Falcon

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Falcon is based on the fantastic air combat simulator Falcon F-16 that was initially released for the Atari ST, Amiga and MS DOS systems. It's been the first and one of the best F-16 flight simulators ever developed for those home computers. The TurboGrafx-16 (PC Engine) version is more of an aircraft shooter game than a complete flight simulator. This Falcon version shows some basic aircraft indicators -such as speed, altitude, directional and targeting - to at least give the feeling of combat flying (yet not the full experience and feel). The F-16's electronic displays and radars are replicated well, in 4 different styles of HUD. The game shows most of the Falcon's important readings; these include the aforementioned indicators, as well as the fuel, the damage taken and the electronic counter-measure reading. In addition, a large radar display -which helps you locate and approach the enemy- fills most of the lower part of the screen. The radar shows both your plane and any other enemy planes nearby. Though this version is a strictly console shooter, Spectrum Holobyte did a good job!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The game features nice visuals; the terrain is well presented, although many details from the original are missing. PC Engine's hardware holds well with the animation on the 3D environment being quite smooth, considering its 8bit CPU (the dual GPUs work hard enough to help)! The game's sound is not so good, offering some typical sound effects, like the Falcon's engine (which sounds to me more like a...hair dryer than a fighting plane's turbine), the target locking system, the gunfire and some explosions! I guess the PC Engine could do better than that. Overall, this is an OK shooter for the Japanese games console.