What is Armor Alley?

Armor Alley is more than an exercise in blowing up tanks, helicopters, and personnel — although these pleasures are addressed in full. You command a single helicopter and are responsible for ordering convoys of tanks, missile launchers, personnel and vans equipped with electronic gear. After deploying the convoy, you must transport infantry to the front lines and provide air cover against an enemy who, like you, is equipped with the engines of war. Because your helicopter needs refueling and you’re supplied with a limited number of missiles, bombs, and machine-gun rounds, you need to develop strategies to keep the enemy at bay while you fly back to the base to refuel and pick up new weapons.

In individual play against the computer, you must complete ten levels of increasing difficulty in order to win. In two-player mode, you connect to the other player via modem (1,200 bps or faster). The second player can use either a Mac or an IBM PC. As many as four people, working in teams of two, can play the game over an AppleTalk network. In multiplayer setups, each player must own a copy of the game.

Armor Alley differs from typical military-hardware games in that strategy is more important than hand-eye coordination. You are rewarded for saving lives rather than for ending them needlessly. In the player-versus-computer mode, the enemy has unlimited helicopters, so you must escort one of your vans to the enemy base in order to win. But in the multiplayer mode, you have the additional option of winning by attrition: You can destroy all the enemy helicopters, either through judicious use of your weapons or by tricking the enemy into running out of fuel or funds. Either way you go about it, your brain is likely to get a better workout than your wrist, which in itself is a unique idea. In that respect. Armor Alley is a particularly contemporary game, as it places its emphasis less on sheer might and more on strategy and tactics.

Breen, Christopher. (February 1991). Armor Alley. MacUser. (pgs. 97-98).

Download Armor Alley for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

System Requirements

From Mac OS 6.0

Compatibility notes

Minimum Requirements

• Macintosh Plus
• 1 MB RAM
• 2 MB RAM for color display
• System 6.0.2

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II