The Complete Guide to:

FLIGHT SIMS

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Neeeeeow! Dakka dakka dakka! Kaboom!
"Crikey, Ginger, pull up! Over."
"I can't! I think my flaps have gone a bit funny. Over." Neeeow! Boom!
"Bail out! Bail out! Over." Dakka dakka dakka. (Ricochet noises.)
"Er, okay then. Over and out."

Sorry about that. Just trying to inject a bit of excitement into this thing because, let's face it, flight sims aren't exactly the most exciting bits of software around.

Or are they?

No. They're not. But there are loads of them about, and people keep buying them. Why is this? Perhaps we'd better investigate.

For thousands of years man has dreamt of flight... (Cut the crap. Ed) Erm, well, perhaps it's because they demand a bit more thought than your average arcade game. Fast reactions are all very well, but what about using your noddle occasionally? Keeping a plane in flight isn't just a matter of wobbling your joystick about a bit, which is the impression that lesser games give. You've got angles of attack to worry about, altitude, navigation, weapons systems, undercarriage... the list is endless. As are the manuals usually. And that's another thing. If you've never played one before you'll need to spend hours wading through one of these breeze-block tomes before you can even get off the ground.

Once you've got the thing up in the air though you're well away. With any luck there'll be lots of scenery to look at and plenty of enemy thingies to 'take out'. You might even like to indulge in a bit of aerobatics to pass the time. The one thing you should always keep an eye on though is the ground. Stay away from this at all costs. Unless you're landing, of course, which is another story altogether.

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SO WHAT'S A FLIGHT SIM THEN, EH?

In compiling this guide I was faced with the usual problem - what exactly is a flight simulation? What are the criteria? Where do you draw the line?

As everyone I spoke to had is or her own opinion as to what is, and is not, a flight sim here are my ground rules. Well, I reckon that really, in a flight sim, you ought to be in control of a plane of some sort. Ideally you'd get a 3D view out of the cockpit, but I'll be flexible and allow ones where you see the plane on the screen from the back (like ATF) and even ones where you see the view in 2D (from the top or something).

Another important guideline is the number of keys. Preferably there should be at least 2,452 of them, each with about three different functions. But, again, I'll allow a generous margin of error and set the bottom line at six.

And finally there's the manual. Obviously this should be as large and impenetrable as possible, with lots of incomprehensible acronyms that you have to keep looking up in the glossary at the back. A rough guide to length? Let's say 500-600 pages for a decent one or, if the game comes in an ordinary cassette box, an inlay card that folds out into a thin strip long enough to wrap round your tummy at least two and a half times.

So now you know just what makes up a flight sim, read on...

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THE FIRST FLIGHT SIM EVER

Ha. This one's easy. It was Flight Simulation, one of the first games that ever came out on the Speccy. It was also the first game I bought. (Aargh! The secret's out.) It was one of those Psion games which came out on Sinclair's own label, and despite the mind-numbingly tedious piccy on the box (the instrument panel of a plane) it hung around near the top of the charts for years. In actual fact, Flight Simulation is a conversion of a ZX81 game of the same name. Yikes. We'll take a closer look at this one later on.

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Ratings

Once again, the normal rating system doesn't really seem too appropriate here. So what we've done is to come up with a revised system, specially tailored to meet the needs of today's flight sim. Let's have a nosey...

The View:

Can you see anything nice out of the window? Or is it all just green and blue wiggly lines? And does the scenery glide around smoothly or jerk around like an Allegro with a dodgy clutch?

Realism:

This can often be determined by the number of keys the game uses. So that's just what we've done. Counted 'em. As there are 40 keys on your basic Speccy, and each one can be doubled or even tripled up, the maximum comes out to exactly 100. Handy, eh?

Dakka Factor:

Is there much to shoot? Or is it all a matter of map-reading, gauge-watching and other such nonsense? And once you've shot whatever it is, does it explode dramatically and plummet to the ground leaving a trail of smoke behind it? Or not?

Net Weight:

A crucial part of any flight sim is all the junk that comes with it. So, adding together all the disks, maps, manuals, stickers and the box, what do the scales make of it? (All weights are, of course, approximate.) (In degrees.)

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THE 'TRUE' FLIGHT SIM

The obvious example of one of these is the original Flight Simulation, but that was pretty crap. What we're basically talking about here is the sort where you're placed in the cockpit looking out of the window. In the bottom half of the screen (or, worse, on another screen altogether) is the instrument panel, which can generally be ignored, and in the top half is the view. This is generally green on the bottom and blue on the top. If it's the other way round you're probably in trouble. Scattered about will be lots of squiggly lines, and maybe a few dots on the ground to give the impression of 'speed' (ahem).

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LOOKING-AT-IT-FROM-BEHIND ONES

These ones are really the next step down from the True Flight Sim. They're essentially the same, except that instead of a view out of the cockpit you get a view of the back of the plane. This isn't quite as pointless as it sounds, because usually the plane is small enough so that you can see past it to the 'scenery' beyond. This type of view generally makes it easier to judge landings and to see if you're about to fly into anything, but there is often a corresponding reduction in the number of knobs and dials, and an increase in things to do. Not what we want at all. ATF is the perfect example of this sort of thing.

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LOOKING-AT-IT-FROM-JUST-ABOUT-ANYWHERE ONES

Now these really are the business. They're like a cross between the True Flight Sim and the Looking-At-It-From-Behind one, with lots more as well. In fact, what you can do is look at your plane from all sorts of different angles, including weird ones like from-the-ground and from-the-front-of-the-plane. To tell the truth, games like this are a bit scarce on the Speccy (they tend to flourish on posh computers like the Atari ST) but there are one or two good ones. Chuck Yeager is a notable example, as is Fighter Bomber.

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LOOKING-AT-IT-FROM-THE-TOP ONES

Now we're in dicey territory. We're talking about things like TLL here. Quite frankly, they're not really, are they? Flight sims, I mean. They've rarely got more than four or five keys, placing them firmly on the arcade side of things. So let's pass over them.

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LOOKING-AT-IT-FROM-THE-SIDE ONES

Now we're looking at things like Harrier Attack. And they're certainly not flight sims. In fact, they're usually just scrolling shoot-'em-ups with planes instead of spaceships. There's always plenty of stuff to shoot, but technical accuracy is very limited indeed. You never have to worry about setting your flaps at the right angle or the navigational computer to the appropriate beacon, or watching your airspeed in case you stall. Useless.

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Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer
Electronic Arts

So what's this one got going for it? Three things actually. One, it's a proper flight simulator, no question about it. Two, it's got solid 3D graphics. And three, you get a choice of 14 different planes to fly, ranging from a 1918 Sopwith Camel to the SR-71 Blackbird. The cons? Well, Chuck Yeager might be an important historical figure and everything, but his contribution to the game consists mainly of irritating comments after you crash. And the other one is those 3D graphics. They look very nice generally, but sometimes the various shades of grey gang up against you so it's very hard to see what's going on. And they're not as smooth as they might have been either. There's another thing while we're at it too. While the 128K version is absolutely packed with features and things to do, the 48K one has been radically cut down and isn't nearly such an attractive proposition. Assuming you've got a 128K then Chuck Yeager is a stonking flight sim, with everything you could possible want and a lot that other flight sims don't have (like racing against other planes and 'test flying').
 

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  The View: 79%
Realism: 91%
Dakka Factor: 88%
Net Weight: 94%
 
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Overall: 92%
 
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ATF
Digital Integration

Here's the first of these looking-at-it-from-behind ones, and it's easily the best of its type around. You're in one of these Stealth Plane things, but, spookily enough, you actually get to see it on the screen in front of you, with the landscape undulating underneath. Hills and dippy bits are shown by grid line thingies which bend around. The trouble is that you can only do left and right turns and go up and down a bit - no rolls or loops. In fact, you don't even have to do this half the time as you can switch on your terrain-following radar and let the plane do it for you. Opposition is provided by planes which swoop around you, hopefully flying straight into your line of fire. (They invariably do.) It's not the most stimulating game around combat-wise then, but underneath all this blatant arcadeyness lurks a strong strategic element where you've got to destroy certain targets and eventually win a war. All this happens over a huge map - lots of islands with sea between them. ATF isn't really a flight sim at all, but it's pretty good fun (for a while) all the same.
 

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  The View: 77%
Realism: 54%
Dakka Factor: 75%
Net Weight: 61%
 
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Overall: 70%
 
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Project Stealth Fighter
MicroProse

If an award had to go to the most comprehensive, option-packed and, quite simply, darned complicated flight sim around, it might just get pinned onto Project Stealth Fighter's uniform. Which is handy, as that's just what we're looking at now. Like most recent flight sims it's all about the legendary Stealth Fighter (which actually turned out to be not so legendary, and completely different to how everyone thought). This doesn't actually make a lot of difference to the way the game works - it's really just an excuse for another flight sim. Technically PSF doesn't break any new ground. We've all seen wire-frame graphics before, although these ones are about twice as detailed as anything before, and a bit faster. There is, however, masses to see/shoot. You can fly over land and sea, which means there are destroyers and aircraft carriers to take out as well as the usual tanks and buildings, and there's also a huge range of weapons and missions to use them on. Ideologically though, this one goes out the window. You have to spend the whole time beating up Russians and Arabs when really it ought to be the Welsh. (Just kidding.)
 

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  The View: 79%
Realism: 91%
Dakka Factor: 88%
Net Weight: 93%
 
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Overall: 90%
 
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Fighter Pilot
Digital Integration

This was the next 'biggie' after Flight Simulation and introduced a number of innovations. First, and most importantly, there are things to shoot. They look pretty awful, and don't fly around terribly imaginatively, but they do explode very satisfyingly when shot (this can only be done with your machine gun). The other great thing about it is that your F-15 (for that's what it is) can zoom around at a fair old rate, and is much more fun to fly than the old Flight Simulation Cessna. This is partly because it's a more wazzy plane, but credit must also be given to the superior programming. There's also a bit more to look at on the ground, including a better runway and some strange square things dotted about. And the ground is green which is a great advantage. There are one or two oddities though - you can fly along for miles upside-down at an altitude of zero, which isn't too encouraging, but at least the compass is correct (Flight Simulation's had 370°) and there's a nice head-up display with all the important bits on. This took over as the definitive flight sim for ages, and is still worth taking up for a spin occasionally.
 

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  The View: 45%
Realism: 37%
Dakka Factor: 34%
Net Weight: 30%
 
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Overall: 52%
 
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Night Raider
Gremlin

Okay, this time round you're piloting a Grumman Avenger, which is one of those chubby American WWII bombers, and your mission is to wipe out the Bismark - "the most fearsome battle machine ever to haunt the seas". Luckily the ship has already been crippled by some Royal Navy biplanes, so all you've got to do is take off from the Ark Royal and finish it off. Simple really. Unfortunately, though, your plane seems to have a crew of one - you - so you've got to fly the plane, work the guns and do the engineery bits (like fiddling about with the engines) by flipping between a whole load of different screens. Luckily for Gremlin, the attack took place at night so the graphics are limited to the moon glistening off the sea and the enemy planes buzzing past the windows. This, along with the very restricted flying abilities of your plane, means that the game hasn't really got a lot to recommend it, apart from your bullets which look very nice whizzing off into the night. The flying parts are just a case of keeping on course to the Bismark, and the shooting parts are really just another Operation Wolf thing. Not really a proper flight sim then, and not a massively enjoyable shoot-'em-up either. Shame about that. There's a nice pic on the box though.
 

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  The View: 49%
Realism: 75%
Dakka Factor: 66%
Net Weight: 59%
 
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Overall: 60%
 
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Flight Simulation
Psion

As we found earlier, this was the first Speccy flight sim ever, and it shows. It comes on a cassette with the game on one side and 'Blank Tape' conveniently written on the other. See which one you prefer. It actually looks quite promising (the inlay card is massive, with loads of minuscule instructions) and, despite the fact that it's largely written in Basic, the game moves along at a fair old rate. The problem is the scenery. All there is to look at on the ground (which is blue) is the runway, Lake Orb (which is round), Lake Tri (which is triangular) and some hills (which you can't actually see at all, but you'll know if you crash into them). The plane responds to your controls very sluggishly, but luckily you don't have to use them much because a 'flight' generally consists of taking off, pointing the plane towards the other airport, coming back three and a half hours later and landing. If you crash there's a lengthy disaster effect and then you're asked if you want another flight. Press N and the program stops. Hmm. A legend in its own time, but a bit crap in this one.
 

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  The View: 25%
Realism: 31%
Dakka Factor:   0%
Net Weight: 45%
 
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Overall: 35%
 
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Strike Force Harrier
Mirrorsoft

Right, so we all know what a Harrier is. What you might not know though is that it's one of the fiddliest planes to actually fly. To get it to take off you've got to have the nozzle things pointing downwards, and then point them backwards to make it fly along. There are also all kinds of things in-between, and all of them are faithfully incorporated into this ageing sim. It's a proper looking-out-of-the-cockpit job, and features ground attack as well as aerial combat. These tend to be split into two sections - one below the clouds and one above. Graphically we're talking seriously ropey here. There's plenty to see, particularly on the ground, but everything is made up of very small sprites which never seem to get especially close (and hence stay very small). But the flying is generally well done, and all this 'thrust vectoring' business works quite well. There is, of course, a war to fight and it mainly seems to consist of destroying tanks. So it's okayish, but very old-look without much in the way of lasting interest.
 

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  The View: 50%
Realism: 60%
Dakka Factor: 60%
Net Weight: 70%
 
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Overall: 60%
 
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F-16 Fighting Falcon
Mastertronic

A couple of major questions hang over this one. Firstly, why has it got a picture of a Harrier (with an extra tail fin) on the loading screen? And, secondly, why bother releasing it at all? (It's a bit crap.) The second question is easy enough to answer. It originally came out with the highly successful (?) Magnum lightgun, and obviously appeared to have some mileage left in it. Flight sim-wise, things don't look so hot either. It's a blatant Afterburner rip-off (but without the rocking landscape) and as Afterburner wasn't a flight sim this isn't either. Oops.
 

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  The View: 60%
Realism:   5%
Dakka Factor: 79%
Net Weight:   4%
 
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Overall: 41%
 
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Soviet Fighter MiG 29
CodeMasters

Cor blimey. This is almost exactly the same as F-16. What's going on? Could it be the light-gun connection again? There are a few minor differences (improvements, luckily). There are things to collect, which come down on parachutes, and it's a bit easier. Apart from that, no difference. It's still a bit crap, and doesn't even come close to being a sim. Let's search on...
 

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  The View: 63%
Realism:   6%
Dakka Factor: 80%
Net Weight:   5%
 
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Overall: 43%
 
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Tomcat
Players

Encouraged by the name (a Tomcat, apart from being a feline of the male gender, is a rather spanky US Navy plane), and, in sheer desperation, I decided to give this one a whirl. Bad idea. It's a very ordinary vertically-scrolling shooter with one outstanding feature - it's completely impossible to get anywhere in. The aeroplane theme is a bit weak too, as you could easily replace it with a space-ship or something and not notice the difference. Still no joy then.
 

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  The View: 59%
Realism:   5%
Dakka Factor: 50%
Net Weight:   9%
 
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Overall: 36%
 
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Lightning Simulator
CodeMasters

At last! A real, genuine, bona fide budget flight sim! As you might have guessed, it 'simulates' a Lightning which is a fast but extremely old RAF plane. Lightning Sim has that inimitable budget feel to it, but it's still an actual flight sim - and a looking-out-of-the-window one at that. It brings a lump to my throat, it really does. There are plenty of dials to keep an eye on, and all the usual flight sim features. As games go it's awful. But I don't care. It's a flight sim - and that's what counts.
 

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  The View: 60%
Realism: 51%
Dakka Factor: 62%
Net Weight: 66%
 
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Overall: 65%
 
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Deep Strike
Durell

Here's another looking-at-it-from-behind one. However, this time what you're looking at is actually a World War I biplane, a bomber in fact, but you're not actually in control of it. Eh? This is actually because you're meant to be protecting it by flying along behind it in a fighter. Dastardly German planes zoom about trying to shoot down the bomber, so what you've got to do is shoot them down while resisting the temptation to shoot down the plane you're meant to be escorting (and it's a very strong temptation, I can tell you). The eventual aim is probably to bomb a target of some sort, but along the way are various enemy buildings and tanks (in WWI?) which you can also get the bomber to, er, bomb. Although the view is that of a True Flight Sim, you can't actually do much in the way of flying around, so it's really much more like ATF or something. The landscape is certainly very ATF-like - lots of grid-lines and hills - although I believe Deep Strike came first. There is a map, however, so it is a bit flight-simmy. But not enough, unfortunately, from letting it slip into being a slightly crap Operation Wolf-style shoot-'em-up. In fact, I can't really see what it's doing in this guide at all.
 

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  The View: 59%
Realism: 22%
Dakka Factor: 86%
Net Weight: 35%
 
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Overall: 49%
 
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Tomahawk
Digital Integration

This one's the sequel to Fighter Pilot, and there are a number of differences between the two games. Number one is that you're flying a helicopter. This is a big step-up from a mere F-15, and doubles the number of keys under your fingers at a stroke. Number two is that you've got a choice of different weapons to play with, some of which lock on and home in automatically - brilliant fun. Number three? Erm, well there are some nice-looking mountains to fly between, plenty of trees and a fair few buildings. All of these were new at the time. And, ooh, I'm losing count now, but there's an enemy helicopter to shoot down and lots of tanks and things on the ground as well. And (and! And!) there's a 'strategy' element to it where you've got to win a war or something. So it's a pretty complicated game then. And, what's more, it's extremely playable. The helicopter handles very convincingly, and is fairly simple to fly once you've worked out what's what. And the large quantity of shootables means that you won't get bored of it in a hurry.
 

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  The View: 67%
Realism: 78%
Dakka Factor: 69%
Net Weight: 85%
 
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Overall: 72%
 
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Fighter Bomber
Activision

While Fighter Bomber isn't regarded as one of the most technically-accurate flight sims on the ST and Amiga, it's brilliant fun and ideal for Speccysation. It wouldn't have been quite the same without the solid 3D graphics, so they've bunged those in with astonishing success. They've also given you the same choice of planes to fly (but cut down a bit) so you can choose between the F-4 Phantom, the SAAB Viggen, the Tornado and the MiG 27 'Flogger'. They all handle differently and can carry different payloads, and the Tornado and the MiG have authentic sweeping-back wings. On top of all this there's a range of missions to go on, and plenty of weaponry. The emphasis is on attacking ground targets, although air-to-air combat does feature. Oh, and there's the 'hop outside and look at your plane from all sorts of positions' option too. It could quite possibly be the best flight sim ever.
 

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  The View: 92%
Realism: 83%
Dakka Factor: 91%
Net Weight: 90%
 
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Overall: 93%
 
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EVERY FLIGHT SIM EVER (IN THE WORLD)
(near enough)
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  A-10 Cuba  

Sierra

 
Ace

Cascade

Ace II

Cascade

Ace Of Aces

US Gold

Acrojet

US Gold

Airliner

Protek

ATF

Digital Integration

Biggles

Mirrorsoft

Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer

Electronic Arts

Combat Lynx

Durell

Dambusters

US Gold

Delta Wing

Creative Sparks

Deep Strike

Durell

F/A 18 Hornet

???

F-15 Strike Eagle

MicroProse

F-22 Lightning II

Novalogic

F-22 Raptor

Novalogic

Flight Path 737

Anirog

Fighter Bomber

Activision

Fighter Pilot

Digital Integration

Flight Simulation

Psion

Flyer Fox

Bug Byte

Gee Bee Air Rally

Activision

Gunship

MicroProse

Nightflight

Hewson

Nightflight II

Hewson

Night Raider

Gremlin

Project Stealth Fighter

MicroProse

Red Arrows

Database Software

Skyfox

Ariolasoft

Space Shuttle

Microdeal

Spitfire 40

Mirrorsoft

Strike Attack

Micro Mart

Strike Force Harrier

Mirrorsoft

Top Gun

Ocean

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Your Sinclair
Number 58 - October 1990

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