#215 - F-117A Stealth Fighter

"The real stealth fighter experience" as long as you come into the game with no knowledge of what it would feel like to experience a real stealth fighter.

If you haven't already passed out from boredom, continue following the red arrow.

The majority of people on the planet will never be able to ride in a lightning-fast, high-powered military jet, hence why semi-realistic flight simulations like F-117A Stealth Fighterare made. In theory, games like this should accurately recreate the sense of speed and exhilaration one would feel in said craft, along with adding top-secret government missions that involve blowing things up in foreign countries. Well, in F117A, you do have top-secret missions and you supposedly fly a stealth fighter, but I'll be darned if it doesn't feel like you're riding in the Wright brothers plane. Your craft, and the game as a whole, is slowand almost unplayable. Each mission has you blowing up different structures or opposing airplanes that aren't stealth fighters, which is all well and good if it didn't take ten years to reach your destination. I'm not opposed to games taking their time, but at least give me something nice to look at or listen to. The graphics have a certain Atari glaze to them, inexcusable for a NES game released in 1992. Your stealth fighter makes blatting noises that obnoxiously complement the already irritating muzak. While no NES owner should desire a flight simulator for their NES given the system's limitations, the developer Mindscope should have put more effort into F-117A.

Earlier in my quest, I reviewed a game called Battle Tank, a tank game with objectives similar to F-117A. Instead of a plane,Battle Tank obviously places you in a tank and commands you to go blow up structures across arid wastelands. Sounds boring, but a certain serenity comes from driving one's tank and taking in the barren deserts. Like F117A, there were hardly any enemies to worry about, but enemies weren't the point. You were one with your tank and the landscape. This is what F-117A should have achieved and didn't. The game is a disgrace to the fighter that bears its name.

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