Armor Alley

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Armor Alley

Developer(s)	Information Access Technologies
Publisher(s)	Three-Sixty Pacific Inc.
Release date(s)	1990
Genre(s)	Strategy
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Platform(s)	DOS, Mac
System requirements	PC with DOS, Mac with system 7.5 or above, runs under OS9 in classic with Mac OSX., Requires monitor to be set to 256 Colours, 700K Hard/Floppy Disk Space

Armor Alley is a classic computer game for Mac OS & DOS, which owes its existence to the classic Apple 2 game Rescue Raiders. It has the same gameplay mechanics, but the graphics are vastly improved.

In the game you fly a helicopter armed with a limited supply of missiles, bombs and machine guns. You request tanks, infantry, engineers, missile launchers and vans from your base. The objective is to assist/protect your deployed vehicles and men using your helicopter and destroy the enemy base at the other end of the horizontally scrolling map. The enemy possesses the exact same weapons as you, so tactics and convoy creation are crucial. Flying close to protect your convoy from the enemy's marauding helicopters is paramount. The Van contains explosives and must touch the enemy base to win the level. Unfortunately the armor on the Van is quite weak so these must be heavily protected by tanks and missile trucks.

As each level is completed the game gets progressively harder and tactics change. Often flying a troop of soldiers to capture a forward base is required to secure your progress up the map. Weapons like napalm replace normal weapons in later levels.

The game also has a financial constraint aspect. There is a slow trickle of war funds into your spending account that allows you to purchase tanks, vans, spare helicopters etc. When playing the user must be mindful of spending carefully and ensure the purchase of the right equipment as needed. Wasteful spending on too many tanks and not enough backup helicopters for example will make the game very difficult to complete. Each item purchased has a cost associated with it. For example, a helicopter costs 20, and a van costs 2.

Engineers are used to repair buildings and gun emplacements which have been destroyed. Repairing an enemy structure allows your side to control or secure it. Engineers cannot be picked up and transported to a destroyed structure in order to fix it. Doing so will cause the engineers to become regular infantry. They must walk to the broken structure.

Anti-Aircraft balloons can hamper your progress. If the balloon building has an arrow pointing > you can fly through the balloon and cable as the base is under your control. If the balloon building has the arrow mark of the enemy <, flying through the cable will cause significant damage, and hitting the balloon would cause the helicopter to explode. Look for the < & > symbols to differentiate between friend and foe.

The amount of damage can be determined by the volume of smoke being emitted from the rear of the helicopter.

You can play against a computer player or in a LAN environment.

Controls:

SHIFT - Helicopter Machine Gun

Z - Helicopter Bombs

X - Helicopter Missile

S - Start / In Game Status (Cash Level, Fuel etc)

T - Order Tank

M - Order Missile Truck

V - Order Explosive Van

E - Order Engineers (2 Soldiers)

I - Order Infantry (5 Soldiers)