Tomcat: The F-14 Fighter Simulator is the aerial-combat simulator Dan Kitchen developed for Imagineering, which Absolute Entertainment published in 1988 for Atari 2600: the player must take off from an aircraft carrier, engage in aerial combat dodging enemy missiles, navigate night-flight missions with reduced visibility, and land back with the correct angle and speed, all evaluated and scored separately. The development team went as far as using the console's physical switches as part of the control scheme, squeezing every available resource out of the hardware.
It's a good example of the technical ambition some third-party studios still showed toward the end of the 2600's commercial life, long after most of the market had moved on to other platforms. Holding on to as much ammunition as possible throughout the mission was key to maximizing the final score.

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