When I think back to my childhood and playing video games The Atari XEGS comes to mind first since it was my first system ever. Being from a family on a limited budget we could only afford a handful of games for the system. If I recall properly 7 games total ( Pacman, Flight Simulator 2, Blue Max, Hardball, Bug Hunt, Real Sports Football and another title that is slipping my mind. Of these games I used to play one game stood out to be the most fun and graphically advanced in my view..... Blue Max.
As many would remember this game did come out on 5.25 disk way before it made it to the XE line of carts and crossed a few other systems ( C64 comes to mind). I can sit remembering playing it for hours trying to get to the final area bombing the 3 buildings before making my way back to the landing area and wonder things like what would happen if you bomb the side buildings in the final area. Now to this day its fuzzy in my head what does happen when you do that. I think they do look like any other building gets bombed but I dont think you get points for it. ( maybe you get 50 i dont remember).
I loved how the south west to north east scrolling with minimal 3D graphics ( by today's account) was worked into the programming of this game. It was something you really didnt see many games and when my friends would come over ( friends with NES SNES Genesis and such this would be one of the games that they would love to play. That I think says alot for how the game aged even on a older 8 bit unit when NES and Super NES ruled the streets.
Game play was pretty trait forward. You could do 2 things shoot and bomb. Dropping below 21 on the altitude level and you risk crashing or hitting trees, bridges, and buildings. If the bottom bar goes blue it means you can shoot the other planes down ( or they can shoot you or run into you , funny how we always forget that) . Bombing things with [ + ] gave you extra points due to the fact that they were key buildings or bridges that you should take out.
But by far shooting was the most fun here. You can shoot out ( between 21-25 on the alt level) land to air missile launchers, shoot boats in the water ( you can bomb em too but shooting is so much more fun). You can shoot the little cars trucks tanks on the bridge or roadway. Little attention to detail things like that really makes it stand out that the programmers took the time to do it right for the gamer to enjoy.
When you go deep into the enemy lines you can shoot out cars and tanks still, bomb buildings but the cool fun part is trying to shoot out the hanger for the enemy ( which is harder to do that you would think) and the airplanes lined up in the runway. Its not required to do that and might risk you crashing but when your at war why not blow up more stuff than needed. Might as well do as much damage as you can.
Even today being 26 years later this game is as much fun and graphically holds up well than many other titles for the system. My gf gets intrigued by the game. Not that air plane shooters interests her much ( more a centipede pacman kinda gal) but just that its a refreshing looking game.
This Blue Max is a special part of my 8 Bit collection but this game brings me back to a day when Nintendo and the big name companies may have the hot new titles but kids appreciated games with cool looking graphics and interesting game play and didnt factor in who made it or is it the in thing to play. Good was just plain good.
