Let's face it, 8-bit hardware is really stretched when it comes to providing decent and realistic combat flight simulators. It would be insane to deny that later advances in 16-bit and 32-bit computer hardware have allowed a for a generally far superior playing experience in this particular genre.
However, Spitfire 40 is amongst the absolute best of combat flight simulators on an 8-bit system. I don't think I could ever award such an 8-bit game a score of 5 due to hardware limitiations which severly impact the realism of this genre, so a score of 4 here implies this game is amongst the very best of its generation.
What is offered is a true 3D flying environment with solid green ground and solid blue sky with a responsive horizon and rendition of runways (wire frame) and enemy aircraft and projectile bullets. There's a full array of cockpit instrumentation in 2D and the display can be flicked between this and the window view. Looking on the zoomed map view, you can even see the Spitfire parked on the runway. The theatre of combat is limited to the famous battle of Britain, taking place over south-east England in 1940.
The simulation of aircraft performance is really impressive with the usual things found in a simulation (as opposed to an arcade game) such as rudder control, flaps, landing gear etc.. Just learning to land the aircraft is a real challenge in itself, as in any good flight simulator, landing is typically the most difficult part.
Once you have mastered control of the aircraft, then come the dogfights with intelligent enemy AI, but what makes this game really good is the player log-book features meaning you can rack up an impressive wartime career in terms of flying hours and kills.
The 128K version is supposedly improved over the 48K version, but I just can't remember in what way. IIRC both versions looked pretty much the same when actually playing the game, which was slightly dissapointing for me when I saw the 128K version loaded up for the first time ever on a +2.
I can't see many people preferring this over newer games to be honest and I haven't played it that much recently myself, but I do occasionally fire it up and it still can be surprisingly engrossing. Back in the day, we used to play it quite a lot though on a friend's speccy. We thought we were real aces back then! Then we got our hands on Gunship and became totally hooked on that instead.
