''F-15 Strike Eagle'' is an

F-15 Strike Eagle The McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) F-15E Strike Eagle is an American all-weather multirole strike fighter derived from the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle. The F-15E was designed in the 1980s for long-range, high-speed interdiction without rel ...

combat flight simulator Combat flight simulators are vehicle simulation games, amateur flight simulation computer programs used to simulate military aircraft and their operations. These are distinct from dedicated flight simulators used for professional pilot and mili ...

originally released for the

Atari 8-bit family The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, ...

in 1984 by

MicroProse MicroProse is an American video game publisher and video game developer, developer founded by Bill Stealey, Sid Meier, and Andy Hollis in 1982. It developed and published numerous games, including starting the ''Civilization (series), Civilizatio ...

then ported to other systems. It is the first in the ''F-15 Strike Eagle'' series followed by ''

F-15 Strike Eagle II ''F-15 Strike Eagle II'' is an F-15E Strike Eagle combat flight simulator released in 1989 by MicroProse and is the sequel of '' F-15 Strike Eagle''. It was followed in 1992 by ''F-15 Strike Eagle III'', the final game of the series. The fighter ...

'' and ''

F-15 Strike Eagle III ''F-15 Strike Eagle III'' is an F-15 Strike Eagle combat flight simulator released in 1992 by MicroProse and is the sequel of '' F-15 Strike Eagle'' and ''F-15 Strike Eagle II''. It is the final game in the series. The fighter is equipped wit ...

''. An arcade version of the game was released simply as ''F-15 Strike Eagle'' in 1991, which uses higher-end hardware than was available in home systems, including the TMS34010 graphics-oriented CPU.

Gameplay

The game begins with the player selecting Libya (much like Operation El Dorado Canyon), the Persian Gulf, or Vietnam as a mission theater. Play then begins from the cockpit of an F-15 already in flight and equipped with a variety of missiles, bombs, drop tanks, flares and chaff. The player flies the plane in combat to bomb various targets including a primary and secondary target while also engaging in air-to-air combat with enemy fighters. The game ends when either the player's plane crashes, is destroyed, or when the player returns to base.

Ports

The game was first released for the Atari 8-bit family, with ports appearing from 1985-87 for the Apple II, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, MSX, and Amstrad CPC. It was also ported to the IBM PC as a

self-booting disk A self-booting disk is a floppy disk for home or personal computers that loads directly into a standalone application when the system is turned on, bypassing the operating system. This was common, even standard, on some computers in the late 1970 ...

, being one of the first games that MicroProse company released for IBM compatibles. The initial IBM release came on a self-booting 5.25" floppy disk and supported only CGA graphics, but a revised version in 1986 was offered on 3.5" disks and added limited

EGA Ega or EGA may refer to: Military * East German Army, the common western name for the National People's Army * Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, the emblem of the United States Marine Corps People * Aega (mayor of the palace), 7th-century noble of Neus ...

support (which added the ability to change color palettes if an EGA card was present). Versions for the Game Boy, Game Gear, and NES were published in the early 1990s.

Reception

''F-15 Strike Eagle'' was a commercial blockbuster. It sold 250,000 copies by March 1987, and surpassed 1 million units in 1989. It ultimately reached over 1.5 million sales overall, and was MicroProse's best-selling Commodore game as of late 1987. ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'' in 1984 called ''F-15'' "an excellent simulation" with "excellent documentation". It stated that "the action is fast and furious ... the graphics are excellent". The game won the "Action game of the Year" in the magazine's 1985 reader poll. In a 1994 survey of wargames the magazine gave the title two stars out of five, stating that "The first 'classic' fighter simulation" was "well loved in its time" but "extremely dated". '' Antic'' approved of the

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

version's graphical and speed improvements, and ability to save progress. '' Compute!'' listed the game in 1988 as one of "Our Favorite Games", stating that it "makes jet fighter combat nerve-wracking and fun at the same time".

References

External links

* *
''The Official F-15 Strike Eagle Handbook''
at FlightSimBooks.com {{DEFAULTSORT:F-15 Strike Eagle (Video Game) 1984 video games Amiga games Amstrad CPC games Apple II games Arcade video games Atari 8-bit family games Atari ST games Cold War video games Combat flight simulators Commodore 64 games Game Boy games Game Gear games MicroProse games MSX games Nintendo Entertainment System games NMS Software games Sid Meier games Single-player video games U.S. Gold games Video games developed in the United States Video games set in Iran Video games set in Libya Video games set in Vietnam ZX Spectrum games