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GAME REVIEWED: F-16 Multirole Fighter
RELEASED BY: Novalogic
PRICE: £39.99 (with MiG-29 Fulcrum)
REVIEWED BY: G-String
REVIEW: -
What?!? Another Flying Game from Novalogic? Do these guys not do anything else? You may well be thinking this and the answers are Yes, Yes, and I don't know.What I do know is that these guys sure know how to make flying games. This game came with MiG-29 Fulcrum which is the Russian rival to the Western's F-16. These two games are up with the best flight simulations around.
Firstly, the most important thing to me in a flight sim game is the graphics. (The F-16 game and the MiG-29 game appear to use the same graphics in the game. This means that the only difference between them is the plane, the missions, the audio and the menu screen. The terrain is pretty much the same in both games.) In F-16 the graphics are incredible. The terrain isn't that spectacular as it looks like perfect rectangular fields from above. This really makes you feel out of place in the game. It takes away the realism when you are plummeting to the ground to gain speed or as an evasive manoeuvre against enemies attacking. The graphics of the plane itself are excellent. A lot of effort and time has obviously gone into this plane's capture on the screen. The one thing that I personally like was the air coming off the wings. They leave a trail which I thought was quite smart. Also, when you fire a missile, the missile leaves a trail of smoke behind it, which I again thought was pretty smart. Novalogic have spent such a lot of time devloping the plane that they even created a small film (Overview on main menu) about the plane and what it's done. In the case of the F-16, it brought down around 90 Iraqi air craft, and lost none of its own. Impressive!
The game's controls are easily mastered for a basic flight. A good joystick obviously helps, which is why I used the Raptor 3D from Primax. You need a good few buttons on the joystick to fire alternative weapons. Four should be enough. The cockpit, however, takes a little longer to master. But generally, I don't use it as much. I usually rely on the map for my co-ordinates and other information. But, you should really use the cockpit as it does contain vital information, vital to complete a mission successfully.
The weapon selection is very limited to 10 weapons, ranging from air to air missiles, to air to ground bombs, to a cannon. The selection, however small, is all you need to complete your missions. The missiles range from short range to long range and are easy to master with the plane's autolock firing system. Different missiles are guided by different systems. Ranging from heat seeking to radar guidance. The bombs are a bit harder to fire but they still good weapons. The cannon may be okay for close up use, but with the missiles, it is really poor. Unless you have none left. The autopilot feature in this sim is particularly useless, I find. But others may disagree.
The basic manoeuvres that you need to master are the turn (duh), the half-loop, full-loop and twist. The semi-roll, full-roll, and double roll. These all come with practise and believe me, it takes a lot of practice. I play a few flight sim games but I still found the manoeuvres hard to accomplish. The campaigns are very carefully worked out over different terrains. These can be glacier, to desert, to forest. All give you a sense of feel to the game, to some extent anyway. As I said before the terrain detail is quite poor, but they do at least set the scene. The campaigns themselves are carefully designed to introduce you to new tactics. You need to use your wingman for some missions and not others. Some of them you rely on your wingman, especially when you alone are up against 4 MiG-29 squadrons. It's a war out there (duh).
You have a wide selection of views to choose from, using the F1-F8 buttons which gives you a different perspective on the plane, and by pressing each of the buttons more than once you get different views from within that perspective. There is a wide selection of views for the cockpit, you can 'check your six', see right and left, zoom into the Heads up Display and even check your instruments, such as your map, your weapons, and your fuel/speed/climb/dive. These are important if you are short of fuel or need to reload your weapons. The external cameras are great to check out the detail of the plane, with three separate views. There is also a series of TV cameras where you can watch the plane flying by. Also, you have the opportunity to watch your missiles as they drive towards your enemies. You can even see them blowing the planes up! You can also watch enemy/your own planes as they plunge towards the ground, at high speeds towards their death.
The gameplay is very good with the campaigns quite interesting. The missions were detailed and well varied with a continuing storyline throughout the campaign set over different terrains. The quick missions are great for training and familiarising yourself with the plane. One thing that annoyed me was the landing techniques used. I found it really hard and still do to make landings without taking about 3 or four minutes coming in to land. I don't whether that is realistic or not, but I found myself trying not to have to land, just because it took too much time.
The terrain, as I have said before needs a lot more work done to it. If you look at the screenshots you can see the rectangular fields which are supposedly deserts. This does take away a bit of the realism, but this is the only major, technical flaw I can think of. The manual that comes with this is helpful in that it explains every aspect of the game, carefully and fully. There is also a keyboard layout, which is a handy reference to the functions each of the keys can do. Something that's becoming quite common in flight sims.
So what do I think? Well the game is brilliantly designed, graphically, except for the terrain, but not many flight sims have good terrains anyway. The sound effects are up to standard and the dialect is in American, which for British players can be annoying. Because we expect to be hearing the RAF leader or something. Or maybe it's just me being weird. The manoeuvrability of the plane is not that good, but I found that it was okay. I think it is just that way because of the actual plane's manoeuvrability. Overall, a good sim with some work needed.
SCORE:
88%
MINIMUM HARDWARE REQUIRED:
CPU: 200MHz
RAM: 32MB
200MB HD Space
V\G Card
Windows 98\95\NT
Joystick
Direct X v5.0+
LINKS: www.maxis.com