4 ms·
The information to properly land the plane is in the manual. The required air speed and altitude have never been a secret, if you read the manual (which I guess
by jordigh 10mo ago
The information to properly land the plane is in the manual. The required air speed and altitude have never been a secret, if you read the manual (which I guess most kids didn't).
The real difficulty, not explored in this disassembly, is that the game has semi-realistic physics! My older brother was in flight school at the time and was able to easily land the plane and taught me how to do it.
As the article states, "Altitude and speed are both controlled by throttle input and pitch angle". So you can't just hit the engines or air brakes button to change your speed. If you lower the nose of the plane, you'll speed up and vice versa! So you have to carefully juggle your speed and altitude by altering both your pitch and your engines/air brakes.
My brother taught me that my speed wouldn't reduce if I'm nosediving, so raise the nose a little while opening my air brakes for a quick reduction in speed and then level out to maintain altitude. The game actually models this somewhat accurately!
- Boxxed 10mo ago> The information to properly land the plane is in the manual. The required air speed and altitude have never been a secret, if you read the manual (which I guess most kids didn't). It's also on-screen. What's missing is the acceptable ranges -- +/- 100 for altitude, +/- 50 for speed, per the post. Knowing that the slop for altitude is much higher is definitely helpful information.
- jrs235 10mo agoThe saying for landing is: "throttle for altitude, pitch for speed". Most folks attempt the opposite.
- IncandescentGas 10mo ago> if you read the manual (which I guess most kids didn't). Most kids did't read the manual? I would rtfm for every game I got my hands on during the car ride home from toysrus or blockbuster. If Mom had several errands to run, I may rtfm a dozen times before I finally got home with the game.
- retrac 10mo agoIn my experience used games were often traded or passed around as bare cartridges. And that's how I got most of my games.
- jordigh 10mo agoRentals too often came without the manual.
- Terr_ 10mo agoAhhh, nostalgia: Some games like Super Mario and Duck Hunt were quite doable without a manual, but I specifically remember Legacy of the Wizard [0]. With no manual and almost zero in-game text to work from, our progress was limited to stumbling around a giant labyrinth, never realizing certain obstacles required switching characters to use unique abilities, and then finding special items that unlock abilities for other characters... [0] https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Legacy_of_the_Wizard/Walkthrough https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Legacy_of_the_Wizard/Walkthrou...
- Barrin92 10mo agoI've been on a bit of a retro bender and have intentionally limited myself to nothing but the manuals and games and it's been so fun to rediscover how much thought people used to put into the manuals including the presentation and art. Extreme shame half of the time now even if you go and grab a physical copy you basically just get a key in a box.
- LVB 10mo agoI certainly read the manual when I was asked to enter the 15th word from page 47 in order to keep playing Chessmaster 2000...
- nubinetwork 10mo agoI don't even remember seeing the manual as a kid.
- asciimov 10mo agoI rented the vast majority of NES games I played back in the day, getting a manual was uncommon, sometimes they came with a xeroxed copy. For me, half the fun was trying to figure out how to play the game.
- scrame 10mo agoif you rented it or borrowed from a friend it was very very unlikely you had the manual. I don't remember how I eventually figured it out, but it's the landing instructions that I think are misleading.
- astrostl 10mo ago> The information to properly land the plane is in the manual Look, I already liked the nerdy blog post! I don't need even more reasons to like it.
- ekropotin 10mo agoThere was a manual =0
- rconti 10mo agoI don't specifically remember it, but I had the manual, and I was a voracious manual reader as a kid. I also remember the carrier landings being the hardest thing in any game I ever played. Felt like about a 1% success rate, and I never quite knew what separated a successful landing from an unsuccessful one that looked identical on approach.
- nineteen999 10mo agoEven some of the very early versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator had a carrier landing scenario that was somewhat realistic IIRC! https://flightsimulator-forums-cdn.azureedge.net/uploads/default/original/3X/7/9/7955cf8089a80c48df1412aa60496fda5304bd5d.png https://flightsimulator-forums-cdn.azureedge.net/uploads/def... Thats from version 4 I think, but I vaguely recall it even being in the earlier monochrome versions ...
- colechristensen 10mo agoMan I miss manuals.
- _carbyau_ 10mo agoTodays games have replaced them with wikis. I miss being able to play a game and have things be somewhat apparent within the game. Nowadays it seems like you have to have a second monitor with the wiki open.