A10 Tank Killer (original version)

Title           A10 Tank Killer (original version)
Game Type	Flight Sim
Players		1
Compatibility	All?
HD installable  Yes
Company		Dynamix (1991)
Submission      graeme.r.porter

Review
A10 Tankbuster is a flight simulation based on the United States Air
Force's mighty low-level assault and troop support aircraft, the Fairchild
A-10A Thunderbolt II.

The aircraft was actually designed around its central weapon - the GA-U8
Avenger cannon, the bullets for which are the size of milk bottles, and
are made of spent uranium, enabling them to punch through the armour of
any tank.

The actual game itself is, as any good flight sim should be, mission
based, and has a seperate campaign mode, where all of the missions are
played one after the other.

The missions vary in length, difficulty, and scenario.  From the training
mission, where you are expected to fly solo and get low n' dirty over
farmland and between hills, to the more advanced missions, where you and
your wingmen fly a sortie into a city and must destroy specific buildings.

You must also face a variety of different enemy units, from jeeps to tanks
to mobile anti-aircraft missile platforms, to helicopters and dogfighters.

Essentially, the game is based around the classic East vs. West scenario,
and is sensible in the way that there are no evil dictators / mad
scientists.  It also features a good learning curve as it does not expect
you to memorise hundreds of key combinations.

Graphically, it was excellent for its time, with a digitised instrument
panel, and digitised explosions.  The main environment model is a fairly
fast 3D engine, with a surprising amount of detail, and it runs quite well
on even the older Amiga machines.

The sound, however, left a little to be desired.  The sound of the gun
should be earth-shattering - in reality, a sustained burst of fire from
the Avenger is capable of significantly reducing the speed of the
aircraft, even halting it in mid air - yet the sound of the gun in-game is
disappointingly tinny.

The noise of the explosions are sufficiently ground-thumping to satisfy
even the most hardened air-jockey, and connecting your Amiga to your
favourite stereo (preferably with attached sub-woofer) will make cutting
up those tanks much more pleasurable.

It should run on most modern Amigas, but you may find you need to disable
CPU caches and set the graphics mode to "Original" on AGA machines; I can
make it work on my A1200T 68040/40 MHz w/ 16 MB RAM and still get
acceptable performance.

To summarise, A-10 Tankbuster is a game I'd recommend to those who live
between the world of arcade action and serious flight simulation, and who
want the best of both genres.

Overall Score - 89%

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