Dam Busters, The Download (1985 Strategy Game)

Based loosely on "Operation Chastise," and the book and film it inspired, The Dam Busters sends gamers on three missions behind enemy lines to destroy German dams during WWII. Players must control every aspect of each increasingly difficult bombing raid, including setting an approach plan on the overworld map, controlling speed and height, fending off enemy pilots, avoiding flak, dropping the bomb accurately, and even dousing engine fires. If all is done correctly, gamers are rewarded with a cutscene of a bomb bouncing along the water and the dam exploding.

Dam Busters is an early flight simulation, set in World War II. It focuses on Dam Busters who historically were used to heavily bombard strategic objectives, in this case dams.

This task is not easy, as en route you will face heavy opposition forces. Fortunately, you won't be a sitting bomber in the air. Your aircraft is equipped with machine guns (left and right) with unlimited rounds of fire power, so fire at will as the enemy approaches.

When the time comes, you will have to bomb the target manually. So, get ready to unload the cargo and give them hell!

Decent conversion of Sydney Development's (Evolution) very early World War II flight simulator, released for the C64 in 1984. Despite primitive CGA graphics, The Dambusters is surprisingly complex for its time, offering multiple views, control options for the cannons, and various instruments on an authentic-looking panel.

Although you can only fly one plane in the game, it's a very special plane that is rarely modeled in flight sims: the Lancaster bomber, a fearsome bomber of the British R.A.F. The plane's place in aviation and war history is secured by the heroic deeds of an R.A.F. squadron who bombed a number of crucial dams in Germany in WWII, earning the name "the dambusters." Your mission is to follow in these heroes' footsteps, although you must contend with various air hostiles on your way to the dams. Flight handling is excellent for its time, and the multiple views and weapon options foreshadow MicroProse's excellent B-17 Flying Fortress years later. Definitely a classic, albeit forgotten, sim that deserves to be mentioned alongside BAO Software's classic Jet and many others.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

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