Falcon - Atari ST

A flight simulator released by Spectrum Holobyte in 1987 for the Macintosh and IBM Compatibles and ported to the Atari ST in 1988. The Atari and Amiga versions are exactly the same, with only small differences in the sound effects, which are slightly better on the Amiga version. In addition, the intro music is missing from the ST version.
It has got a quite realistic HUD and radar display, as well as nice graphics and good speed, but the controls are abrupt making the plane hard to fly. The sound is good, but some sound effects like that of the jet engine, become annoying after a while.
Summing up, the Atari ST version is very good.

[@WillMGucci]

For its day Falcon was OUTSTANDING I remember playing it and being hugely impressed by it all the graphics where great it was smooth enough running on my Atari st even the sound effects where good and most of all the games was well made the missions felt real , it was waaay ahead of its time IMHO

[@monopolyshark]

I was dead set on growing up to be an F-16 fighter pilot after playing this game as a kid. I was devastated a few years later when I got prescription glasses and realized I could no longer be a military pilot because of my eyesight! Great memories.

[@Barnaclebeard]

Looking back as an adult, as much as I enjoyed it, I kind of wish a responsible parent had not allowed me to play things that glorify war. No child should want to be a soldier. That's horrific.

[@yetidynamics]

i remember making a null modem cable and doing multiplayer with it on two machines in the same room

[@MrComputerRetro]

Same here, but with Amigas. A friend used to bring his A500 over, so we would connect them and play for hours.

[@MacMelmac]

I did the same with my friend, with the add on disc it could go on for a whole night! We played hide n seek and hide behind buildings etc and when we found the other, we bombed the crap out of him. If you landed the F16 carefully close to a mountain you could actually sneek into the mountain, but that was cheating 😂

[@hazaeagle1]

This game had a 64 page booklet . My elation when I managed to land . I still use the phrase Rattle Snake Roundup .Love it love it love it .

[@markopenttinen4345]

this game is a big reason why i became a pilot!

[@Ohlukei]

this was a marvel of a flight game on the st. the graphics and sound effects were truly made by an artist and even the framerate was quite good for the st.

[@littlestudiorecords2141]

Still play this on my ST....awesome game

[@majinmorpheus]

I loved this game when it came out! First night spent 10 hours on it.

[@laurentd9980]

On the Atari ST, what was really AWESOME was the multiplayer capability thanks to the MIDI ports: you could link 2 ST's together and have dogfights one against another. I used to do it a lot with a friend of mine at the time, we had great fun and it was (with Midi Maze) my very first experience to multiplayer games !! Mind you, it was a bit cumbersometo have to move the Atari ST AND monitor to go to the other's place, but it was well worth the effort!!! Very fond memories, it was just unbelievable back at the time !!

[@Barnaclebeard]

Aw, man! I used to host midi parties and we never even thought of trying Falcon. I'm so disappointed!!

[@musikk83]

thx for the uppload. i played this game so mandy hours. it was awesome!

[@hudsonsoul3259]

Love this game even more when I found a random convoy straight ahead of the runway. Fantastic game which l miss

[@supershogun9317]

The ultimate flight simulation on Atari ST.

[@bumpoo8403]

It's interesting that Falcon between the ST and Amiga the frame update isn't that different compared to Their Finest Hour the Amiga runs at half the speed of the ST version (a whopping 2 frames per second during combat!). I remember buying this for my ST in the early days just before I got my Amiga 1000 and it was probably the only simulator game I put real effort into playing

[@Katagenaa]

I can't realise i played this game 30 year ago and now i am playing DCS with a 1000$ Hotas and virtual reality... If someone had tell me that, 30 year ago, i will not had believe him !

[@MrComputerRetro]

Nice! I used to play some DCS years ago, but now my PC is below its min specs. It must be great with VR.

[@Dutch3DMaster]

Same thing with most other simulators: along with the abilities Arduino's and other peripheral extension devices have given us when it comes to building our own joystick-like devices, the graphics quality along with VR is mindblowing.

[@schtaan2]

I have many hours with that one. I have an Atari ST 1040 (it's still in a drawer). Just bought Msfs2020 so i still fly!

[@paaacha9727]

Purée ça fait des souvenirs.

[@atariteki]

dont forget the atari st version is 10% faster then the amiga version

[@michaelholmes7147]

Wow, the Atari ST version just blows away the IBM PC version graphically. I played so much on PC and I wish it looked like this back then. *Edited to refer specifically to DOS version.

[@MrComputerRetro]

A PC-AT version was released a few years later, which featured improved graphics, comparable to the ST version. But you needed a 286 and at least EGA or VGA I can't remember at the moment.

[@michaelholmes7147]

@@MrComputerRetro yup, I did get Falcon AT as well when it came out. It was EGA and did look better, but they used a really odd color pallet that was hard to accept. Bright and not remotely realistic. The inside of the cockpit looked fine though. I didn't play it as much as the original because it was essentially the same game, and other combat flight sims were coming out by then that kept me more engaged.

[@MrComputerRetro]

Your comment was clear, you didn't need to edit... it removed the the heart icon too. Here, take another one! :-) P.S. We used to play the CGA version with a cousin on an XT with an amber screen!

[@Deathkicker666]

Play falcon on the atari falcon :)

[@BlookbugIV]

I remember that landing after taking any damage at all always resulted in a fatal crash on touchdown. Or maybe I just wasn’t too great at landing?

[@MrComputerRetro]

I vaguely remember something like that from version 1.1 on the Amiga. I think you could get away with some damage, depending on what was hit, but I can't remember for sure.

[@TMS5100]

good player.

[@MacMelmac]

1mb of ram, right? That engine rev up sound was only available on the ST if you had that. Also gun damages to the glass canopy after dogfight.

[@MrComputerRetro]

That should be correct! Only tried it on a 1040, but back in the day I had an Amiga 500 and when I bought the 1MB upgrade sound was much better, you could see chaff and flares, canopy damage, etc.

[@schtaan2]

I have an Atari1040. My friends thought i was crazy when buying that much ram.

[@pelimies1818]

Atari-versions seem to be so much superior to PC that I’m gonna throw up..

[@davidjgreer9477]

i wonder if this game will benefit from my 32mhz upgrade.... polygon games usually do... must try it, if i had a working joystick

[@MrComputerRetro]

You can play with the keyboard. Joy control is digital anyway. By the way, what ST model have you got and what's the name of the upgrade?

[@jasont6287]

It would my Ste which is in the loft has a t28 accelerator board in it i installed.

[@jasont6287]

Used to run frontier elite 2 great compared to an 8mhz st.

[@davidjgreer9477]

I never saw these replies. I’ll look out the 32mhz upgrade I’ve got.

[@davidjgreer9477]

Elite 2 and F1GP ran better using 32mhz... painfully slow on the 8mhz

[@madcommodore]

The dates are wrong, I bought this for my ST and as I replaced it with an Amiga in 1987 then clearly it was for sale in 1987 despite whatever crap source google sent you to. Also the ST version is doing software based sample playback for the sound effects at the same time as calculating the polygons. I had this game, even tried to like it but it proved we were still 2 generations away from nice looking and fast 3D graphics.

[@letsplayoldgamesbadly9247]

Here's a thought. Maybe ...juuuust maybe, you're wrong? "clearly" we don't know if it's you or the internet at fault but come on, there's a chance right? a small chance you are...gasp...wrong!

[@marcogoffredo1949]

Io voglio che la ragazzina non mi deve arrivare in Italia 🇮🇹 fino al 2.037.E che lei e il suo amico non dovranno curarsi di me anche in caso che loro due si ispezioneranno.MARCO di Rome Now are 07-18-2018 and are the h.10;07 antimeridiane 53 23’ 27” long of Italy... (*.*)