey! And I agree those flight sims are great, but especially with DCS, they're all more hardcore sims that you really need to spend a lot of time on to get something done, which can be a lot of fun in itself, but it's different to the sims of the 90s. Back then many of those nailed that getting the right spot between a "sim as real as it gets" and "just a game", and many of those had their own special charm with the menu screens and how they tried to tell the campaign story in some cases even which totally isn't even remotely the same anymore nowadays. I often see myself firing up some 90s flight sim for a "quick fix", but if I can dump 2-3 hours and want the full immersion, it's DCS all the way.
I can't believe B-17 Flying Fortress is not in your top 10.
flight of the intruder is great - the dos version is fine but i just wish wish wish it had he kind of sound quality that the amiga had, as its sound is a but painful on the air
Too bad you missed out on Battlehawks 1942, Battle of Britain (BOB, Successor to Battlehawks), F16 Combat Pilot, F16 Falcon. Unless you have, give them a try. GS2000 was fun, used to hide in the railroad tunnels :o)
Played lots of Interceptor in the days, now if i want to get my kicks, i start DCSWorld and spend 15 minutes getting a plane started, and then hear the afterburner roar as i take off from Groom lake, pretending to be a test pilot for the YF17 project.
If i remember correctlt there was a game called Apache Longbow and it was awesome
@@Nacimin that was on pc and it was excellent :)
Bomber and Thunderhawk two more that were popular.
Don't know some of them (especially those Rowan ones; for some reason I just missed them completely) but from those that you have there I'd say (after having spent quite a decent amount of time on it) that Birds of Prey is not really something you'd call a decent simulator. Of course, the planes differ a bit but a very small bit (like some general parameters like thrust/mass/speed/loading and that's all) so it's more like a fancy arcade. Similarily arcadeish game Dogfight is IMHO equaly not worthy of being mentioned as one of the top 10. OTOH you're definitely missing F-16 Combat Pilot and maybe Red Baron or A-10.