Originally created in the mid-80's, the game was called "Red Baron" and was designed to run on an XT-type computer. It featured 4-color CGA graphics, and was reasonably interesting to play.

Later on, another group of people re-wrote the game from scratch, calling it "Sopwith2" ("Sopwith" here refers to "Sopwith Camel", an airplane used in World War I). The graphics remained CGA-based, but the color-scheme was changed, and a multi-player option for a proprietory network protocol was introduced. It is rumored that although the game will still run on an XT, it contains proper optimisation procedures for an Intel Pentium CPU. "Sopwith2" features PC-Speaker sound, and an interesing AI (rather easy to beat, and oh so much fun to trick into shooting their own buildings).

The game is simple, and the simplicity holds the key to fun. It's addictive. It's time-consuming. It's great.

Your plane carries 5 bombs and a limited supply of machine-gun ammo and petrol. The only way to refill the supplies is to land, but there is no manual landing possibility. There is an autopilot function (key 'H'), but it is often unreliable and will often result in a crash. Your main goal is to destroy enemy (red) ground targets, and stay alive in the process.

Once you progress further on in the game, the ground targets start shooting at you, and the planes move faster. There are also some hacked-up version of Sopwith2 with new maps and graphics (most commonly found one is Sukwith2).

Altogether, it's a great game. If you've never played, you're definitely missing out.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.