The Consumer Electronics Show, held in Las Vegas nine years ago, was dominated by Nintendo, whose NES had captured an unfeasibly large number of American hearts at that time. In retrospect, the most interesting new software title that appeared for NES at the show was Final Fantasy, but that’s only because of what it would become.

The title responsible for turning most visitors’ heads though, was showcased on – as far as Americans were concerned – a niche market machine, Commodore’s Amiga. Produced by Cinemaware, Wings was a WW1 flight sim which, for the first time, gave the player an overall objective in addition to his mission-based actions.

The objective was to survive until the end of the war, something few did in real life, and the missions consisted of bombing and strafing runs, dogfights, recon and – uniquely – patrolling. In this latter mission, the player would have a set path to follow and had to look out for enemy planes. Quite literally ‘look out’ for, as there were no radar in them days. Sometimes the patrolling was eventful and at other times it wasn’t, and the relief at ‘coming in’ at the end of a quiet flight was tangible.

As the game progressed so did the course of the war, and later sorties would see the player encountering the feared German flying circuses. Wings was a great success and had in-game graphics light years ahead of any other flight sim of the day, but perhaps the most surprising aspect of this epic achievement was its size: it reached Amiga screens via two 880k floppy disks.