Note: This is the review for the Atari 800 computer.
(Back in the early 80s) Simulators are a bit of a rarity considering the world is dominated by quick paced arcade games and most noticeably, poor arcade conversions for the home crowd. Because simulators are not exactly ‘well diverse’, imagine trying to find a decent sim game like flight simulators. There’s only one I can think of that falls in this category and it’s titled ‘Flight Simulator 1’ (funny that) from SubLOGIC. Fast forward (backward) to 1983 and another one appeared in the market named ‘Solo Flight’. Programmed by Sid Meier and published by MicroProse, it was a remarkable achievement considering it was all squeezed in a 48k cassette tape. However, it was still a little way off becoming a ‘true’ flight sim due to its limited visuals (third person view only), narrow physics and even lacks that ‘sim feel’ like starting up the plane by turning on the engines, lights and so on.
Solo Flight can be played in two ways – practice flying or mail pilot. For the life of me, I don’t know what plane you will be flying however I know it’s a single engine / single propeller plane (I think it’s the Piper PA28 series). The mission ‘practice flying’ is just that – practice all sorts of manoeuvres like taking off / landing, navigation, instrument flying (get used to that), emergency procedures, turbulence and weather conditions. Once you have a decent feel for it, then head to the main game, mail pilot. You can, if you wish, to head straight to mail pilot however it’s not advisable, considering you have wait ten minutes to load the game only to have your plane crash in the blink of an eye.
The main screen consists of two parts being the main flying screen (that covers about a third of the total screen view) and the instrument panel. Straight off the bat, you can see that the viewpoint is in third person (i.e. you can see the plane). That’s a bit odd considering it’s a flight simulator however, I started to warm up after a couple of flights in. The graphics are rendered in 3D (vector graphics) however you cannot see the elevation change other than gauging the plane’s shadow. The runways are easy to spot (black lines), VOR towers and mountains are white and farmlands grey. With regards to the mountains, initially I thought you need to fly around them otherwise I crash into it however that’s not the case. You can practically fly through them however use the mountains (and pretty much anything else) to gauge your sense of direction.
The instrument panel (that covers the bottom two thirds of the screen) is where all the action is. It displays the altimeter, speed, artificial horizon, throttle, fuel, bearings, landing breaks and emergency lights. There are also four indicators for which I deem very important – they are the pitch, flaps, head (as in heading) and climb. These figures move like there’s no tomorrow. Basically it tells you if you are heading up, down and so on. To the right shows the fuel, ILS (Instrument Landing System) and two VORs. I won’t go into details of what they are or do as they are covered extensively in the manual.
Now speaking of the manual, you cannot play this game without it. Why that is is because of the maps. This game has three locations where you can fly around – basically governs the difficulty levels. The easiest (i.e. the flattest) is Kansas, then its Washington / Oregon (for which the area is dominated by Mount St Helens) and the hardest being Colorado with its crazy elevations to boot. Stupid me tried Colorado first and man it’s a difficult trip! I was practicing my landing skills, especially from Vale (elevation 2500 ft.) to Denver (500 ft.) and not surprisingly I crashed many times as I descended too heavily when entering Denver’s runway. I was heading towards the landing strip straight on instead of overpassing it and cutting back. Look, I was trying to save time here!
Coming back to the maps, the manual displays the maps in great detail. It shows the VORs, airstrips, towns and so on. You will be using this just as often as looking at the screen. In addition to this, the manual provides helpful tips on how to succeed and even go as far as creating your own landing approach. I didn’t go as far as that however there are times I wished I created some (as I was flying ‘blind’ – instrument damage). Nevertheless, the manual covers it all.
To succeed in this game, try not to look at the top half of the screen (i.e. the main viewing area). Of course you can glance at it however I would place most of my concentration on the instrument panel below. Why that is is because, after the second mail drop, the clouds will role in thus making the viewing area pretty much a blank screen. This is more prevalent when playing at the high difficulty levels. Also, to ‘complete’ the game, you need to deliver five mail drops. You can accept all five parcels straight away however it’s not a good idea. My reason for this is because the plane will be extremely sluggish and you will waste fuel before you know it.
I feel the optimum amount is to carry three parcels max. However, flying around Colorado, I feel two is the best at any one time (as the elevation is crazy as). In addition to this, plan your route and don’t overdo it. Easy said than done as, during the higher difficulty levels, the plane will have issues and you need to perform an emergency landing to get it fixed. Looking in hindsight, I reckon the plane gets more fragile at the highest difficulty level! Maybe it was the result of cost cutting. Yet because you really don’t know what city you need to drop the parcel until you accept the next parcel, planning your optimum route also has a bit of luck involved (not a big fan of this).
So as a flight simulator, Solo Flight does quite well when considering the entire package. Yet there are elements where I feel can improve to become the ultimate flight simulator like having the option of first person view, setting up for the flight (as opposed to by just moving the joystick forward and away you go) and the physics still feels a little more on the arcade side. That’s not to say it’s a poor man’s game as the manual explains in great detail about flight in general (and quite amazingly too considering it’s only about sixteen pages deep) yet it does have a little more way to go. That said, this product is excellent for a newcomer (like me) to flying however for the veterans, I guess you have to wait until there’s an improved Solo Flight or wait for the sequel to SubLOGIC’s Flight Simulator.