Dive Bomber

aka: Night Raider
Moby ID: 626
Atari ST Specs
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Description official descriptions

In World War 2, the Bismarck battleship has been dominant thus far. Armed with torpedoes and a machine gun, can you destroy the Bismarck with a well-aimed torpedo and turn the tide of WW2 in the Allies' favour? Find out is this flight simulation and strategy game.

How you complete the task is largely up to you. You will need to deal with the plane's instruments, to take off, and plan which areas of the sky you patrol in the search for the Bismarck. There are four distinct instrument panels to control engineer, navigator and gunner functions as well as the main flight controls. Statistics on how much of each enemy's fleet you destroy are kept.

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Credits (Atari ST version)

7 People

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 66% (based on 10 ratings)

Players

Average score: 2.5 out of 5 (based on 18 ratings with 2 reviews)

Nail-biting action!

The Good
This game was realistic for its time. I used to sit with my dad as he flew up and down the map, avoiding gun fire, changing madly from the pilot view to rear gunner and back again, shooting down one plane after the other, until he finally found the Bismarck.

Later I learned to do all that myself. "Flicking" the controls on, from cockpit lights through to ignition, I felt like I was in the aircraft. The option to fight as rear gunner came in particularly handy, as droves of aircraft hit you at once, often from both sides at (almost) the same time.

The Bad
Addictive as the game was, it became extremely frustrating to have to zig-zag to and fro, shooting down plane after plane, only to find the Bismarck - and miss. You could only carry two torpedoes, and hitting the target was not a simple task, and one that spoiled the lasting effect for me.

The Bottom Line
A pioneer in combat flight sim gaming, Night Raider was a brilliant game that set standards for games to come.

ZX Spectrum · by Stephen M (20) · 2006

The Bismark is loose in the atlantic, fly your Avenger in a mission to Sink the Bismark!

The Good
The game is an interesting idea, a single mission flight simulator where you fly an Avenger off the Ark Royal (Royal Navy) in order to hunt down the Bismark. The Bismark is "out there somewhere" and you have to find her, while at the same time protecting the Ark Royal from both submarines and minefields. Loose the Ark Royal and it's over.

Some parts of the game are a lot of fun. The plane pretty much flew itself (no real physics, somewhat arcadish in that you could only roll so much and fly so high etc.) so you spent the majority of the game in the map finding targets, and then flying over them while in the gunner positions. For instance the Ark Royal started off headed right into a mine field, so you aim for that, jump into the lower gun position, and fire away. Lots of fun! Getting the U-boats was similar, but very hard to do, you typically flew past before getting enough rounds into them.

Countering you were guns on the subs, represented by flashes which I suppose were supposed to be the AA. I never found them to be a big issue though, and the flashes made it easy to find the boats. More dangerous though were the Me-110 night fighters which travelled in packs. Although you could (unrealistically) take out a pack or two in the upper gun, get caught too much and down you go.

Fuel and ammo needed to be watched, and when you got low you flew into the area of the Ark and hit "I" to tell her to turn on the lights. It also lined up with you every time (for developer ease I believe), making this task pretty easy as long as you remember to lower the hook and wheels.

When you do finally find the Bismark you get one shot with your torpedo to sink her, no second try.

The Bad
One try to sink the Bismark! The game just ends at that point, you miss or you hit, all done.

Also the history is astoundingly bad. The manual goes to great lengths to explain that the Avenger never flew with the RN and this is just a game after all, but in reality Avengers really did fly with the RN! Then consider that the Avenger was a torpedo bomber, not a dive bomber. Pick up a book!

As a hard-core simmer I found the flight portion of the game to be pretty distracting, but as an action game this isn't an issue.

The Bottom Line
Interesting idea and the graphics were definitely well done for the time, but once you get the Bismark once or twice the game pretty much has no replay value.

DOS · by Maury Markowitz (266) · 2000

Discussion

Subject By Date
Amiga version unreleased? twitek (13974) Nov 4, 2019

Trivia

Bismarck

The game is based on story surrounding The Bismarck in World War II. The Bismarck is one of the largest and biggest Naval Ship ever built for the German Navy. It was first launched in February 14, 1939 but was truly completed (finishing touches) in March, 1941...by then was the world's most powerful fighting ship in the Northern Atlantic and was a serious priority threat to the Allied Naval Command. It's crew consisted of 2,300 officers and men.

Awards

  • ACE
    • October 1988 (issue #13) - Included in the Top-100 list of 1987/1988 (editorial staff selection)

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 626
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Aquaman.

Apple II added by Rola. Commodore 64, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum added by Kabushi. Amstrad CPC added by Martin Smith.

Additional contributors: Indra was here, 80, Martin Smith, Patrick Bregger, Jo ST.

Game added December 28, 1999. Last modified August 14, 2023.