Flak (video game)

Flak: The Ultimate Flight Experience is a vertically scrolling shooter for the Atari 8-bit family designed by Alain Marsily, programmed by Yves Lempereur, and published by Funsoft in 1984.[1] It was ported to the Apple II, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum home computers. Flak was heavily inspired by the 1982 Namco arcade game Xevious. Most critical reviews were middling or harshly negative.

Flak
Publisher(s)Funsoft
U.S. Gold
Designer(s)Alain Marsily
Programmer(s)Atari 8-bit
Yves Lempereur
Apple II
Robert A. Schilling
Commodore 64
Yves Lempereur
Troy Lyndon
Platform(s)Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum
Release1984
Genre(s)Scrolling shooter

Gameplay

The player flies a ship over a vertically scrolling landscape, firing on land bases, on the way to destroy a fortress containing an enemy CPU.

Reception

The game received mixed to poor reviews. In ANALOG Computing, Steve Panak called Flak "the worst mistake your wallet ever made" and advised readers to "avoid it like radioactive waste",[2] while Electronic Games called it "a challenging game that requires some almost impossibly fine maneuvering".[3] Your Spectrum called the game a rip-off of Xevious, giving it a 0.8/5 and stating that it "should've been drowned at birth."[4]

Commodore User was more lenient, giving the game a 3/5 in "value for money" and praising the presentation, though complaining about excessive difficulty, disappointing sound, and long load times.[5] Writing for TV Gamer, J.P. Thompson praised the Commodore 64 version's "ultra-smooth scrolling" and called it "a truly addictive game". The review, which gave it a 3.5/5, cited the game's difficulty as something that would have players "staying up most of the night attempting to reach [its] penultimate phase".[6] Contrary to other contemporary reviews, Personal Computer Games remarked that the Atari 8-bit version is "too easy" and therefore "lacks any truly addictive qualities", giving it a 6/10.[7]

References
  1. "Flak". Atari Mania.
  2. Panak, Steve (November 1984). "A Software Cornucopia". ANALOG Computing. No. 24. pp. 30–31.
  3. Kohl, Louise (February 1985). "Flak". Electronic Games. pp. 33–34.
  4. "Flak". Your Spectrum. No. 16. July 1985. p. 42. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
  5. "Flak". Commodore User. Vol. 2, no. 2. November 1984. p. 50. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
  6. Thompson, J.P. (November 1984). "Flak". TV Gamer. p. 43. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
  7. T.T. (September 1984). "Flak". Personal Computer Games. p. 37. Retrieved 2021-03-14.
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