Top gun: the second mission

Top Gun: The Second Mission is an arcade flight simulator, made in two - dimensional sprite graphics. In the story, the player is a pilot of the F-14 Tomcat deck carrier interceptor , and he is given tasks to destroy important strategic goals ^{[1] [k. 2] [2]} . Top Gun: The Second Mission offers three game modes: campaign, duel for two players and duel battles against enemy aces with increasing difficulty ^[1] .

Combat capabilities and control

The player has at his disposal a certain supply of homing missiles (one of the types to choose from) - AIM-54 Phoenix , RIM-7 Sea Sparrow or AIM-9 Sidewinder . Missiles differ in target capture radius, power and quantity that can be taken on board ^{[to. 3]} . Missiles can be fired if there is a capture of a target located in front of the aircraft in a given area. More powerful missiles allow faster destruction of stationary targets and damage bosses . Opponents also have missiles, and when one of them hits a player’s plane, it gets off right away, but missiles on approach can be knocked down from a machine gun or leave them by maneuver, since they require time to approach for the purpose ^{[1] [3]} . For orientation in space, the player is provided with a two-dimensional radar, which displays the active objects relative to the player’s aircraft ^[4] .

An additional machine gun with unlimited ammunition is available from armament, which is fired at by direct and direct guidance of the aircraft at the target. Enemy aircraft can also fire machine guns, and after 6 bullet hits the player loses his life. Management in the game is arcade - the player can move the plane left, right, up and down, and the height does not matter. In addition, the player can change the speed of the aircraft and perform maneuvers " barrel " and " dead loop " ^[ K. ^4] . Dead loop maneuvers are limited: after exiting the maneuver, the pilot must recover over time in order to be able to carry out the next one ^{[2] [3]} .

Both available maneuvers are performed at the player’s command and automatically (after the command, the plane uncontrollably maneuvers). A barrel’s maneuver is a plane’s rotation around its axis in horizontal flight, which reduces the likelihood of enemy attacks. The maneuver of the dead loop takes the plane up and makes it inaccessible to defeat and out of sight for some time. After the maneuver, the aircraft changes its position relative to the enemy and can appear behind him in this way ^[4] .

Game Modes

The campaign consists of three levels, each of which consists of flying to a target, destroying it and landing on an aircraft carrier. The target is one of the bosses (bomber, helicopter, shuttle ) ^[2] . After selecting missiles, a player takes off from an aircraft carrier and flies on a fixed route ^{[to. 5]} . So the player is continuously approaching the target, and enemy planes and other equipment appear on the way (depending on the level, on the first submarines, on the second tanks, etc.). During the passage of levels, there are areas where the player flies through many obstacles encountered on the way (trees, thunder lightning, falling meteorites), which must be avoided horizontally in time. In addition, there are aces on the levels with which the player enters a duel, from which only one winner leaves ^[5] .

At the end of the level, the player needs to fight the boss, who needs to destroy the engines, and to facilitate this task the player can destroy the fire systems. The battle with the boss occurs one on one, and you can not use any maneuvers. Next, after passing the player needs to land the plane on an aircraft carrier - for this you need to go on it exactly vertically and horizontally in a given speed range ^{[1] [2]} .

Initially, a player is given three lives in a campaign. Life can be lost during level battles, with bosses, or due to a mistake during landing on an aircraft carrier. The player can get extra life for points earned during the game, which are given for the destruction of targets and missiles ^[1] .

In duel modes, take-off takes place from aircraft carriers of two planes that fight only with each other. In a game with a computer, a player goes through a series of battles until he loses or at the end receives the highest rank. After each victory, he is given a new title, and the complexity of the game increases. The duel of two players is implemented using split-screen technology and occurs once: two players simultaneously take off from aircraft carriers and fight until one of them loses ^[2] .

Top Gun: The Second Mission was created at Konami, where more than a dozen people worked on the game, among them S. Kitamoto , M. Takemoto , N. Matsuoka , T. Hagihara ( English Shinji Kitamoto, Mitsuo Takemoto, Toru Hagihara , Nobuhiro Matsuoka ), character design was done by J. Nakamoto and Yoshi Yoshimoto ( English J. Nakamoto, Yoichi Yoshimoto ), music and sound effects were written by H. Maesawa , C. Yuichi and H. Yuike ( Japanese ま え ざ わ ひ で の り /前 沢 秀 憲, さ か く ら ゆ う い ち / 坂 倉 優 一, 上 高 治 巳 ), the graphics were drawn by K. Shimoid and H. Matsuda ( English Kenji Shimoide, Hiroshi Matsuda ). The game was published by Konami, and it was first launched on the Japanese market in late 1989. Subsequently, after the adaptation of Top Gun: The Second Mission appeared in North America and Europe ^{[to. 1]} .

Top Gun: The Second Mission received mostly negative ratings in the gaming press. Journalists criticized the fact that the game was similar to the first part of the series and did not introduce a new one ^{[1] [2] [3] [6]} . Negative reviews were left regarding the simulation and geometric perspective ^{[1] [3]} . However, reviewers agreed that Top Gun: The Second Mission proved to be a successful idea for a multi-player duel game for two players ^{[1] [2] [3]} .

Comparing the game with the first part of the series, the first reviewer of Mean Machines found that the three-dimensional graphics in Top Gun: The Second Mission were steep, unconvincing, blocky and boring. In addition, the critic spoke negatively about the sound and gameplay. The problem of the game was called an unsuccessful solution to the chosen perspective. The observer's only interest was in the fighting, but he complained about their simplicity, and the fact that they are too short lasted an average of 7 seconds. The second reviewer of the magazine said that his colleague spoke out too sharply about the game, but agreed that the game is unlikely to receive any awards. According to the opinion, the game demonstrates an average level: too simple, unattractive sound, low replayability . At the same time, the reviewer agreed that the game suffers from realism and it is not well implemented as an arcade . The cut scenes and the presence of a choice of three modes were awarded the most positive marks ^[1] .

In a review of Aktueller Software Markt , they noticed that Konami took into account the mistakes of the first game in the series. It was noted that the game does not give a sense of speed, but it turned out to be excusable due to the technical limitations of the NES console. The reviewer considered the duel mode to be the only plus point of the game ^[3] .

The publication Joystick noticed that the game has many problems, it is close in implementation to the first part of the series and is still far from a real simulator. The review noted that the idea of ​​a duel between two pilots is good, but it deserves to be better worked out. The review reported that the quality of simulators and their requirements for players is increasing, which is one of the reasons for such ratings by Top Gun: The Second Mission ^[2] .

Video Games considered that Konami chose not to use all the features of the game console to create a high-quality simulator and decided to make a clone of the previous part, and as a result, the game received lower ratings for all indicators ^[6] .

The game was highly appreciated by Videogame reporters, where Top Gun: The Second Mission received the highest rating for graphics and more restrained for music and sound design ^[4] .

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• Description, screenshots, ROM
•   Video passing Top Gun: The Second Mission
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• Top Gun: The Second Mission - game version comparison