Falcon (computer game)

Falcon is a flight simulator video game, and the first release in the Falcon video game series.

Falcon was originally designed and produced by Gilman Louie and programmed by Les Watts for the MSX (1984, under title of F-16 Fighting Falcon) and Macintosh (1987 as Falcon), and used bitmapped 3D MiG-21s as adversaries, several years before Origin's Wing Commander used a similar graphics engine. It was ported for the PC, but no longer used bitmapped graphics; instead, the adversaries were displayed using primitive polygon graphics.

The Atari ST (1988) and Amiga (1989) versions of Falcon feature a semi-dynamic campaign where the player can roam the airspace, sweep for hostile aircraft, and attack ground targets. Destroyed buildings and SAM sites remain destroyed for fixed period of time, and hostile and friendly forces engage each other on the ground back and forth. Both of these versions have two expansion sets for them, Falcon Operation: Counterstrike and Falcon Operation: Firefight (released in Europe as Falcon Mission Disk Volume 2).

Compute! joked in 1989 that Falcon "seemed harder to fly than the real plane". That year Spectrum Holobyte released an update that reportedly made control and landings much easier.

A version for the TurboGrafx-16 was released in 1992. A canceled Super NES version was also planned for early 1993.

In the original Falcon, users had their choice of flying one of 12 missions - with awards for flying missions at higher skill levels. The user had a choice of different ground attack and air-to-air weapons, although these were also limited by several factors. For dogfighting, AIM-9J missiles were not as reliable as newer AIM-9L missiles - and were useless for head-on attack - but were typically the only missiles available. Because they were guided, AGM-65 missiles were easier to use than "iron dumb bombs" like the Mk 84, but ineffective against strengthened targets. An ECM pod provides defense against enemy missiles, but occupies an external hardpoint that could be used for additional weapons or fuel. The enemy occupied the western areas of the game's playable map - itself a large square divided into 9 smaller squares. Enemy targets were fixed sites on the ground. For defense, the unnamed enemy was limited to MiG-21 interceptors, and ground-launched missiles - either the SA-2, which was launched from identified and fixed sites on the ground, or SA-7 missiles, which could be fired from portable launchers, and could therefore appear anywhere.

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