THEIR FINEST HOUR: THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

 THEIR FINEST HOUR: THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN, from Lucasfilm Games, is a simulation
of the air war fought in 1940 between Germany and Britain. (This review is based
on the IBM-PC version; Amiga version notes follow.)

 Within minutes of starting, you'll choose a situation from just a few menus;
the flight simulation begins after you select the plane and mission. Actually,
most of the predefined missions open with the plane already in the air and the
dog fight about to start. One of the several aircraft you can select is a
bomber, in which you'll need to switch positions between the pilot's seat and
the gunner's sights. If you want to repeat a scenario, it's only one menu choice
away. If you're shot down, you can select the same flight merely by indicating
on the final screen that you want to play again; this quick return feature is
very convenient.

 The program's flight algorithm is a little primitive, which may annoy seasoned
fans of flight simulators. The plane is very easy to fly and land, and special
maneuvers (e.g., loops) are exceptionally easy to perform. FINEST HOUR feels
more like an arcade game than a state-of-the-art flight simulator. Sometimes,
simple motions require excessive mouse movement; also, there's not much settling
of the airplane when changing altitudes. Once you move the mouse pointer back to
center, the plane zeros out immediately. Stalls are auto-recover, and the
ceiling of the plane is artificial: When flying through the rated ceiling, the
plane stalls back down and then recovers.

 However, the emphasis in FINEST HOUR is on the dog fights themselves, not on
how well you accomplish a take-off or landing. In this regard, I have to give
the program a plus. Neither your plane nor enemy planes are easily shot down. It
takes several good hits at close range to down another aircraft. The damage
equation evaluates the type of your aircraft, gun size, and type of enemy
aircraft.

 In most of the predefined scenarios, the action is fast and exciting, so screen
updates will require higher computing speed: Even on a 16MHz 386 machine, the
action slows slightly when very complex and quick image changes occur, and
getting up close to the other plane and firing rapidly sometimes fills the
keyboard buffer. It's possible to display less detail on the ground while in
flight, which helps keep the foreground action smooth: The gun won't be as
likely to fill the keyboard buffer, and you can fire more shots in the same
amount of time. But with the ground detail at the lowest of the three levels,
you'll lose directional clues, because there's no visible distinction between
land and sea.

 You have to lead the targets by varying degrees, according to the relationships
between the planes and flight paths. This does produce interesting dog fights:
Get too close and the plane won't turn fast enough to keep up with the target;
get too far away and the enemy is outside the range of your guns. This technique
is easy to learn, but it takes time to develop the sort of feel for the game
that'll make you an expert flyer.

 Upon closing a mission (by being shot down or by completing all mission
requirements), an update screen will show all planes shot down and damaged on
both sides of the battle. Also on the final screen are the combat records of
pilots and crews, which can be saved for later review. If you've filmed the
battle, you can watch it at this point. (You can also look at the film during
the fight sequences, since combat is suspended while viewing.)

 There are several options when viewing the film. The viewer is similar to a
videotape recorder, with forward, rewind, fast forward, and stop controls
available. You can position the camera in a chase plane, on the pilot's seat, or
anywhere else -- including (after the fact) anywhere in the sky, at any
altitude, facing any direction. By running the film forward and backward, you
can determine the most effective camera angle. Before leaving the viewing area,
you can name and save the film for later recall.

 The only shortcoming of the camera function is the amount of film you can
shoot: about 100 seconds, at which point you'll have to view it and decide
whether to save it. This seems rather restrictive, especially since the film is
being saved to disk, not in memory. Perhaps when playing from a floppy, such a
restriction is necessary, but certainly not on a hard drive. Unfortunately, when
setting up a combat encounter, it's difficult to predict ahead of time exactly
when the best action might occur.

 The IBM version of FINEST HOUR is packaged with a very complete, 192-page
spiral-bound manual that enhances gameplay tremendously. There's a historical
overview of the air war depicted in the simulation; quotes from leaders, along
with pilots' thoughts on the battle, add a nice touch. In addition to the
expected information regarding flying fundamentals and airplane specifications,
this book helps you develop strategies for your missions.

 A smaller reference card includes the details necessary to begin play
immediately, and all the commands used during simulation. Lucasfilm Games has
chosen to rely on a codewheel for its off-disk copy protecion; you'll need to
consult it once during each session of play, in order to "tune the radio" to the
required frequency and continue the game.

 The installation program makes it easy to copy the four 5-1/4" floppies to your
hard drive, which should have at least 1.4 megabytes of space. No key disk is
required after installation, and there are no hidden files. You can run the
program from a high density 3-1/2" floppy if you wish, but this will limit the
amount of data you can save during the game.

 FINEST HOUR's memory requirements are high if you want to display maximum
detail on your screen. The instructions recommend 590K of free RAM before
starting the program. A smaller DOS version is also suggested. If there's less
than 590K free, screen detail will be adjusted downward. Since one of the best
features of this game is its detailed flight simulation environment, sufficient
memory is an important consideration.

 Whether you'll be satisfied with THEIR FINEST HOUR depends on how critical you
deem flying equations and airplane behavior: A flight simulator purist will most
likely be disappointed. But if you can accept the arcade-style feel of the
plane, you'll have plenty of hours of dog-fighting fun!

 AMIGA VERSION NOTES

 Lucasfilm Games has done an excellent job of converting one of the most popular
computer games ever. What is it about THEIR FINEST HOUR: BATTLE OF BRITAIN that
has made it such a success? Probably the combination of immediate and
frustration-free arcade-style playability with enough historical realism and
depth to keep the player coming back for months. The Mission Builder alone is a
stroke of genius for its ease of use and flexibility -- this kind of thing
should be standard in games that include scenarios or missions!

 The Amiga version comes on two copyable disks, and is hard-drive installable.
It's _possible_ to run THEIR FINEST HOUR on an Amiga with one floppy drive and
512K of RAM, but such a minimal setup will require patience: Screen loads when
switching from pilot to gunners can be slow, for instance. With less than 1Mb of
RAM, the game can't be run from a hard drive, and loses all sound effects and
certain graphics enhancements, as well. So, make sure you have at least two
floppy drives and 1Mb of RAM, to avoid any frustration.

 The game plays smoothly on A1000s, A500s, A2000s, and A3000s (beta OS test on
the A3000). With adequate RAM, THEIR FINEST HOUR can be run from the Workbench,
and will quit and return to it without any fuss. The whole 200-page manual is
included, as well as a separate, thoughtful Amiga Reference Card. Copy
protection works the same as on the original, using an easy-to-read code wheel.

 Control is the same as in the IBM version: Joystick, mouse, or keyboard can be
used for basic flight maneuvering, and the Amiga-specific reference card
provides information on all other keyboard commands. I continue to find the
mouse the best controller to use. If you have a MouseStick, you'll be in heaven
with this game; it's the perfect input device, and this is the perfect design to
show off what the MouseStick can do!

 I've heard of one instance of trouble with hard-drive installation, but
Lucasfilm has probably fixed that by now. (Be sure to fill in your warranty card
to guarantee any updates or fixes your setup might need.) When playing from
floppy drives, you might hear more than the usual buzzing; according to the tech
person I spoke with at Lucasfilm, head access had to be slowed down to reliably
read the heavily compressed graphics data. The sounds might seem terrible, but
I've been playing from floppies for a month now, in heavy use without any
difficulties.

 I don't have to say much about the playability of the game. It equals that
found on the other versions, without question. Amiga fanatics eager to
demonstrate the superiority of Amiga graphics over other systems' might sniff a
bit at the quality and frame-rate of the graphics design, but it's easily more
than adequate for enjoyment. On basic Amigas, it might be useful to set ground
detail to minimum during the most complex, multi-plane dogfights, but nothing
seemed to slow THEIR FINEST HOUR down on the A3000. In any case, this game is so
much fun that worrying about such things is really unnecessary. And the sound
effects are perfect.

 I have no complaints about THEIR FINEST HOUR. It's simply the most fun I've had
since I bought my Amiga.

 THEIR FINEST HOUR: THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN is published by Lucasfilm Games and
distributed by Electronic Arts.

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