… our video games need more pilots, not copyright cliams…
Thank you for checking out my weekly newsletter. Here are a few noteworthy topics I came across this week:
- SEX, LIES, AND VIDEO GAMES (The Verge) – This is one long, crazy drama which I hated while I was reading it yet couldn’t stop since I wanted to know what happened and see the end of it.
- Music-Related Copyright Claims and Twitch (Twitch.tv) – DMCA has been catching up with more platforms including Twitch, reddit. For friends who livestream through Twitch or Youtube needing background music, I recommend Pretzel.
- Chuck Yeager, famed pilot and legendary West Virginian, has died (MetroNews, West Virginia) – RIP… this also reminded me of a game of his namesake (see below)! Also, incredible to learn that he continued to break the sound barrier flying F-15 Eagles at the age of 74, and then 89…!
The game for this week’s Nostalgic Game Review goes to…
Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat
This is a game released in 1991 that I enjoyed on my first PC, a 286 with a monochrome monitor, and with a joystick.
What is it?
A flight simulator for players to learn from the best, Chuck Yeager, and to fly and fight across 3 major battles (WW-II, Korean War, Vietnam War)
What’s in it?
the game disks, quick start manual, and… a spiral bound manual! The manual talks about details of how to play the game, the history, the air planes and their technologies.
My impression
Like the last game I talked about, I also learned a bunch of vocabularies (flairs, latitude, dogfight). The manual also gave a taste of physics (aerodynamic, stalling), and tech (heat-guided vs IR-guided missiles, radar), as well as seeing the planes evolved through the 3 major conflicts: FW-190, F-86, F-4, MiG-15, MiG-17, MiG-21.
I particularly remember loving the nose design of the MiG’s and tracing them with pencils 🙂
Around the same time I also saw Top Gun (yes, can’t wait for Top Gun: Maverick!), so this game served nicely as a output channel (“I got to fly and dogfight like in the movie!”) as well as balancing point, as I realized air combat is not always as adrenaline pumping as in the movies. Specially as radar and guided missiles technologies evolved.
The game is not available to play on Internet Archive, but here is a youtube video of its full glory: