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Title Their Finest Hour - The Battle of Britain
Company LucasArts/LucasFilm
Game Type Flight Sim
Players 1
Compatibility All
HD Installable Yes
Submission Seppo Typpö (groucho@pp.inet.fi) Profiled Reviewer

Review
After the quite excellent 'BattleHawks 1942', LucasArts expanded its
flight sim family with another game based on the famous (perhaps the most
famous) World War 2 scenario - the Battle of Britain.

Using the same sprite-based 3D engine pioneered in Battlehawks, the basic
structure of "Their Finest Hour - The Battle of Britain" allows the player
to choose which side to fight on and gives a number of fighters (and if
the player elects Germany, some bombers) to choose from. After this, there
is a selection of historical missions which can then be flown. There is
also a campaign mode which gives the player a chance to change the outcome
of the battle by allowing command of the air forces of one side and
using a suitable strategy to hopefully win the full battle.

The presentation of the game is flawless, with a thick informative manual
and a multitude of game options. As this is quite a realistic simulation
there are many control keys to learn and mastering this game (especially
the campaign part) will require some serious effort. Each fighter has its
strong and weaks sides which must be learned - and then there's the bomber
aircraft and their missions which require completely different tactics.

The graphics represent both strong and weaks points of this game. The
sprite based graphics means the planes look better than in most
non-texture-mapped vector based flight sims. On the other hand, the
animation is bit poor and 'jumpy' due to the limited number of sprites
used in animation. The frame update is just about acceptable on slower
Amigas like the A500 but gets better on faster Amigas (although even
that does not improve the jumpy animation problem).

The accompanying sound effects are pretty good with decent engine and
weapon sfx. The game supports mouse, joystick and keyboard controls -
I'd recommend a good mouse over a joystick as it is a more accurate device
for both flying and shooting things.

Their Finest Hour is a fine flight simulation which will keep enthuastic
Amiga pilots in the air for a long time. Some people might be appalled by
the sprite graphics which give the game a slightly arcadey look, but they
should note that behind those dodgy sprites lies an excellent game. Oh and
the manual makes excellent WW2 history reading too (if you're into that
sort of thing)...