F-16 Falcon Strike | Hacker News Reader

F-16 Falcon Strike

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155 pointsstarkparker18 comments

Nice! It's like a Falcon 1.0.

And btw, Falcon 5.0 is in development :-)

Woah what? Can you tell me more about Falcon 5.0? I used to play 3.0 back in the day and was a super huge fan of it.

1. The Microprose brand has been resurrected focused on reviving classic 90s and 2000s sim type games. They gave an interview in PC Pilot magazine a while back confirming they were working on Falcon 5, which will be an F-16 and F-35 sim, sitting between War Thunder and DCS World on the realism scale.

2. Meanwhile the fans have modded Falcon 4.0 into a modern F-16 and F-15 simulator comparable in many ways to sims like DCS World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY4lHUJ1ft0

Microprose owns Falcon again. I don't think there's much official information yet, but Falcon does have a dedicated spot on their official Discord with the Falcon 5 developer chiming in now and then.

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/microprose/announcements/d...

I tried it at a game show last year. At least a demo with VR headset and full cockpit.

Falcon 4.0 BMS is probably the best F16 simulator out there right now and it's 'free'

Like the homage.

I did spend quite a few afternoons with the Amiga version, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcry314I7Ro

Unfortunely modern sims require top cards, which spoils the fun.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the game but the F-16 has always been my favorite military plane. Beautiful and sleek.

Until they strap on those god awful conformal fuel tanks

Cool!

I love seeing new games for "retro" machines, it's awesome that people keep pouring time and love into them after all these years.

I'm not super familiar with 8-bit Atari machines, and found the designation "classic unmodified 8-bit ATARI XL/XE" a bit imprecise. Tried looking up specs on Wikipedia [1] but was unsure what to settle on. Perhaps the original 1200XL would match? Or the 800XL which seems to improve on the 1200XL even though the naming suggests the opposite ... Or the 65XE, or both then I guess since the latter is compatible with the 800XL, but in an updated case?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_8-bit_computers#1200XL

XL/XE means any xxxxXL and xxxXE.

There are a great many modern modifications available for the 8-bit Ataris, many of them from Poland where the machines saw good sales quite late compared to the US.

Using modern electronics (FPGAs etc.), processors, and high-density memories, you can imagine the processing, graphics, and I/O improvements that can be made for relatively low cost.

Many hobbyist machines at this point are highly modified, with much new software taking advantage of the new features, so specifying "classic unmodified" pretty much means a system into which you could have slapped a ROM cartridge purchased at your local computer store back in the day. XL/XE sounds like it rules out the original 800 and 400 models.

The 1200XL was super rare. Normally they mean the 800XL or 65XE which were pretty much the same except for the case design.

> I love seeing new games for "retro" machines, it's awesome that people keep pouring time and love into them after all these years.

Same here, which is why I have more games to play than I care on my lifetime, without bothering with whatever subscription services, or games measured in GB/TB.

Love this! All I've ever wanted is a modern version of Chuck Yeager's Air Combat

> All this and more on a classic unmodified 8-bit ATARI XL/XE with only 64Kb RAM.

Just WOW.

The original game which probably inspired this, also worked on the 8-bit Atari: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-15_Strike_Eagle_(video_game)

(a rare non-strategy Sid Meier game!)

2 fps on real hardware

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