Producer: Database Software
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £8.95
Language: Machine code
Author: Database Publications

There is now quite a good selection of flight simulators available for the Spectrum, all of varying quality. Most of them require you to take off, have a bit of a saunter about perhaps over some mountains and then make your way home before you run out of gas. Red Arrows is very much a flight simulator, but your main task is to fly with the Red Arrows, performing complex and difficult formation displays.

The Red Arrows perform a large range of manoeuvres during their displays and this game lets you run through four of the formations in their repertoire with them. One further option allows you to go out on a solo flight which gives you the opportunity to familiarise yourself with both the aircraft's controls and its response.

A training mode allows you to fly any of the five options, and offers guidance via instructions displayed at the top of the screen which help you keep up with the rest of the formation. If you find it too difficult to cope with all of the controls, the computer can be told to take care of the steering or the thrust, but you score is adjusted accordingly when you 'cheat'. The ultimate aim of the game is to learn to fly well enough to be able to take part in any of the displays unaided - then you score according to your performance.

From your cockpit you can see the other team members. (Well, those directly in front and slightly to port and starboard of you anyway.) More often that not, this means you yet to see a great deal of other aircraft's exhaust ports which can be unnerving. The cockpit instruments are pretty standard and include brake, flap and undercarriage indicators. The all important thrust bar is alongside the panel housing the altitude, rate of ascent and velocity indicators. The other large panel is unique to this particular game since it gives a picture of the shape of the current display formation, with your position indicated by a flashing dot. The same display can also show the pattern of the current manoeuver.

Two further panels show the degree of roll and angle of climb or descent that your aircraft is experiencing. During the display instructions from Red One will scroll along the bottom line of the screen. It's here that you find out what the next formation is and, more importantly, exactly when you must change to it. If you find yourself out on a limb or over another airfield you can return to the formation by pressing a single key but the cost is the loss of your score up to that point.

With the manual that comes with the game there are details of a competition in which you can win a weekend with the Red Arrows, and who knows, if you get good enough at this game them perhaps they might let you fill in for one of the pilots.

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable
Joystick: works best with Kempston
Keyboard play: complex and slow
Use of colour: limited to three
Graphics: could be a lot better
Sound: none
Skill levels: three
Lives: one
Screens: N/A

I think the idea of a flight simulator based around the antics of what must the World's most renowned display team is a very sound idea indeed. The trouble with a lot of simulators is that they simply don't give you enough to do (I do not include Digital Integration's Fighter Pilot in that class). Sadly, I have to conclude that, on the whole, I am not very impressed with this game. I'm sure that the package could have been put together a lot better. The graphics are pretty bad. The background is either blue or green, and there are no landmarks on the ground even during take off. You are given no indication, apart from the instruments, that you are really moving. The view of the other aircraft is quite good except, when one of them breaks the boundary between Earth and Sky (blue and green), it appears to disintegrate. My last complaint concerns the speed at which the program works. It took me fifty one seconds to do a complete barrel roll. At a speed of 200 Knots that meant I travelled nearly four miles - not a very tight performance to say the least. The speed is perhaps the greatest let down. Without that fast reaction and high degree of manoeuvrability for which the Hawk is famed, this game may as well be based around a microlight display team. Generally disappointing.

I am not very keen on flight simulators. I find them far too annoying and drawn out. The Red Arrows is no exception. However its saving grace is the idea around which it is designed, and at least when you're up in the sky you are kept very busy indeed. Flying in a formation is very difficult, and performing all sorts of aerial stunts makes the task almost impossible. I found the aircraft very difficult to handle, mostly because it responded so badly. I dare say the flight simulator freaks may have a little fun with this but I would rather leave it alone.

The idea behind this game is quite a good one, but there was very little to hold my interest. When 'flying' solo you are faced by a green and blue screen with a few boring dials, and even flying with the Red Arrows, the only additions are some red shapes that could be planes if your imagination was good enough. The actual play is slow and uninteresting - when I first started I found it difficult to tell whether the computer was in control or I was. In fact one of the down with his parachute after a crash. I am sorry that this latest offering from Database is not as polished or as valuable as their last program, Mini Office.

Dougie: Looking through the 24-page manual for this simulation isn't an inspiring task - the words tell you all about the Red Arrows' celebrated career, their planes and their successes... and... eventually... on to the game itself. Which is what we're here for!

Once you've digested the relevant 10 pages of playing hints and tips, you can decide to fly in formation or solo. Solo is, of course, flying on your own. Boring. Flying in formation, however, is OK - a bit like Come Dancing with jet aircraft.

The control panel is, as always, crammed with every kind of indicator imaginable. Of course, no-one ever looks at these... but they're there if you want.

The graphics are good and chunky, but pixel graphics might have introduced a more interesting in-flight display. Your role in this simulation is to keep up with the rest of the lads on-screen. And if you fail in your manoeuvres, you end up parachuting down out of your plane...

Oh, one last thing. Aficianados will be interested to hear there's a competition included in the package. This could be your chance to meet up with the real Red Arrows! 7/10

Rick: As soon as I loaded this one up. I switched from automatic pilot into top speed games-playing mode. I didn't mind lagging behind the other high-flyers - after all, who gets to parachute every day? Swoop down on this one chaps! 6/10

Ross: I think I've had enough of these magnificent games about flying machines, but I admit that there's more to this than plain flying. It's artistic innit, like! 5/10

Publisher: Database Publications
Price: £8.95
Memory: 48K
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair, programmable

Fly with the Red Arrows and keep your stomach intact as you perform the amazing Manhattan Loop, the Pyramid Roll and the famous fly past.

The game is a flight simulator with a difference. You are accompanied in the air by your team mates, and you must perform aerobatics to the best of your ability in order to score points.

Don't look so worried. You are not left to your own devices in the air. A training routine has been included within the program which displays your instructions as you make a fly past. Failure to heed instructions usually results in a crash.

The instruction routine does not, however, help with the 16 different key combinations which you need to control your Hawk aircraft. Out of desperation I just used the thrust and roll keys which seem to achieve good scores, and only the occasional crash.

Graphics may not be the game's strong point but the simulation is accurate to the degree of seeing the aircraft of your team mates fly past.

The flight instruction and aid docs not end with the instruction routine. Your team leader will give you instructions if you are going off course. The amount of instruction given to you during flights may seem unrealistic, but open communication must be available between pilots so that wing tips do not touch and you don't drive your aircraft into the ground. Your team mates will look after your safety just as you watch theirs.

Red Arrows turns the dull area of flight simulation into fast and furious fun. Database Software has also arranged a competition in which you could win a weekend to visit the real Red Arrows.

MACHINE: Spectrum/CBM 64/Amstrad
SUPPLIER: Database Software
PRICE: £8.95 (Spec)/£12.95/£11.95 (Amstrad disks)

Great idea. Shame about the game. That just about sums up this brave effort to put you in the hot seat of a Red Arrows Hawk jet.

Database has obviously spent a lot of time developing the program - which is very well presented in packaging terms.

But - and it's a big but - the actual graphic representation of the Red Arrows, on the Spectrum version is awful.

Database say that the program uses "3D graphics to soar to heights of realism never achieved before". If you make claims like that, you have to be sure the finished product lives up to them, right?

Well there doesn't appear to be any 3D effects on the Spectrum Red Arrows game. What you see through the cockpit of your Hawk is the usual blue slabs for the sky, green slab for the ground and superimposed red aircraft to represent the Arrows formation.

Now, everyone knows about the colour clash problems on the Spectrum. But should half the aircraft you are following disappear when it banks and have half in the sky slab, half in the ground. Or is this just a simulation of what happens to your eyesight when you are subjected to high G-forces?

Database say they created the program with the help of the Arrows pilots and have a special high-score competition running with the game. You could win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Red Arrows' base.

But I don't think even the prospect of a day out with the Arrows would make me want to shell out nearly £9 for this game.

Spectrum
Database
Aerobatic Simulation

Concorde fly past, Manhattan loops, pyramid rolls - not exotic forms of confectionery but all manoeuvres you can perform in this interesting variation on the flight simulator theme. Flying a British Aerospace Hawk you can practise individual manoeuvres or fly in a display.

Red Arrows pilots were consulted about the game, so it has to be about as good as you can get it on the Spectrum. If you buy the game you can win a weekend with the Red Arrows by submitting the highest score achieved in any month until the competition ends on January 31, 1986.

Database Software
£8.95

OK Biggles, chocks away! And with that cry I flew straight into the ground.

There are a lot of flight simulators about already, so what are Database offering to entice you to buy their program? Well, for a start, instead of just flying around aimlessly you have the excitement of flying in formation with the Red Arrows (hence the name), but first you have to attain the high degree of skill required. You can jump straight in and try, but I almost guarantee you'll fail.

The options are many, not the least important are the training sections with four degrees of difficulty or the 'Help' messages given to novices. The flight manual gives a great deal of information both about the Red Arrows and the Hawk T, Mk 1. Hints and tips are provided, and indeed the whole program goes out of its way to help you get to grips with the business of flying competently.

Once you have mastered the basic techniques you can then practice each manoeuvre or go for the show, all with options to make the difficulty level easier or harder.

This program has all the usual tricky combinations of keys to be mastered, and joystick if required, and is every bit as complex as its competitors. Where it scores is in the relatively gentle introductory stages and the final aim of a performance of aerobatics. The graphics are very good but suffer from the same jerkiness as other programs of this type. Highly recommended.