Solo Flight (MicroProse, 1983)

Atari, C64, Apple II, IBM PC / 1983 / MicroProse

This early example of a flight simulator tasked players will flying solo (hence the name) over the United States, delivering bags of mail. The game covered many of the states, and even included altitude data for mountains and taller hills. However, due to the technology limitations at the time, the in-game landscape always appeared flat. Flight models were reasonably realistic for the time, with fairly authentic recreations of cockpit instruments to watch and maintain as players flew. The game was created by notable developer Sid Meier and was one of the earliest titles published by MicroProse, a studio co-founded by Meier.

http://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/164338985166/solo-flight

Solo Flight was one of the earliest games by Sid Meier and MicroProse and one of the earliest flight simulators. The goal was simply to fly around the country delivering bags of mail. It was released initially for the Atari 8-bit in 1983 and then ported to the Commodore 64 and Apple II. A little later it was also ported to DOS based computers.

For the time, it was a fairly realistic flight simulator with accurate instrumentation and even accurate elevation data though everything appeared flat regardless of the elevation. Despite the relative quality for the time, old flight simulators are a type of game that don’t really hold up well over time. Frame rates tend to be slow and the graphics limited and sparse. Still, it’s decent quality for 8-bit or early DOS computers and offers something a little different than Flight Simulator, Jet and other early flight simulators.


Commodore 64 version





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