Most of shoot em up test player’s skill and reflex. Then there’s one that test player’s patience, and less care for player’s dexterity. I’m talking about this DOS game: Patrick Piché’s Bomber (1993).
That’s pretty bland title screen. Although, the title “Bomber” appears on explosion. I give that dynamic entry some credit. I played this when I was kid and kind of like it even though it’s very hard. That’s because I played as A-10 Thunderbolt, my favorite bomber plane besides F-115A Nighthawk. But according to the manual, the bomber in this game is B-29. So, we’re in World War II warfare.
It takes only space bar press to start the game. There’s no option setting whatsoever. So, to know about the control you have to read the manual. Left and right arrow button to move the bomber plane. Press left “control” button to shoot gun from both wings. So far, the enemies are helicopter from Axis force. So, I assume they’re Flettner Fl 282 “Kolibri”.
When you get hit, the screen spin around. This is surely special feature of this game but I question the purpose of it. Is it to imitate helicopter swirling down when get shot but I control a bomber plane! No other vertical shooter does this for sure.
By pressing left “alt” button, your bomber will drop the bomb into that thin red crosshair. Calling it drop probably inaccurate because you unleash the bomb at fast rate if you hold the bomb button. Spraying the bomb probably more accurate term. Naturally, the bomb is used to destroy ground target such as those anti-air gun emplacements. Destroying the helicopter yield 100 points whereas destroying anti-air gun yields 150 points. The goal of this game is to reach the enemy base. The distance to it is in bottom left corner.
I’m at the enemy base but enemies quickly deplete my reserve bomber plane. :(
You only have 3 bomber planes at your disposal and no continue at all. If I remember correctly you can get extra plane if your score reaches certain value but that doesn’t make the game any easier. This is why I mentioned that this game is very hard. Engineer_negativevocalization12.wav
Here’s something unusual too. If you press up arrow button, you will speed up the plane. And if you press down arrow button, you will slow down the plane. Definitely, if you go faster, you’re closing the distance faster. While speeding, the bombing crosshair move farther. The farther it is, the more likely you miss the bomb. By “you” I mean me. Of course, you can hold down the bomb button to ensure the bombing gets the target. But if you play this on DOSBox and if you hold down both gun and bomb button while moving left and right, that will result in rotating your Windows screen orientation. Clearly that’s very bad. So, I choose not to hold the bomb button.
What else can I say about the gameplay? At this point you already know 90% of it. But I will try to say more about the detail. Your hitspot is the entire sprite of the plane and the bullet only come out in each wing, meaning enemy chopper can slip past to the center of plane and crash. This will not happen if my plane can shoot gun from the center and that’s why most vertical shmup always have projectile come from the center of the plane! The best way to avoid collision with enemy chopper is constantly swerving left and right while keep firing the gun.
Soldier_mvm_class_is_dead06.wav. Then a helicopter suddenly rams into my right wing that leads to my entire plane destroyed. This won’t happen if my plane’s hitspot is smaller than the sprite!
I get into the enemy base more consistently but it goes on and on, without end. The base consists of anti-air cannon and chopper landing zone. Some cannons are active some are not. There’s no indication whether they’re active or not other than they start firing. What baffles me is, I can’t freaking destroy the landing chopper unlike in Rambo III! So, what’s the point of sending lone bomber here?
After more attempt…
Finally, I destroy the base. Now I remember what I must to do in this game. The first part of the game, I have to speed up to enemy base. The second part of the game, once I’m in their base I have to do the opposite: set the plane’s speed to minimum and start spraying the bomb randomly. Eventually the base exploded. It will be nice if the distance to base changes to base’s health or damage ratio when I enter the base so i can see my progress.
Second level takes place in sea. Instead of anti-air gun emplacement, ship will be the ground enemy this time. Although ships are larger target, they are moving horizontally. So don’t underestimate them. I do like the sea looks. It looks soothing and beautiful.
Also notice that my right wing is broken. Helicopter’s bullet can destroy plane’s wing instead of destroying entire plane. Sounds like mercy but not without consequence. Now only my left wing that can fire gun. Thus, I can’t “turtling” on left corner safely because my right side is completely defenseless.
Suddenly, destroyer Z23 shoots down my last B-29 plane. Fair enough.
I have shown you 75% part of the entire game. Third level is the final and according to the manual the ground enemy is tank which I assume like ship but smaller. I think I’m done here.
Here’s the snippet of the manual. On the header, it says that the game is The REAL arcade game. What a bold claim!
Patrick Piché’s Bomber (1993) is very hard game because it lacks of mean of continue. There’s bonus plane if your score reaches 10,000 points which is gigantic number. It takes 100 helicopters destroyed to achieve that! The main reason why I said that the game test player’s patience because you have to endure the urgency to get to enemy base. If you speed up too many times, you will have bigger risk to get hit. If you go too slow, your patience will wear thin and enemies spawn more frequently. So, mix & match is the only way to success. The game adapt the usual one-hit death however chopper’s bullet can destroy the plane’s wing instead but disarming the wing’s gun. At least you can still fly more distance than when in completely destroyed. Thankfully, enemies also need 1 successful hit to kill. “Turtling” in one of corner seems viable strategy but the problem is enemy chopper can still collide with you because your center is defenseless. All of the enemy’s placement is random except the anti-air cannon within enemy’s base. Enemy choppers have noticeably smaller hitspot than the B-29. But funny thing is they can collide with each other. It’s definitely unusual to not able to fly forward and backward in this kind of game, so avoiding enemy choppers becomes harder. I think the chopper is less aggressive than any of ground enemy. Plus, ground enemy’s projectile guaranteed to destroy the plane when hit. I respect the difference between Bomber's bullet (red) with enemy's (yellow), but it will be nice if all of the projectiles made thicker. Because in current state, i barely can see them. The spinning effect when your plane get destroyed may induce nausea. There’s only 1 music and it sounds bit grating but fairly acceptable. The explosion sound also grating but explosive. So, it’s reasonable.
Bomber (1993) is certainly not Raptor: Call of Shadows or Tyrian. I only familiar with the former, by the way. The game is too simple yet there’s some layer of strategy on it, mainly on plane’s speed management. Your patience also put to the test. It’s quite unique but probably not get my recommendation because it’s too hard to get extra plane in this game. Although, I appreciate Patrick Piché for the good effort.
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