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It was 1983, a short time after the Falkland Islands conflict between Britain
and Argentina, which was still a headline news topic.The British were still reveling in the achievement of regaining the islands, and in particular the
performance of the Harrier jump-jet during the conflict was seen as a major
success.
Yet at the start of the conflict, victory was far from a foregone conclusion. The arrester and catapult gear generally required for the launching and
recovering of aircraft from a carrier had been removed from the British
carriers just before the conflict. This meant that the only aircraft capable of
launch and recovery from the British carriers was the vertical take-off and
landing Harrier.
The operational capabilities of the Harrier had been doubted by some before
the conflict. They regarded the aircraft as a star performer at air shows, but
not worth serious attention as an effective combat aircraft. The
accomplishments of the Harrier during the conflict however, consigned such
beliefs to oblivion. No Harrier was lost to air-to-air combat during the war,
against a loss of almost 30 opposing Mirages and Skyhawks.
It was against this background that Durell Software had the idea of creating a
computer game based on the now infamous Harrier. The idea was outlined to
Durell's programmers who went on to create the original version of Harrier
Attack for the Oric 1 computer. Later the game was converted to ZX Spectrum,
Amstrad CPC464 and Commodore 64 platforms. In particular, the Amstrad version
of Harrier Attack was included in the software pack distributed with new machines.
Harrier Attack was a resounding success for Durell, selling over 250,000 copies
in total, worldwide, and becoming Durell's number one best seller.
Now, over twenty years later, comes Harrier Attack 2 for Windows:
Original game links:
Video from YouTube.com:
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