Their Finest Hour - remember it? Damn. Er, right. It's a Battle of Britain flight sim from Lucasfilm, dating from about the middle of last year, which was let down slightly by jerky graphics but redeemed itself almost entirely with some spectacular dogfighting scenes and perhaps the best manual for any game ever. It also excelled, as is the American way, in the 'attention to detail' stakes, recreating precisely all the main fighters and bombers which participated in the aforementioned fray. If it's a WWII flying game you're after, there's none finer than this. Hurrah for Lucasfilm.
And now they've come up with this rather splendid add-on disk, containing 23 brand new missions (and a selection of pilots) which ought to satisfy even the most voracious thirst for action. They fall into all sorts of categories. Many are of the 'fighter escort' or 'go and bomb something' variety that cropped up rather frequently in the original game, while others pull out all the stops and place huge formations of lumbering He 111 bombers in your Spitfire's sights, or send you on daredevil solo missions into the heart of enemy territory. An example? Um, hang on. (Thumb, thumb...)
Right, here's one of my faves: as a Luftwaffe bomber pilot you've got to take your kite right into the heart of enemy territory, touch down on one of their airfields, strafe the line of Spits parked by the runway, stop for long enough for a waiting German agent to hop aboard, take off again and then go on to bomb a couple of radar stations before heading for home.
It's worth bearing in mind that you could easily, with a modicum of patience, have created all these yourself with Their Finest Hour's built-in editor. And that's assuming you're worried about all this 'missions' malarkey in the first place - a sizable chunk of people are probably quite happy simply flying around blowing things up with the original game. And that's it really. If you're on the lookout for a Finest Hour mission disk, here it is.
1st November 1991
