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Microprose were the kings of simulation, and Airbourne Ranger was another fine example of their brilliance back in the day.
So you won't be surprised to learn that a sequel was in development... Well, Ratpack was just that, and was being developed possibly by David Wrightman on the C64 (Confirmed on Amiga/ST by Barry Leitch), but we are not too sure yet, as it may have been out sourced to another developer.
Barry Leitch composed the music for the game, or at least the loading music which can be found in HVSC. Because it is the loading tune, it seems there might have been a fair bit of a game produced for any need for music being produced. There however seems to be no in-game tunes anywhere.
For reasons currently unknown, the game was canned... along with the Amiga and ST versions. We are trying to find out more and what exactly happened.
However in 1992, a quiet sequel to Airbourne Ranger did surface in the form of Special Forces on the Amiga... http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=1591
We're not sure if remains of Ratpack went into this game, or if this was completely new.
Its early days, but you never know... we could just unearth some interesting bits on this one... especially as the Amiga/ST developer is rumoured to have a lot of Barry's unreleased tunes and maybe some code...
More soon!...
Frank.
(Additional source credits - Barry Leitch, Esa, Hank) |
