Spectrum Games - Flight Path 737 - Classic ZX Spectrum Games

Flight Path 737 ZX Spectrum
It's time to look at an all time turkey again. This festering turd of a game was unleashed upon us ZX Spectrum gamers back in 1985.

In fact it is such a bad computer game / flight simulator that not only is it one of the worst ever games on the ZX Spectrum, it must be one of the worst games ever. Period.

Now that I've got that out of the way....

After the basic loading screen you got a slightly odd yet decent piece of music to set the scene. It has nothing to do with flying but must be the best part of the game. Trust me, it get's worse from here on in.



So - onto the flying excitement. Hold onto your hats as we get to grips with our arcade joysticks...

The aim of this 'classic arcade game' (ahem), was to take off, fly over a mountain range then land on the other side. Hardly a thrilling prospect but I suppose flight-sim fans should like it. If was any good they probably would have.

You were given six skill levels to play with, from first solo (easiest) to test pilot (most difficult). The more difficult the skill level, then the higher the mountains would be. You would also be hit with cross winds, turbulence and even engine fires.

But let's be honest here, the game was ultra difficult without any of the extra Roland Emmerich type disasters thrown in.

The instructions supplied with the game were a joke, they didn't even list the keys to use. Figuring out the controls by trial and error was a thankless task too as the controls are so un-responsive you cannot even tell what is supposed to be happening. You can press a key and wait a week for a response.

Getting airborne was difficult enough as being incorrectly lined up by one pixel would cause the airplane to blow up. Realism at it's best there. You could run out of runway too (even though you can still see it in front of you, stretching away into the distance!) - causing you to crash. How bad can you get?

If you ever did manage to get airborne (you would have more chance standing in the street and flapping your arms) the mountain range would come into view. And it would sit there and not move. Ever. Until you probably crashed into them - despite them still looking like they were miles away from you.

Never in the game did you ever get a sense of movement. Aside from your instrument panel changing, nothing else did. This game is sooo bad I just can't describe it. The constant engine drone sound effect is enough to send you over the edge for good.

I'd rather listen to a record by David Hasselhoff on repeat for 24 hours. Honestly, I would.

On Release:
Good old Crash Magazine described this game as being a 'botch up'. How right they were. They scored it with an overall of 4% - personally I think they were generous with that. At £5.95 it was a joke - the only way you could recoup some money was by using it as a blank cassette. An abomination of a game and the lowest score in Crash Mag I can ever remember.

The Test Of Time:
Well it has not improved with age. An utterly disgusting game. I think it was probably written in BASIC (given the keys being more sluggish than Jabba-the-hut), but even so it is no excuse for being so bad. Have I said it was a terribe, terrible game?

We recommend getting hold of the real Sinclair hardware but if not then do not download this one for a ZX Spectrum emulator. Alternatively you could try and not play it online.

Please see our other ZX Spectrum retro game reviews and programmer interviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys.

GENRE: Arcade Game / Flight Sim / P*ss take
RELEASE DATE: 1985
RELEASED BY: Anirog Software
DEVELOPER(S): Stefan Walker
PRICE: £5.95 - far too much for a blank cassette ;-)

Classic Arcade Gaming - I run out of runway:

Classic Arcade Gaming - I fail again:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and ZX Spectrum Games