Developed by Dynamix and published by Sierra On-line, Red Baron is a combat flight simulator set during The First World War. The game was innovative for the time, and garnered considerable praise from players and critics alike at the time of its original release – 1990.

The developers took care to present the game with considerably detailed historical accuracy, and although the 3D polygonal world they created is simple by today’s standards, back in 1990 it seemed like you were almost there, in the clouds and rain…

Red Baron can be played from the perspective of either the Allies or the Germans, and the individual missions change depending on who you choose. The graphics and frame rates are good enough to give a tangible sense of atmosphere, and a dread of being outnumbered and shot down.

You can play the game challengingly, or easily, depending on your preference, but the crux of the game is: trying to shoot down enemy aircraft, before they do the same to you. And Dynamix created an early 3D engine to show a reasonably interesting depiction of The First World War.

Play modes include: dogfight a famous ace; fly a single mission, or go for a full pilot’s career. The game will offer to put you close to the action at the beginning of a mission, which is nice of it.

From the main menu, you can view the aircraft in the game, and you can also play with the mission recorder. This device has appeared in a number of ’90s fight simulators and is basically a recorder that allows you to play back recorded combat footage from any angle. The game will ask if you want to record when a mission starts. If you say “yes” it will then ask you to name your file, before saving it, after the recording stops. The resultant files are pretty small, so don’t take up a huge amount of disk space, so are worth experimenting with.

An expansion – called Red Baron: Mission Builder, was released in 1992. A Nintendo 64 version of Red Baron was in production at one point, but never saw the light of day.

Amazingly, you can still legally buy and play the game, and the expansion, as “The Red Baron Pack” (at the time of writing).

More: Red Baron on Wikipedia
Steam: Red Baron on Steam
GOG: Red Baron on GOG.com