In the final part of our rundown of the best titles ever to appear on the feted Commodore Amiga, we reach the top ten. But which paragon of software entertainment got the top slot?
5. Falcon
Want to fly your own F-16 Falcon but the local dealer won't part-exchange it for your Fiat Punto? Then this Amiga simulation from 1989 might just be the solution you've been searching for.
As well as being an incredibly accurate simulation for its day, Falcon featured a dynamic campaign, with buildings you've destroyed on previous missions remaining destroyed (at least for a time), and your side gaining the upper hand in the ongoing struggle if you perform well enough.
And the flight simulation itself was realistic to the point of insanity, with a manual the size of a lengthy novel included in the box, which was present literally to teach players the basic principles of aeronautical engineering and flight mechanics. You don't get that with your modern day Call of Duty clones.
In the game, the player could choose from a variety of missions, tool their Falcon up accordingly (bombs for bombing runs, sidewinders for air to air combat), make sure they'd got the weight and amount of fuel right, then head off into the (mostly brown) yonder.
Falcon was original in being one of the first games to offer additional features for players with an enhanced Amiga 1200 (with a mind-boggling 1Mb of RAM over the standard Amiga's 512Kb). In the standard version, planes taking off in the background while the player was stationed at the main base make a sort of weird clicking sound. But players with the beefier machines instead heard the same weird clicking sound, followed by a stranger roar. We couldn't find any other difference between the two versions than that.
So, money well spent on that 512Kb upgrade.
Falcon won a raft of awards in its day, including ‘Best 16-bit simulation of the year' at the Golden Joystick Awards in 1989.
