Wow! How nostalgic it is! I am a Japanese but I loved this game. That was decades ago, I used to play this game everyday. I also liked the bored feeling of leaving while holding back and forth between my base and enemy territory. Really nostalgic. Thank you for uploading a nice video.
i remember editing the icon/folder based regedit of the MacOS and adding my own words for mission completion or failure, as all it was was an editable text file. 38 today, thank you for the memory of flying the cat again!
I played it very often about 20 (?) years ago on the Mac. You should always place the bombs first so you loose weight and the Zeros are no match for you! In Leyte Gulf you have to deal with Franks, which are much harder to get.
They later put out an expansion pack called Hellcats Over the Pacific- Leyte Gulf. You got another 8 missions, and the ability to carry torpedoes as well as bombs. All in all, just a great game.
Oh man! I remember when I tried this for the first time on my fathers Mac in 1992.....I thought it was extremely realistic. I still have fantastic memories from this lovely game.
Hellcats had the best graphics of its time for slow Macs. I played this game until my Power MAC 6104 stopped working altogether. The replacement computer I bought new wouldn’t accept it, so it is now a wonderful distant memory.
Bullets passing through is no bug; Hellcat had wing mounted guns that were typically set to converge at ca. 1800ft. If you were that close you should offset your aim to one side.
What a blast - thanks! dare I say that I'm old enough to remember when graphics like this were a big step forward? I remember the old FS graphics where it was all monochrome, the horizon was just a white line, and if you got edgy and wanted clouds you got big white poop dots.
It should have been "Magna Cum Laude" (meaning “with great praise”, more or less), ok, but Graphic Simulations possibly did not know how to write/spell latin sentences, I guess. Did not notice at the times (or I did, but I cannot remember, since I used to play this gem on my Mac II si or perhaps I was on my QUara 700 already, cannot really remember!). Anyway, thank you for the entertaining video. It was a nice stroll down memory lane all right!
Watching this makes me feel as if Hellcats was the first, actual Dogfight sim. Sturmovik and A.C.E.S aside, I sure that this started the genre. Anyway, looks real fun. S'pose I should try it out.
I used to play this game on an older Mac with an ADB joystick and completed all of the missions successfully. I no longer have an ADB joystick nor a Mac with such a port. More recently, I've tried running Hellcats, both in emulation (SheepShaver) and on a Powerbook (Pismo) running MacOS 9, but I can't figure out any way to get it to recognize a USB joystick. Trying to control flight with a mouse usually (always) results in a crash before completing the mission. Has anyone been able to get it to respond to a USB joystick? If so, how?
No, flaps definitely allow aircraft to turn faster. It lowers the stall speed allowing tighter turns. Why I'm commenting on a video 4 years old.. I have no idea.
Lexington, Wasp, Hornet, and Enterprise where there. Irrc, the Saratoga wasn't in the Salamons, though I could be wrong, my WW2 pacific history is a touch rusty. Also, do you have a good place to download a SNES emulator and games by chance?
my first game on PC, my father got this, graphism were crap, but it was a real simulator, the game was offer with original pilot manual (about 0.5kilo...), you have original sound, ou must take off, pilot during 5 or 10min before ennemy show....you could have dozen of minutes of dog fighting, you must go back to base, for resupply bomb and torpedo.....most dangerous part of the game were landing and fly into artillery...funny thing was you can die or end the war captured after a failing landing or sealanding.
Quick question, are you running this on an emulator? Or are you running this on bonafide original mac? Can you supply directions on how to setup an emulator? Every time I try to follow online instructions I always fall flat.
Hi! Can you please share where you got this game? I've got an emulator I like but all the downloads I've found for Hellcats Over the Pacific have been garbage. :( I'm trying to source it to include with my brother's Christmas present! I had no idea it would be this difficult!
Thank you! I've been struggling to get an emulator working for exactly that version. (I'm on Windows.) Good to know I'm barking up the right tree! I guess you're on Mac?
I already have DOSBOX but it's doesn't work with Hellcats. I'm trying to get Basilisk II working but it's just a lot of steps and well outside of my expertise, and unfortunately my brother is going to have to go through most of these steps as well. emaculation.com/doku.php/basilisk_ii_setup What emulator did you use?
Julia Rose Sevin I sent you a message with some info, did you get it? It sounds like you might be getting a Christmas present together so I'm nervous to hear if things worked out!
I used to play this game as a kid and have be trying for years to get it to work on newer macs. Can you tell me the specs or what machine and OS you are using? Also, you can do up, down, left, and right views by using the arrow keys. At least if I remember correctly. And those enemy fighters are called Franks. The green ones are the Zeros.
I'm using a Mac emulator called Basilisk II. It emulates a 68k Mac, and I've got MacOS 7.6.1 on mine. I believe that there is a version for Mac which you can check out at basilisk.cebix.net/ I'm pretty sure the green ones are Franks based on my (admittedly limited) experience shooting them down in the sequel to this game, Leyte Gulf. Frank was the reporting name for the Ki-84, which was much more commonly painted green than the Zero.
Sweet! I'll check that out! You may be right on the designations. That's just what my dad told me they were so it stuck with me. Awesome game mission though. I used to get wrecked by the A.I. when I was young. Did you try looking around with arrow keys? I distinctly remember being able to look down so that you could line up for dive bombs. Also, I would loved to see Leyte Gulf let's play. I loved those rockets.
To ANYONE out there!!! Does anyone know where I might acquire the original 3.5" floppy game discs for Hellcats Over the Pacific and Leyte Gulf???? I'm desperate to relive the fun and joy of the game. PLEASE!!!! am willing to offer $$$....thanx,
I absolutely loved this game in high school! Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
I played this endlessly as a kid. So good
Wow! How nostalgic it is! I am a Japanese but I loved this game. That was decades ago, I used to play this game everyday. I also liked the bored feeling of leaving while holding back and forth between my base and enemy territory. Really nostalgic.
Thank you for uploading a nice video.
i remember editing the icon/folder based regedit of the MacOS and adding my own words for mission completion or failure, as all it was was an editable text file.
38 today, thank you for the memory of flying the cat again!
I played it very often about 20 (?) years ago on the Mac. You should always place the bombs first so you loose weight and the Zeros are no match for you! In Leyte Gulf you have to deal with Franks, which are much harder to get.
Played this on my first Mac, a Quadra 840av. 40mhz of screaming power!
They later put out an expansion pack called Hellcats Over the Pacific- Leyte Gulf. You got another 8 missions, and the ability to carry torpedoes as well as bombs. All in all, just a great game.
Man...I played this game so much...especially once I figured you can duplicate the entire game folder "just in case i happen to
die".
This was such a good game. Played this tons when I was a kid on my stepdads 6000 something Macintosh in the 90s
I spent HUNDREDS of hours on this fun game!
Oh man! I remember when I tried this for the first time on my fathers Mac in 1992.....I thought it was extremely realistic. I still have fantastic memories from this lovely game.
My god this game brings back SO many memories from 6th Grade back in the mid 90's! Thanks for the share.
When you took off and almost dropped into the ocean on take off, eight year old me was like, "PUT YOUR FLAPS DOWN!"
....And match the speed of the zeros! Ugh... Fucking noob...
I always thought the 1/3/15 wasn't time compression, but how far out your radar stretched.
I remember playing this as a kid! On one level if you damage a zero it will kamakazi into a friendly destroyer.
Hellcats had the best graphics of its time for slow Macs. I played this game until my Power MAC 6104 stopped working altogether. The replacement computer I bought new wouldn’t accept it, so it is now a wonderful distant memory.
one of my first gaming experiences
I remember dropping a bomb on my own teammate in mid air
Bullets passing through is no bug; Hellcat had wing mounted guns that were typically set to converge at ca. 1800ft. If you were that close you should offset your aim to one side.
I played this in the office for years. Maybe figured in why I fired. Too much fun.
I used to play this game so much!
Brings me back to when I was playing Chuck Yeager's Air Combat or A-10.
This game was legendary
What a blast - thanks! dare I say that I'm old enough to remember when graphics like this were a big step forward? I remember the old FS graphics where it was all monochrome, the horizon was just a white line, and if you got edgy and wanted clouds you got big white poop dots.
Great video, maybe we could see more of this or maybe even a IL-2 lets play?
This was a great game
Hellcats over the Pacific was awesome! The Zeros were a little bit too easy to kill but the game was so much fun.
I played the hell out of this game when i was a kid along with p-51 mustang flight simulator
“The mole is in his aaaasss” hahaha
i remember playing this back in they day
It should have been "Magna Cum Laude" (meaning “with great praise”, more or less), ok, but Graphic Simulations possibly did not know how to write/spell latin sentences, I guess. Did not notice at the times (or I did, but I cannot remember, since I used to play this gem on my Mac II si or perhaps I was on my QUara 700 already, cannot really remember!). Anyway, thank you for the entertaining video. It was a nice stroll down memory lane all right!
I actually saw this game at a Thrift store once
my first "simulator" :)
Boy, I would have played the heck out of this during its time
Watching this makes me feel as if Hellcats was the first, actual Dogfight sim. Sturmovik and A.C.E.S aside, I sure that this started the genre. Anyway, looks real fun. S'pose I should try it out.
I used to play this game on an older Mac with an ADB joystick and completed all of the missions successfully. I no longer have an ADB joystick nor a Mac with such a port. More recently, I've tried running Hellcats, both in emulation (SheepShaver) and on a Powerbook (Pismo) running MacOS 9, but I can't figure out any way to get it to recognize a USB joystick. Trying to control flight with a mouse usually (always) results in a crash before completing the mission. Has anyone been able to get it to respond to a USB joystick? If so, how?
Huh, this actually looks pretty good for its age.
No, flaps definitely allow aircraft to turn faster. It lowers the stall speed allowing tighter turns. Why I'm commenting on a video 4 years old.. I have no idea.
Learned that one, too. You can easily catch Zeros in a turning fight with flaps down.
And me additional three years later.
I have an iMac I bought a few years ago. Is there any way I can play this on the iMac? I've played it as a kid and really want to play it again.
This game was awesome along with a10 games, the flat shded polygons still look great today
Lexington, Wasp, Hornet, and Enterprise where there. Irrc, the Saratoga wasn't in the Salamons, though I could be wrong, my WW2 pacific history is a touch rusty. Also, do you have a good place to download a SNES emulator and games by chance?
my first game on PC, my father got this, graphism were crap, but it was a real simulator, the game was offer with original pilot manual (about 0.5kilo...), you have original sound, ou must take off, pilot during 5 or 10min before ennemy show....you could have dozen of minutes of dog fighting, you must go back to base, for resupply bomb and torpedo.....most dangerous part of the game were landing and fly into artillery...funny thing was you can die or end the war captured after a failing landing or sealanding.
Would some IL2 campaigns be out of the question..?
Quick question, are you running this on an emulator? Or are you running this on bonafide original mac? Can you supply directions on how to setup an emulator? Every time I try to follow online instructions I always fall flat.
The realism..
wow I miss that game more than many things, I have the emulator set up and all, but where did you find/get the game?
oh god, I remember this... wasted so many hours on this game
Yep, this game was fun very very much!
I need to get a joystick!
Where can I get this?
Hi! Can you please share where you got this game? I've got an emulator I like but all the downloads I've found for Hellcats Over the Pacific have been garbage. :( I'm trying to source it to include with my brother's Christmas present! I had no idea it would be this difficult!
Here you go! macintoshgarden.org/games/hellcats-over-the-pacific
Thank you! I've been struggling to get an emulator working for exactly that version. (I'm on Windows.) Good to know I'm barking up the right tree! I guess you're on Mac?
Julia Rose Sevin I'm on a PC. What emulator are you using?
I already have DOSBOX but it's doesn't work with Hellcats. I'm trying to get Basilisk II working but it's just a lot of steps and well outside of my expertise, and unfortunately my brother is going to have to go through most of these steps as well. emaculation.com/doku.php/basilisk_ii_setup
What emulator did you use?
Julia Rose Sevin I sent you a message with some info, did you get it? It sounds like you might be getting a Christmas present together so I'm nervous to hear if things worked out!
Classic
I used to play this game as a kid and have be trying for years to get it to work on newer macs. Can you tell me the specs or what machine and OS you are using?
Also, you can do up, down, left, and right views by using the arrow keys. At least if I remember correctly. And those enemy fighters are called Franks. The green ones are the Zeros.
I'm using a Mac emulator called Basilisk II. It emulates a 68k Mac, and I've got MacOS 7.6.1 on mine. I believe that there is a version for Mac which you can check out at basilisk.cebix.net/
I'm pretty sure the green ones are Franks based on my (admittedly limited) experience shooting them down in the sequel to this game, Leyte Gulf. Frank was the reporting name for the Ki-84, which was much more commonly painted green than the Zero.
Sweet! I'll check that out!
You may be right on the designations. That's just what my dad told me they were so it stuck with me. Awesome game mission though. I used to get wrecked by the A.I. when I was young.
Did you try looking around with arrow keys? I distinctly remember being able to look down so that you could line up for dive bombs.
Also, I would loved to see Leyte Gulf let's play. I loved those rockets.
To ANYONE out there!!! Does anyone know where I might acquire the original 3.5" floppy game discs for Hellcats Over the Pacific and Leyte Gulf???? I'm desperate to relive the fun and joy of the game. PLEASE!!!! am willing to offer $$$....thanx,
thanks but i just found out the game is free to download.....it's finding a machine to play it that does not need an emulator...that's the hard part !
Dude...press R for replay :)
shit yea seaking those graphics