Don't Mention The Score! It's the Red Baron.

Posted by: Paul Smith

Last time, if you recall, we looked at Dave Palmer's girlfriendless heroics playing Battlezone at the 1985 Video Game Masters Tournament, where he managed to break six world high score records in three days. This week, we examine Red Baron, another of Palmer's conquests during that epic weekend of joystick waggling, transparent soft drinks and Goonies merchandise.

You just don't see iron crosses, Teutonic lettering and general symbols of German military expansionism on video game cabinets like you used to. Atari's Red Baron, released in 1980, was so festooned with this sort of thing that it resembled a Nazi phone box. It was also remarkable as the very first first person flight simulator, and honest Tommies everywhere will be relieved to learn that the player takes to the skies on the Allied side for a crack at the Boche. This is rendered with the same vector graphics at Battlezone, and required an auxiliary motherboard to work out all the 3D bi plane to-ings and fro-ings. An easier way of spotting similarites between the two was to peel back the aforementioned German martial themed cabinet decorations, which would often reveal a Battlezone cabinet lurking underneath, although this would usually see you beaten up fairly rigourously by contemporary arcade owners.

As we all know, Fritz does not understand the notion of fair play and gentlemanly behaviour. However, Red Baron attempts to address this somewhat by striving for an average playing time, tweaking the fiendishness of enemy fliers based on the average length of the previous 32 games - known within the trade as 'adaptive difficulty'. This interesting feature was present on many early Atari games, and while it was doubtless well intentioned - preventing excessive game times - one cannot help but speculate that it inevitably lead to some Red Barons being more difficult than others.

The game itself, in common with the First World War in which it was set, was fairly repetitive, strategy wise. The ghastly Hun would be up to his old tricks, ambushing the brave lone player with as many as five planes at once, which would usually swoop down from a distance, allowing sharp shooting Allied airmen to pick off a couple before they got too close. The greater the distance, the higher the score, as you might expect. An extremely long 'kill' would bring forth a burst of music somewhat reminiscent of being in a cavalry charge, and this was the game's only audio feature, except a droning that was meant to represent the sound of the player's engine, but didn't. There was an element of ground combat, too, with gun turrets and mysterious enemy buildings - presumably Bratwurst factories, lederhosen warehouses or strudel clubs - which added a bit of variety.

Our hero Dave Palmer achieved a 214,000 point score in 1985, which was enough for a world record. Unsatified with his performance, however, Palmer purchased the game, took it home, and added a further million points to it. If he had been playing for air miles instead of points he would have earned enough to buy the universe, but incredibly, he was still refused a Victoria Cross.

Next week we'll be revisiting Firefox, which Palmer also obliterated.

 

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