With the advent of new technologies comes a time of innovation, a time when pioneers set out to explore the potential of the latest inventions. Red Baron is remarkable in this concern because it is not only about the early days of a new kind of warfare, but because it was in itself one of the first dedicated combat flight simulators for home computers set in this era. And so it helped to lay down the basics of the genre just like the historical biplanes in it did for the aerial combat. A very fitting combination so to speak which gives the game a timeless appeal: Entering this world of rough 3D graphics and simplistic flight models seems to have a lot in common with taking off in one of those fragile flying machines of WWI. But let us take a look at how exactly this works to the game’s (dis)advantage and what else makes it a classic.
This one's almost notorious… hailed for being super realistic, because three years of programming work by a real-life pilot had gone into it, it having been developed in cooperation with Airbus and Lufthansa… and, as every single contemporary review will point out, a thick manual sporting 150 pages of detailed descriptions of virtually everything, including basic explanations of flight physics, plus an even thicker book of approach routes towards all major western European airports are contained in the package! Wow, right?
