F/A-18 Interceptor

About F/A-18 Interceptor

F/A-18 Interceptor (1988) is Intellisoft's Amiga combat flight simulator set over the San Francisco Bay Area, flying the F/A-18 Hornet against "terrorists" in six missions.

F/A-18 Interceptor in Depth

The player mostly flies the F/A-18 Hornet, with the F-16 Fighting Falcon available for aerobatics, free flight and the first mission, though in reality the F/A-18 is a multirole strike fighter rather than a true interceptor. The setting is the San Francisco Bay Area, with the Golden Gate and Bay bridges, Alcatraz and even Electronic Arts' San Mateo headquarters, and the player can operate from San Francisco and Oakland airports, Moffett Field and the USS Enterprise anchored offshore. Only air-to-air weapons are carried: Sidewinder and AMRAAM missiles and a Vulcan cannon with 500 rounds, plus chaff and flares.

After qualifying with a carrier landing, players take on six missions starting on 1 September 1994: visually identifying an unknown aircraft, sometimes MiG-29s and occasionally a Boeing 707; protecting Air Force One; intercepting two stolen F-16s; dropping a rescue pod to a downed pilot near the Farallon Islands; destroying a fast, low-flying cruise missile; and attacking a submersible aircraft carrier. Players long believed the last was impossible, and designer Bob Dinnerman said the carrier simply does not blow up when destroyed, so only the enemy planes need be shot down. There is no ending: the missions just loop. On Amigas with more than 512 KB, a theme reminiscent of Top Gun's anthem plays, at Dinnerman's request.

Making F/A-18 Interceptor

Intellisoft developed it, with Bob Dinnerman as designer and programmer, and Electronic Arts published it for the Amiga in 1988. It was well reviewed: Computer Gaming World gave it a positive review, and the Palm Beach Post called it "a pretty successful game", approving of the ability to fly the plane from any external view. In 1996 Computer Gaming World named it one of the best games ever, calling it a jet combat sim that set the state of the art for its era.