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/ Genres / Action / The Dam Busters

The Dam Busters

DOS - 1985
Also available on: Amstrad CPC - Apple II - ColecoVision - Commodore 64 - MSX

Decent conversion of Sydney Development's (Evolution) very early World War II flight simulator, released for the C64 in 1984. Despite primitive CGA graphics, The Dambusters is surprisingly complex for its time, offering multiple views, control options for the cannons, and various instruments on an authentic-looking panel.

Although you can only fly one plane in the game, it's a very special plane that is rarely modeled in flight sims: the Lancaster bomber, a fearsome bomber of the British R.A.F. The plane's place in aviation and war history is secured by the heroic deeds of an R.A.F. squadron who bombed a number of crucial dams in Germany in WWII, earning the name "the dambusters." Your mission is to follow in these heroes' footsteps, although you must contend with various air hostiles on your way to the dams.

Although there is really only one mission (dam bombing), you can choose what stage of the mission you want to start from. Flight handling is excellent for its time, and the multiple views and multiple stations (bombadier, pilot, gunner, and navigator) foreshadow MicroProse's excellent B-17 Flying Fortress years later.

Definitely a classic, albeit forgotten, sim that deserves to be mentioned alongside BAO Software's classic Jet and many others. Two thumbs up!

Review By HOTUD

Comments and reviews

Joe Mama 22 Nov. 2024

My brother had this one for his Commodore 64.

0
Golem 06 Jun. 2023

Good old memories playing this game then.

1
JOE 24 Jun. 2017

Hard as s**t and mindless waiting to fly to the waypoint, assuming you don't get a random fighter.

0
AJ 06 Mar. 2016

It's a game, don't you get it, it's supposed to be a bit of entertainment. It was given away free, stop moaning. If you can do better get programming, best of luck with that. Personally I thought it was alright for a bit of harmless fun on a Sunday evening when the |TV was c**p.

-2
@Anon 07 Jun. 2014

This is NOT a great game! The C64 version was bad enough NVM this bent effort with it's CGA graphics.
I was fooled into buying this by a totally false and overexaggerated good review by Zzap64 magazine (they must have been bribed), they made it sound like an advanced version of the 1980 Intellivision B17 Bomber. ZZap64 lied you could attack any target on the map of Europe. You couldn't. Only the dams, that was it. The map of Europe was all meaningless cosmetic eyecandy.

The game sucked big time and was a total ripoff (plus they mustve bribed reviewers of the time too)

1
Dam 07 Feb. 2014

They said a bad word!

1
Anon 17 Oct. 2009

This is a great game!

0

No comment nor review for this game at the moment.

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Downloads

DOS version
Game file
United Kingdom English
30 KB
Commodore 64 version
Game file
United Kingdom English
31 KB
MSX version
Game file
United Kingdom English
45 KB
Game file
United Kingdom English
26 KB
Amstrad CPC version
Game file
United Kingdom English
25 KB
ColecoVision version
Game file
United Kingdom English
23 KB
Apple II version
Game file
United Kingdom English
73 KB

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