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Lawrence Holland went on to create the enormously successful X-Wing series of games. More recently, I had fun finishing Secret Weapons Over Normandy on the PS2, which is similar to the third game in the original trilogy, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe (1991).

Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain is a World War II combat flight simulator video game by Lawrence Holland, released in October 1989 for the Amiga, Atari ST and DOS systems. It was the second game in the trilogy of World War II titles by LucasFilm Games, the others being Battlehawks 1942 (1988) and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe (1991). The game was released with a 192-page manual written by Victor Cross, which provided a detailed historical overview of the battle and pilots' perspectives.

Gameplay

Their Finest Hour was a simulation of the Royal Air Force and German Luftwaffe aircraft during the Battle of Britain from July to September 1940. It offered eight flyable aircraft: two RAF (Supermarine Spitfire, Hawker Hurricane) and six Luftwaffe (Messerschmitt Bf 109 E, Messerschmitt Bf 110 C-4 "Zerstörer", Junkers Ju 87 Stuka, Dornier 17 z-2, Heinkel He 111 H-3, Junkers Ju 88 A-1).

The game pioneered gameplay elements featured in later Lucasfilm releases, such as a mission builder and combat film recorder, the ability to man all the crew positions in a bomber, and a Campaign mode where the historical outcome is decided by the success or failure of the missions flown by the player.

Reception

Their Finest Hour received 5 out of 5 stars from Dragon. Computer Gaming World stated that the game was "even more amazing" than Battlehawks 1942. It praised the graphics, sound card audio, and documentation, while mildly criticizing the controls when not using a mouse, and concluded that the game would appeal to both action and wargame players. Computer Gaming World named it as Action Game of the Year in 1990. In 1991 the magazine named the game to its Hall of Fame for games readers rated highly over time, and a survey of strategy and war games gave it four and a half stars out of five. In 1996, the magazine ranked it as the 21st best game of all time, adding that it "reminds us that the great sim can also be a great game."