F-19 Stealth Fighter

F-19 Stealth Fighter
The Amiga cover art for F-19 Stealth Fighter
Developer(s)	MicroProse
Publisher(s)	MicroProse
Director(s)	Sid Meier
Designer(s)	Sid Meier (based on original design by Jim Synoski and Arnold Hendrick)
Programmer(s)	Andy Hollis Sid Meier Jim Synoski David McKibbin
Artist(s)	Max D. Remington III Murray Taylor
Composer(s)	Ken Lagace
Platform(s)	Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, PC-98
Release	1988-1992
Genre(s)	Combat flight simulator
Mode(s)	Single-player

F-19 Stealth Fighter is a combat flight simulator developed and released in 1988 (DOS) and 1990 (Amiga and Atari ST) by MicroProse, featuring a fictional United States military aircraft. It is the 16-bit remake of the 8-bit game Project Stealth Fighter, which was released for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum in 1987; in 1992, it was also ported to the NEC PC-9801 in Japan only. Critically acclaimed, the game was followed by Night Hawk: F-117A Stealth Fighter 2.0 in 1991. In April 2015 the original game was re-released on Steam distribution platform. F-19 was developed before the F-117 stealth bomber was publicly revealed, and the aircraft of the game bears little resemblance to the actual F-117. Instead, game designers relied on the F-19 model kit released by Testors in 1986. The appearance of aircraft that appears in Night Hawk: F-117A Stealth Fighter 2.0 matches the real F-117, however players of the second game are offered the choice of flying a fictitious version that carries more stores.

In the game, the player takes on the role of a pilot flying missions of varying difficulty over four geographic locations: Gaddafi's Libya, the Persian Gulf, the North Cape, and Central Europe. The player was immersed in a Cold War era battlefield, flying missions against Iranian, Libyan, Soviet or Warsaw Pact opponents. The game can be played under conditions of conventional warfare, limited warfare, or cold war (in the latter, even being detected by the enemy could lead to a major diplomatic incident).