Mig-29 Soviet Fighter

Title           Mig-29 Soviet Fighter
Game Type       Shoot-em-up
Players         1
Company         Codemasters (1990)
HD Installable  Yes, with WHDLoad Patch
Compatibility   AGA needs Patch
Submission      cyko_10@yahoo.fr

Review
In 1988, Sega released AfterBurner. You flew an F14 Jet against wave after
wave of enemy planes, as well as an impressive list of ground targets. The
game was viewed from just behind your aircraft and, for the time, the fast
and colourful graphics could not fail to impress. It turned out to be a
landmark game. Not sure why, but it was. It wasn't just an arcade game -
it was converted to just about every computer and console going. The Amiga
version was undertaken by the prestigious Argonaut Software team, but
surprisingly the result was rather poor. The funny thing was, amongst all
the hype of the original arcade version, the game itself wasn't actually
all that special. In fact, it was rather dire.

This was also the period when originality was not one of Codemasters'
better known words. They had a tendency to blatantly rip off others'
ideas. As you might have probably guessed by now, Mig-29 is the Codies'
attempt to copy Sega's "landmark" game.

I first played this on the Spectrum when I was about ten, and the graphics
never ceased to amaze me. Eight years later, and I'm older, wiser and
have a lot more taste.

Oh dear. AfterBurner now fails to impress me even less than it did
before and fortunately that is not what we are reviewing. The even less
impressive Mig-29 suffers badly from some extremely dodgy controls, near
impossible situations and samey levels. The graphics, while fast and
smooth, are uninspiring and the sound effects are extremely cheesy.

It took me next to six months to get to the second level and I never felt
even slightly rewarded for it. In fact the WHDLoad slave author should be
commended more than Rapier Design - he has made an excellent job of
writing the patch, and has added extra features such as highscore saving.

But, at the end of the day, this game is no fun and even the WHDLoad
enhancements cannot save it.

Alphabetical list.