Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe
| Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe | |
|---|---|
| Studio | Lawrence Holland |
| Publisher | Lucasfilm Games |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1991 |
| platform | PC ( MS-DOS ), Atari ST |
| genre | Flight simulation |
| Game mode | Single player |
| control | Keyboard , joystick , mouse |
| system advantages preconditions |
286 with 10 MHz 1 MB RAM VGA graphics card |
| medium | 4 floppy disks , CD-ROM |
| language | English |
Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe ( SWOTL for short ) is a flight simulation program that was programmed by Lucasfilm Games in 1991 under the direction of Lawrence "Larry" Holland.
The game was released for MS-DOS personal computers and was the successor to Their Finest Hour . It was initially delivered on four 3.5 " floppy disks ; in 1992, alongside The Secret of Monkey Island, it was one of the first games to be pressed on CD-ROM by LucasArts .
The title of the game refers to the "secret weapons" simulated in the game of the German Air Force in World War II , which means early jet fighters , flying wings and V weapons . The game was one of the first to deal with such types of aircraft.
Game content
The player takes on the role of a fighter pilot for the US Army Air Forces or the German Air Force . He controls a virtual fighter plane and has to achieve the mission objectives set for him in order to receive points and awards. The mission types that can be selected include ground attacks, free hunting, patrols, interceptors and escorts.
A special feature of the game is the career mode. Not only do you simulate a pilot's operational career, you also have to plan missions at a strategic level. On the American side, the German aircraft and arms industry and the air force must be eliminated, while on the German side, the air force must restore superiority in its own airspace and prevent bombing attacks. In addition, on the part of the Air Force, the player must maintain the production of aircraft, weapons, ammunition and fuel and can adapt the supply to the preferred aircraft type.
As a simulation of flying, the game is not very realistic, because back then there was hardly enough computing power available on home PCs to calculate flight behavior.
The advisers for the manual, there in particular on the tactics and types of aircraft used, included the German fighter pilot and later Air Force General Walter Krupinski .
Aircraft selection
The following aircraft types are available:
US Army Air Forces
- B-17F Flying Fortress
- B-17G Flying Fortress
- P-51B Mustang
- P-51D Mustang
- P-47C Thunderbolt
- P-47D Thunderbolt
The player can control both the "flying fortresses" used for strategic bombings and the hunters usually used as escorts. The player on board the bomber is also allowed to operate all machine gun positions and the bomb sight.
air force
- Messerschmitt Bf 109 G
- Focke-Wulf FW 190 A-8
- Messerschmitt Me 163 B "Comet"
- Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a "Schwalbe"
- Gotha Go 229
It should be noted that the last three types of aircraft are models that were only used in the war in the last few months (Me 163, Me 262) or were only built as a prototype (Go 229). The game focuses on the dramatic innovations that these guys brought with them due to their jet and rocket engines.
technology
The game builds on the engine of its two predecessors Their Finest Hour and Battlehawks 1942 and expanded them technically very strongly. The landscape and buildings were represented in the form of untextured polygons . Airplanes and graphic effects were raster graphics . Separate sprites were drawn for each visible side of an aircraft. A similar technique was used in the first parts of the Wing Commander series. Overall, this technology was more primitive and "bumpy" than that of the Red Baron , also published by Dynamix and Sierra in 1990 , but on the other hand it also offered more detailed aircraft, while early real-time 3D engines often suffered from clumsy, untextured objects. However, with SWOTL it was not possible to look at one's own aircraft from the outside. Just like its rival, however, SWOTL also offered an opportunity to film the mission and watch it again afterwards.
The acoustic presentation of the game offered support for AdLib and Soundblaster , which resulted in a very useful background noise at the time. The soundtrack , which can only be heard in the menus and was composed by Michael Land , varied between tight march music and lively jazz , depending on the party chosen .
Add-ons and successors
In the following year, Lucasfilm Games released four additional disks, each of which integrated a new aircraft and the associated missions into the game. These were:
- Dornier Do 335 "Arrow"
- Heinkel He 162 "Volksjäger"
- P-38 Lightning
- P-80 Shooting Star
An official successor to the game did not appear at first because the development team was busy with the X-Wing and Tie-Fighter games. It was not until 2003 Larry Holland's development studio released Totally Games with Secret Weapons Over Normandy , a game that took up the naming again. However, this game was a rather action-heavy flight simulation, which was based both playfully and in terms of presentation on Microsoft's action game Crimson Skies , which was released in 2000 .
In addition to this game, version 3 of the Combat Flight Simulator , which was also released in 2003, took up the game again. In addition to a similar selection of aircraft, the game also offered a strategy mode, which provoked the trade press to make direct comparisons with the SWOTL, which is referred to as a "classic" in this context . Another game that focuses on aircraft types from the Second World War that never went into production is the Il-2 Sturmovik: 1946 , which appeared in 2006 and which also included aircraft such as the Ta 183 that existed exclusively on the drawing board .
The Battlefield 1942 expansion “Secret Weapons of WWII” is similar in terms of the naming and concept of “secret weapons” from World War II .
