Page 37 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #6

Snoopy and The Red Baron
Air Raiders
Chopper Command
Chopper Command Snoopy and The Red Baron Air Raiders

Atari 2600 Atari 2600 Atari 2600

With the advent of such games as De- America’s favorite beagle takes to Step into the cockpit in this M Net-
fender, it was only a matter of time before the sky to appease his hallucinogenic work title and blast bogeys out of the
game manufacturers turned the clock back vendetta against the Red Baron. sky.
and graced arcades and home consoles What basically is a Defender/ Excellent game requiring you, the
with their oversimplified versions of air Chopper Command clone ends up be- pilot, to monitor fuel and ammo levels,
combat. Activision’s Chopper Command ing a rather challenging game. Perched dodging enemy flak while maintaining
puts the player in control of a combat heli- atop his doghouse, the World War I sufficient altitude so you don’t slam into
copter which must defend a ground-based flying ace, Snoopy, flies around doing the ground. Once you’re low on fuel,
convoy from enemy bombers. With its battle with the Red Baron who has sto- you must land the plane, re-fuel and
miniature “radar” display of the entire play- len the allies’ food supplies. However, take off again to shoot down your ex-
field, and its premise of defending land- the Red Baron is no easy target and tremely passive foes.
bound targets from airborne attack, Chop- makes a worthy adversary. Grab the The feeling of flight is certainly there,
per Command was obviously inspired by falling food supplies and shoot down the and you can actually feel panic when
Defender…but, as far as the VCS was Red Baron to emerge victorious. enemy flak sends you into a tailspin.
concerned, it was also a better game than Certainly the best effect in the game Just try not to notice that the enemy
Atari’s port of the aforementioned arcade is the doghouse being riddled with bullet planes look more like commercial jetlin-
hit. holes as it is struck. ers than vicious MiG Fighters.

Rating: A Rating: A Rating: B
-Earl -Cav -Cav

Mission X
17 Bomber
Commando Raid
B B- -17 Bomber Mission X Commando Raid

Intellivision Intellivision Atari

A pretty complex flight simulator for A home adaptation of a rather ob- A relatively fun game by U.S.
its time, B-17 Bomber utilizes the Intel- scure arcade war game, Mission X was Games/Vidtec. Use your giant gun em-
livoice peripheral so you can hear your among the first games with an placement to protect your four buildings
pilot and bombardier shout out "overhead" view of the action to toy with from paratroopers being dropped from
(sometimes comedic) commentary relat- the idea of lowering altitude. Games jittery helicopters. Failure to destroy the
ing to the action. such as Defender and Scramble had paratroopers will allow them to overtake
Choose your bombing mission from allowed players to adjust their altitude your buildings and build a tunnel to de-
different points on a map. The further for a long time, but those games were stroy your gun.
the location, the bigger the point value. side-scrolling shooters. Mission X was According to the manual, the para-
Once you’re on your way, you must among the first games to indicate alti- troopers are “androids” as opposed to
dodge hostile fighters, enemy flak, tude by shrinking the size of the player's people. I guess this was to make us not
monitor fuel consumption, while staying plane as it got closer to the ground. feel bad about sending them to their
focused on your bombing mission. And deaths.
if you do complete your raid, you have Rating: A A much better version of this game,
to turn around and get back to base Sabotage, is playable on the Apple II
safely. -Earl computer. In Sabotage, you have the
The fun part is getting to bomb any- ability to shoot away the paratroopers’
thing you want (including houses and parachutes, sending them to a messy
hospitals, much to the very verbal cha- death. Due to the liquid ‘Splat!’ noise
grin of your co-pilot). they make, I doubt they are androids. If
four of them land safely, they build a
Rating: A human staircase and destroy your gun.

-Cav Rating: Commando Raid: B
Sabotage: A

-Cav

Classic Gamer Magazine Spring 2001 37