''Gee Bee Air Rally'' (shown on the title screen as ''GeeBee Air Rally'') is a 1987 airplane racing game by

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

. It was developed for

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for "Colour Personal Computer") is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spec ...

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in ...

and

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer developed and marketed by Sinclair Research. One of the most influential computers ever made and one of the all-time bestselling British computers, over five million units were sold. ...

. It is set in the 1920s and early 1930s in which the player is the

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

of a small

airplane An airplane (American English), or aeroplane (Commonwealth English), informally plane, is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, Propeller (aircraft), propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a vari ...

. The player's goal is to increase the score by flying the airplane through several races and special events. The player's aircraft is modelled on the Granville Brothers Gee Bee Model Z Super Sportster, a "flying engine" which was the predecessor of the more extreme Model R.

Gameplay

This game is

single-player A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the gameplay. Video games in general can feature several game modes, including single-player modes designed to be played by a single player in add ...

only and has three

difficulty level Game balance is a branch of game design with the intention of improving gameplay and user experience by balancing difficulty and fairness. Game balance consists of adjusting rewards, challenges, and/or elements of a game to create the intended pla ...

s, which the player must choose between before beginning play. The player's airplane is always yellow, and the races follow a pattern of three main events and one special event, which alternates between popping 30 balloons and flying to the right of red pylons and to the left of blue ones. A primary obstacle is avoiding collision with other aircraft. After two collisions, the plane falters and the pilot parachutes out. This is followed by one of several pictures depicting the pilot in various landing places, such as a

pigpen A sty or pigsty is a small-scale outdoor enclosure for raising domestic pigs as livestock. It is sometimes referred to as a hog pen, hog parlor, pigpen, pig parlor, or pig-cote, although pig pen may refer to pens confining pigs that are kep ...

, a parched

desert A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the la ...

, a tree, or a barnyard of chickens. Following successful completion of the special event, a picture of the pilot at an awards ceremony is shown, accompanied by period music.

Reception

Compute! ''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', is an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET. ...

'' criticized the game's copy protection and repetitive cut scenes but praised the graphics and audio, concluding that "''Gee Bee Air Rally'' is worthy of repeated play".

Reviews

*''

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine ''Asimov's Science Fiction'' is an American science fiction magazine edited by Sheila Williams and published by Dell Magazines, which is owned by Penny Press. It was launched as a quarterly by Davis Publications in 1977, after obtaining Isaac ...

'' v12 n5 (1988 05)

References

External links

* * * 1987 video games Amiga games Amstrad CPC games ZX Spectrum games Commodore 64 games Flight simulation video games Video games scored by Russell Lieblich Video games developed in the United States {{racing-videogame-stub