Producer: Gremlin Graphics
Retail Price: £12.99 cassette, £14.99 disk
Author: David Pridmore and Greg Holmes

The sinking of the German battleship, the Bismarck, was one of the biggest coups of World War II. In May 1941, Norwegian secret agents alerted British forces of the position of the Bismarck. The British subsequently sent forces in search of the Bismarck and attacked it, damaging its rudder and leaving it a sitting duck. To sink the ship, a new American prototype torpedo plane was brought in - the Grumman Avenger.

The player takes the role of the crew of this plane and can select various screens relating to each of its four members. The plane starts on the deck of the Ark Royal; but before taking off, you need to ensure that the throttle and instruments are set at the correct levels. The engineer screen shows the appropriate gauges and levers.

Once airborne, the action is viewed from the cockpit with wireframe graphics in vanishing point perspective. Enemy planes attack the Avenger and must be shot down before they cause too much damage. The player may also switch to the rear gunner's screen allowing him to shoot pursuing planes.

The Ark Royal is continually in danger from German E-boats and U-boats and must be protected by the Avenger. The positions of planes and boats can be viewed on the navigator's screen. A course can be plotted by moving a cursor on the map. The direction of the cursor is shown by a marker on the compass on the pilot's screen.

The engineer's screen can also be accessed during flight to alter the throttle setting or the fuel mixture and adjust other levers controlling the landing gear, arrester and wing lock. Ammunition and fuel are both limited and extra supplies can on be obtained by returning to the Royal.

The ultimate aim of the Avenger is to sink the Bismarck with a torpedo. To enable the torpedo to skim across the water the plane needs to fly at low altitude. A direct hit will ensure the sinking of the Bismarck and a successful mission.

Before attempting a mission, the player can practise any part of the game such as taking off, landing, flying and sinking the Bismarck. There is a choice between five missions of varying difficulty.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Kempston, Cursor, Sinclair
Graphics: typically indistinguishable wire-frame shapes
Sound: grinding spot effects
Options: five different missions and a practice mode

The manual to Night Raider is extremely detailed and even contains the history of the Bismarck and its sinking. Comprehensive flight training options allow the novice pilot to get used to the controls before attempting a reel mission. The different screens for each member of the crew allow for great attention to detail and many more instruments than would have been possible on a single screen. Accurate vector graphics are fast, with enemy planes being reasonably detailed considering the speed. Five minions of varying difficulty should help to lengthen the appeal of the game and the hardest missions will give even the best pilots a run for their money. This is definitely not a mindless shoot-'em-up but a game that combines strategy and arcade skills to good effect. A well-presented, high quality simulation which will appeal to all fans of the genre.
PHIL [85%]

Night Raider is certainly a complicated game. You have to watch all the different screens like a hawk, otherwise the unfortunate crew of you aeroplane end up taking an unexpected swim. Still - a quick perusal of the enclosed instruction manual should keep even the most inept pilot out of the waves. Graphically, Night Raider is impressive, and although the view out of the cockpit is drab (remember that it's night time), the detail on the various knobs and dials, especially on the engineer's console, is great. There's plenty of challenge, ranging from practising the basic manoeuvres such as landing and taking off, to a full blown attack on the Bismarck, stopping off to sink a few E- and U-boats on the way. I greatly enjoyed playing Night Raider - a leading simulation game and well worth a look.
MARK [83%]

Night Raider is quite good as flight simulations go, but visually poor. The odd solid plane occasionally flies over, and the few boats that you come across are nothing more than tiny sprites. The missions vary from just shooting a few ships to a full-scale battle. A feature I liked allowed you to plot a course which the plane will follow, while you blow up everything in sight - thus saving you the hassle of keeping an eye on everything. Night Raider isn't the best flight simulation around, but still very interesting.
NICK [63%]

Gremlin
£7.99 cass/£12.99 disk
Reviewer: Duncan MacDonald

Eeeeooowwwwwww!! Ack ack ack ack ack ack!! Bang, bang, bang!!! 'Quick, Algy, think of a slightly more original intro for this flight combat game.'

'Sorry, flight, I'm a bit tied up on the rear cannon at the moment...'

'Honestly Algy, there's a time and a place for that kind of thing.'

'Sorry flight. Aaah, here comes Fritz. Let's hope he wants some lead... take this, chum...' Rat at at at at at at at a!!

Night Raider is supposedly a cross between a flight simulation and a shoot 'em up.

You take the controls of an Avenger torpedo bomber, which at the beginning of play is nestling eagerly on the flight deck of the HMS Ark Royal (an aircraft carrier). Your primary objective is to sink the Bsmarck.

There are four screens to play about with on the aeroplane - forward view, rear view, map display and engineers view, and you'll need to be au-fait with this latter screen to even get off the ground.

Once you've got the motors running it's time to zip back to the cockpit view. Press a key and its chocks away, as you zoom into the air.

Back into engineers view for a bit of fine-tuning, and then onto the pilots view to set course for the nearest U-boats.

When (if) you reach the U- boats, it's time for a bit of low level flying while sending the subs to Davey Jones' Locker with your forward guns. Done that? Righto, back to the map screen to pick another target. When you decide it's time to take out the Bismarck, you have to do a low level approach and drop a torpedo into the water. You only get one, though, so don't muck it up. Once the Bismarck has been sunk, you have to make it back to the Ark Royal and land. Mission accomplished.

Night Raider suffers from being neither a brill shoot 'em up nor a fab flight sim. It comes out as being fairly average in both departments. You spend most of the time switching between front and rear screens, and shooting down the Dorniers as they swing across your field of vision, spewing lead.

The inside of the plane is graphically great, as is the animation of the flak which comes out of your guns. Not so great are the graphics 'outside'. The Dorniers, U-boats, E-boats and mines are slightly jerky and not particularly impressive spites, while the Ark Royal and Bismarck are pretty dire vector graphics - they're rather two dimensional and don't exactly convey a great deal of realism. If the external action was presented as well as the internal this could have been a very good game, but as it stands, neither sim-buffs nor shoot 'em up fans are going to find lasting enjoyment here.

"Well, Algy, have you sent Fritz into the briny yet?"

"Yes Flight. Can you tie me up again now?"

THE COMPLETE YS GUIDE TO FLIGHT SIMS

Oh cripes. Whose idea was this? Couldn't we do it on something else? Nah, we promised. How about putting if off for another month? Or we could make JONATHAN DAVIS do it? Heh heh. Right, where's he got to? Ah ha!

Neeeeeow! Dakka dakka dakka! Kaboom! "Crikey, Ginger, pull up! Over."

"I can't! I think my flaps have gone a bit funny. Over." Neeeow! Boom!

"Bail out! Bail out! Over." Dakka dakka dakka. (Ricochet noises.)

"Er, okay then. Over and out."

Sorry about that, just trying to inject a bit of excitement into this thing because, let's face it, flight sims aren't exactly the most exciting bits of software around.

Or are they?

No, They're not. But there are loads of them about, and people keep buying them. Why is this? Perhaps we'd better investigate.

For thousands of years man has dreamt of flight... (Cut the crap, Ed) Erm, well, perhaps it's because they demand a bit more thought than your average arcade game. Fast reactions are all very well, but what about using your noddle occasionally? Keeping a plane in flight isn't just a matter of wobbling your joystick about a bit, which is the impression that lesser games give. You've got angles of attack to worry about, altitude, navigation, weapons systems, undercarriage... the list is endless. As are the manuals usually. And that's another thing. If you've never played one before you'll need to spend hours wading through one of these breeze-block tomes before you can even get off the ground.

Once you've got the thing up in the air though you're well away. With any luck there'll be lots of scenery to look at and plenty of enemy thingies to 'take out'. You might even like to indulge in a bit of aerobatics to pass the time. The one thing you should always keep an eye on though is the ground. Stay away from this at all costs. Unless you're landing, of course, which is another story altogether.

SO WHAT'S A FLIGHT SIM THEN, EH?

In compiling this guide I was faced with the usual problem - what exactly is a flight simulation? What are the criteria? Where do you draw the line? I decided to seek the advice of one of Europe's leading experts in the field of computer games.

"Er, Matt? (Cough.) Matt?' I ventured.

"Mmm?"

"Would you have said that, say, Fighter Pilot was a flight sim? Huh? Matt?" I enquired cheerily.

"Er, probably," he replied.

"How about Harrier Attack?"

"I expect it is, yes."

"Or Night Raider?"

"Um, look, I've got to go out. To the, er, shops. I'll see you later. Maybe."

Unperturbed. I decided to try Andy, but he didn't appear to hear me. I also tried ringing up a few friends. They all seemed to be out.

So it's all down to me then. Well, I reckon that really, in a flight sim, you ought to be in control of a plane of some sort. Ideally you'd get a 3D view out of the cockpit, but I'll be flexible and allow ones where you see the plane on the screen from the back (like ATF) and even ones where you see the view in 2D (from the top or something).

Another important guideline is the number of keys. Preferably there should be at least 2,452 of them, each with about three different functions. But, again, I'll allow a generous margin of error and set the bottom line at six.

And finally there's the manual. Obviously this should be as large and impenetrable as possible, with lots of incomprehensible acronyms that you have to keep looking up in the glossary at the back. A rough guide to length? Let's say 500-600 pages for a decent one or, if the game comes in an ordinary cassette box, an inlay card that folds out into a thin strip long enough to wrap round Matt's tummy at least two and a half times.

So now we know just what makes up a flight sim, let's take a look at a few…

RATINGS

Once again, the normally-so-versatile YS rating system doesn't really seem too appropriate here (Instant appeal? Addictiveness?). So what we've done is to come up with a revised system, specially tailored to meet the needs of today's flight sim. Let's have a nosey...

The View: Can you see anything nice out of the window? Or is it all just green and blue wiggly lines? And does the scenery glide around smoothly or jerk around like an Allegro with a dodgy clutch?

Realism: This can often be determined by the number of keys the game uses. So that's just what we've done. Counted 'em. As there are 40 keys on your basic Speccy, and each one can be doubled or even tripled up, the maximum comes out to exactly 100. Handy, eh?

Dakka Factor: Is there much to shoot? Or is it all a matter of map-reading, gauge-watching and other such nonsense? And once you've shot whatever it is, does it explode dramatically and plummet to the ground leaving a trail of smoke behind it? Or not?

Net Weight: A crucial part of any flight sim is all the junk that comes with it. So, adding together all the disks, maps, manuals, stickers and the box, what do the YS scales make of it? (All weights are, of course, approximate.) (In degrees.)

Night Raider
Gremlin

Okay, this time round you're piloting a Grumman Avenger, which is one of those chubby American WWII bombers, and your mission is to wipe out the Bismark - 'the most fearsome battle machine ever to haunt the seas' (apart from the time when Andy 'Street Hawk' Ounsted accidentally drive his Vespa off Skegness pier, that is). Luckily the ship has already been crippled by some Royal Navy biplanes, so all you've got to do is take off from the Ark Royal and finish it off. Simple really. Unfortunately, though, your plane seems to have a crew of one - you - so you've got to fly the plane, work the guns and do the engineery bits (like fiddling about with the engines) by flipping between a whole load of different screens. Luckily for Gremlin, the attack took place at night so the graphics are limited to the moon glistening off the sea and the enemy planes buzzing past the windows. This, along with the very restricted flying abilities of your plane, means that the game hasn't really go a lot to recommend it, apart from your bullets which look very nice whizzing off into the night. The flying parts are just a case of keeping on course to the Bismark, and the shooting parts are really just another Op Wolf thing. Not really a proper flight sim then, and not a massively enjoyable shoot-'em-up either. Shame about that. There's a nice pic on the box though.

Label: Gremlin
Author: In-house
Price: £9.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony Dillon

Night Raider is not just another one of those Fly-an-overcomplicated-plane-on-a-suicide-mission-to-destroy-an-almost-invincible-ship-alone in the same format as Ace of Aces and Dambusters. For one thing this one is good, and honest. For another it actually has some gameplay and you can get playing without taking a degree in navigation first.

As in the norm for this kind of game, you are the pilot, navigator, rear and front gunner, and engineer. All of these have different parts to play in the flying and defence of the aircraft as it carries out it's mission to destroy the Bismark fa well known battleship). Rather than try to cram all onto one screen. Gremlin has sensibly chosen to put each role onto a different screen (see box).

Two types of control methods are employed according to control screen. On the forward facing pilot's screen, up/down/ left/right on the joystick have the usual control over flaps and ailerons. On the other screens, you control a little pointer, which you use to open and close the throttle, lower and raise landing gear/set course and turn on the light. While it's a bit of an effort at first, you soon get the hang of multitasking.

Graphics are better than average for this kind of game. Ships are portrayed in line 3-D, and all the other planes, bits of land and anything else are portrayed as filled sprites. All are recognisable, though they are a little on the static side. More excitingly, there is a nice touch when you shoot down enemy aircraft, tips and yaws into the sea, trailing smoke and bits of pilot.

Though a little daunting at first, after a little practise it all hangs together very well. I'd even go as far to say as it's better than the classic Ace of Aces. Personally, I think it takes a bit of a long time to get to the Bismark but that's not a big criticism, the stationess of the enemy ships is a bigger one but even so this is a goodie.

Gremlin sink the Bismarck.

Against a silver moon an awesome shape comes rumbling towards its destiny... the end of the runway and an undignified plop into the Atlantic Ocean, if you're not careful. No matter how awesome or rumbly the Grumman Avenger - a twin-engined World War two bomber - might be, you can't just jump in and expect to fly it straight away.

Your ultimate aim is to sink the notorious Bismarck in this mixture of simulation, action and strategy. But first you must learn how to fly your aircraft - made more complicated by the fact that you must continually switch from the pilot's chair to the engineer's, where you have to adjust the throttle, mixture setting, undercarriage, fuel tank selection and a whole host of other critical factors.

Two further views can be selected - the rear gunner's and the navigator's. The rear gunner has a sight which can be moved about the screen to centre on attackers. Fortunately, enemy aircraft aren't terribly persistent, and will peel off before they've done major damage. The damage is cumulative though, so get them as soon as possible.

The pilot also has a gunsight which he can toggle on or off. Beware, though - while the sight is on the aircraft's controls are frozen. You can't fly and shoot at the same time....

Enemy aircraft are a natural target for your machine guns, but so are mines, U-Boats and E-Boats. In fact, the only thing that requires a torpedo is the Bismarck itself.

The navigator's view presents you with the strategy side of the game. A map of the area shows you where your carrier is, the positions of enemy aircraft, E-boats U-boats, mines - and even the Bismarck itself. You see while you're out to sink the German battleship, those Nazis are after the Ark Royal...

Night Render is a long way from a true flight sim, but as a mixture of arcade action and strategy it scores highly. At first, simply landing and taking off is enough of a challenge, while navigation - and the act of actually finding an enemy vessel in a huge tract of ocean - is a feat in itself.

One of five missions of varying difficulty can be selected. A couple have a list of objectives to be tackled in sequence while for the last - ominously - you're just told the situation and wished the best of luck...

There's enough here to keep you busy for quite a while. Even the easiest mission is a long way from being a pushover. You may eventually go on to crack the toughest missions, but it's not going to happen overnight. Purists will find fault with the realism, perfectionists will pick holes in the graphics, but you can bet they'll still want to play it.

Reviewer: Rod Lawton

RELEASE BOX
Atari ST, £19.99dk, Out Now
Spec, £9.99cs, £12.99dk, Out Now
C64/128, £9.99cs, £14.99dk, Imminent
Ams, £9.99cs, £14.99dk, Imminent
IBM PC, £l9.99dk, Imminent
Amiga, £19.99dk, Imminent

Predicted Interest Curve

1 min: 50/100
1 hour: 70/100
1 day: 80/100
1 week: 60/100
1 month: 30/100
1 year: 20/100

MACHINES: Atari ST, Spectrum 48K and Plus 3, Commodore 64, Amiga, PC
PRICE: Spec £7.99, +3 £12.99, C64 £9.99, ST £19.99, Amiga £24.99
VERSION TESTED: ST, +3

Night Raider strikes a nice balance between simulation and arcade play whilst at the same time teaching you something useful about one of the most exciting sea battles in the history of naval warfare.

The Bismark was the pride of the German fleet in World War II and the scourge of the Royal Navy. She claimed amongst many ships the Battle cruiser Hood - before being sunk by a prolonged aerial attack from planes launched from the Ark Royal.

Night Raider lets you take the joystick of one of these planes as it weathers the flak and dive bombs the Bismarck to drop its torpedo.

The game has a multi-screen design - enabling you to flick from front view to tail view, cockpit controls, scrolling map of the battle theatre, and also the menu and game play options by pressing the number keys on your computer.

Your plane is based on the Grumman Avenger - an American designed torpedo bomber which delivered the killing death blows to the Bismarck. The game is at its best in the mission mode when the Avenger comes under attack from German fighters. It is a case of blasting away with your forward and aft guns - flicking through the screens whilst also keeping an eye on your course.

The Avenger has several controls on board which you can operate with the did of on icon pointer which you move around - the controls with your joystick. These ore airspeed, altitude, artificial horizon - of particular use when flying at night, vertical speed, inverted T-bar to show the position of the rudder, brake, throttle, ignition, and torpedo.

Armaments are just the torpedo and forward and tail guns. You can only load one torpedo into the Avenger so you must hit the target when you get in range.

The various controls of the Avenger sound similar to those you would expect in any flight simulation. In practice they are much easier to use than a pure simulation. The tolerance levels hove been set low - so that you have a fair amount of time to put things right should you take too much flak, or over heat the engine.

Night Raider makes a justifiable claim to having a challenging strategy element. I particularly liked the mission challenges. A Commander offers a fist full of straws. Yep - you guessed it, they are pretty tough challenges, and you always draw a short straw of some description.

The scrolling map is full of enemy hazards. There are closing German fighters, U-boats, destroyers, floating mines and many other hazards. Sometimes you have two tasks to carry out at the same time - like destroying the Bismarck and defending the Hood.

Essential skills apart from the obvious ones of mastering the flight controls and perfecting aim with the torpedo you must also learn to set the course, navigate, and manoeuvre the Avenger.

There is a real knack to this - particularly when in combat. The crosshairs lock the plane into a certain course. You must therefore take the cross hairs off the screen risking attack from enemy fighters. Then quickly flick to the map screen and get your Avenger pointing in the correct direction. It is not easy but it is challenging and rewarding when you successfully correct your course and get your guns operational quickly enough to take out some incoming fighters.

The graphics ore worthy of mention both on the Plus 3 and Atari ST - the two versions tested. They are solid filled on the ST but resort to 3D line drawings on the Plus 3.

Nice frills are included like a picture of Adolf Hitler with digitised speech as the Fuhrer celebrates the first victim of the Bismarck. Soon after Winston Churchill is up on screen making his famous speech about lifting the curse of Hitler "from the brow of Men".

Of course these frills are reserved for 16 bit owners - but the main game play graphics are also sound on all systems. Best of all are the German fighters - if you bag one of these they plunge most dramatically sea-words with trails of flames pouring from their tails.

Gamers old enough to remember the Dam Busters (recently out on budget) will see some unmistakable resemblances in game design.

This is the best launch from Gremlin for some time. I found it a thoroughly enjoyable game to play. Just right for people who want something a little more challenging but don't want to plow through a thirty page manual - and get involved in save game options as for example in something like Carrier Command. Night Raider finds the middle ground most effectively.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £12.99

First reviewed on the Atari ST in TGM009 (70%), this World War II arcade simulator has now fought its way to the Spectrum. The basic gameplay remains the same, with you controlling three crew members in a Gruman Avenger's Cockpit.

Based on the real-life aircraft carrier Ark Royal, the Avenger is sent to sink the Bismarck with a torpedo, fighting through enemy fighters and flak. At the same time, however, you must protect the Ark Royal from German bombers, mine fields, E-boats and U-boats.

At the start you are offered a choice of missions: quite often several flights have to be completed before you are allowed a crack at the battle cruiser. And on long missions the Avenger has to return to the Ark Royal for refuelling and re-arming.

Your responsibilities are shown by four different views: a straight-ahead pilot's view with machine-gun cursor, engineer's panel, navigator's map and rear gunner. An indicator in the corner of each screen shows when your attention is needed elsewhere.

Most of the screens are self-explanatory, but the engineer's is one of the most important, requiring correct control setting for take-off and landing.

Fortunately, any stage can be practised separately before attempting a mission. This is especially useful for landings which, unlike on the Atari ST, are exceptionally difficult to master.

Graphically the detailing of the plane's instrumentation is good, although enemy craft remain unexciting sprites in front of a confusing horizon.

There are only a few spot effects, and generally limited gameplay means that the Spectrum version offers better value for money than its predecessor.

Although it can't compare with the realism of games such as Gunship, Night Raider is definitely worth a second look.