Battlehawks 1942 PC-DOS Hall of Wayne Review

Battlehawks 1942 was released in 1988, and as a 10 year old aircraft nut, it was like a wet dream for me. Even when I first had to play the game on a CGA monitor which made the Japanese bombers look pink, it was still an amazing experience. If only I could know how many hours I logged on LucasFilm Games’ trilogy of flight sims, starting with this one.

Battlehawks 1942 was remarkable for its time, for being historically accurate, having customizable settings, and for being simple to pick up and play. The simulation aspects were nowhere near as detailed as they are in today’s flight sims, but this game just “felt” right. It was extremely fun to play back in 1988-1989.

The game included a fantastic 120+ page manual, that you never really even had to read to be able to play the game. The manual was more about teaching you a broad history of the battles in which you were going to play out in the game. It included information on basics of flight and tactics as well. The manual was such a good read, that on more than one occasion I took it with me to read at school. Yes, I was a die-hard aviation and world war 2 history nerd in the late 80s and early 90s.

Battlehawks 1942 was one of the first flight sims I played where your pilot could earn medals and promotions.  You could also be grounded if you lost too many planes during your career. Pilot death was permanent in this game. (unless you used a hex editor to hack the pilot file to resurrect him) The constant danger of losing your pilot certainly added some drama to this game. I remember being sad when a high-ranking and well decorated pilot of mine got killed in action.  usually in Battlehawks, when you actually died, it was the result of either flying into the water. or being shot down at very low altitudes. You could only bail out above a certain altitude, and if you were below that, you had to ride it into the ocean.  I don’t think it was possible to survive flying into the water, I certainly never did on the occasions I turned my aircraft into a submarine.

The campaign played out over 15-16 missions, each one scripted and based on the historical battles.  I shouldn’t say “scripted” actually, they were more like “set pieces”. Every plane and ship started out in the same position each time.  Theoretically you could learn the best way to finish a mission through repeated flying.

Your pilot’s career had a capped limit of 15-16 missions. Once you reached that limit, he would retire and no longer be playable.  The number of missions it took to reach retirement, was the exact number of missions in the campaign.  If you played through every campaign mission, and lived, and didn’t lose 10 planes, you would retire at the end of the campaign.  You didn’t have to play every campaign mission of course, you could simply choose any mission at anytime and fly or re-fly it.

I remember one mission where you had to save the Lexington from Japanese bombers. The bombers came in 3 waves of 3. If you shot them all down,  you’d get the Medal of Honor.  I remember the first time I got the medal, it was glorious. It was so satisfying to receive the highest medal available to the US Military.  For a kid who lived with his head in the clouds, I think only a REAL Medal of Honor winner would have been happier.  It lost a little of its luster when I realized I could get it every single time I flew the mission…

The last thing that really stood out about Battlehawks 1942, is that you could fly 3 different classes of aircraft for both the USA and Japan. Fighters, Dive Bombers, and Torpedo Bombers. (Even the recent Pacific Fighters doesn’t let you fly the torpedo bombers)  Being able to play either side in the war was amazing, and it definitely shits all over these modern games where you can only play as the Allies.  (IL-2 Sturmovik being the biggest exception)

Battlehawks 1942 was a fantastic game during its day.  It definitely earns it’s place in the Hall of Wayne.

What I Liked: (From a 1988 Viewpoint)

1. Both the US and Japanese sides are playable.

2. Fly fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo bombers.

3. Simulation “feels right” without being fantastically complex.

4. Pilots earn promotions and medals based on performance.

5. Great attention to historical details, and a superb manual.

What I Didn’t Like:

1. There was a copy protection scheme which involved looking up drawings of Zeroes in the manual, and matching the drawing with the one being displayed on the screen.  It was a minor hassle that required you to have the game manual on hand everytime you wanted to play.  Compared to today’s draconian copy protection scheme, this one was fantastic. In 1988 though, it was a bit of a pain in the ass.

Keeping this game in its original 1988 context, there’s really nothing else I could knock it for. Looking back 20 years later, there’s some things you could wish that had been in it, but they just weren’t around at the time.

Yay: This was the first flight sim I played where enemy planes actually smoked and caught fire or exploded when you shot them.  +1

Final BS Rating: +5 FUCKIN’ BADASS!