FALCON 4.0

 

Genre	Flight Sim'
System	P166 (Accelerated option)
Year	1998
Publisher

Falcon 4.0 Falcon is a heavyweight flight simulator, not an arcade shooter. Superb graphics, a very high degree of realism in both the flight model and avionics, punishingly good enemy AI and the best dynamic campaign around make this the one to beat. And nobody has done so yet. Both difficulty and graphic levels are adjustable, so that you can get into the action reasonably quickly and scale the eye candy to fit your machine. Even on my PIII 450 with 128MB and Voodoo 2 I have to sit back several ticks from the maximum if I am to keep the frame rate up. With the settings just so, however, the game is as smooth as silk, both single and multiplayer. Talking of which, the online options are excellent, with a variety of dogfights, (including co-operative) and player designed missions or even whole campaigns in which players fly together as part of the same team in real time.

As released, the game suffered from some serious bugs, but with the release of the latest patch (Dec 99), these seem to have been banished and for such a complex game, it is quite remarkably stable.

THE GAME.

As I said above, this is a flight simulator and definitely at the "hard" end of the scale. The manual runs to several hundred pages and most of them need not only reading, but serious study before you will be ready to go into battle. If all you are after is a quick air-to-air shoot 'em up, then you can set the realism to minimal, including simplified avionics and enhanced weapon performance, configure the joystick buttons (forget trying to fly with keyboard only), and go up against some bone MiGs. Fine to start with, but if this is all you want, get another game. For the serious propeller head, the way to proceed is to go through the training missions one by one, practicing until you can do them in your sleep. Each mission is written and described by an ex-USAF flying instructor who clearly has a lot of hours on the F16, so you don't just get the dry check lists, but some very useful advice gleaned from real life.

To start with, there is take off and basic handling, moving on to such concepts as corner airspeed, stall recovery and flame out landing. Once you have these cracked, it is time to find out what all those buttons and switches do, and here it begins to get really deep. The cockpit is an accurate model of the F16C and about three-quarters of the controls work. As well as the navigation stuff, such as TACAN, and things like undercarriage and brakes, which you will already have covered, you can control your communications, ECM, radar, chaff and flares, lights, HUD and loads more. The heart of the cockpit, however, is in the twin Multi Function Displays (MFD) and getting to grips with these is what turns you into a fighter pilot, or else turns you off.

The next bunch of missions is therefore devoted to learning the mechanisation of the various weapons (e.g. Maverick, ARMs, LGBs, Sidewinder and AMRAAM, plus several more) and using the radar in its many modes (4 air, 3 ground, each with a number of sub-modes) to target and guide them. This phase takes a lot of work and you will have to fly each lesson between several and many times before you will be happy with all the ins and outs.

On completion of this part of your training, you will be ready for the instant action option, where you can fly either air-to-air or air-to-ground against a variety of opponents and with an unlimited supply of weapons. Here you will begin to get to grips with weapon selection, especially AA, and practice targetting in real time. As you will discover in the AA mission when the MiGs turn up, you will still have a way to go before risking your virtual life over North Korea.

To further hone your skills, you can set up dogfights, from simple 1v1, to team furballs with as many aircraft in the sky as your system can handle. Try the latter and you will spend an inordinate amount of time on the end of a parachute. My advice would be to stick to 1v1, 1v1v1, or 2v2 at the most.

THE CAMPAIGN

This is the meat. There are three campaigns available, all set on the Korean peninsula, where the Dear Leader (Kim Yong Il, not Tony Blair) has kicked off a war with the south. The campaign engine generates an Air Tasking Order (ATO) for the entire theatre and depending upon which squadron you have selected, the appropriate missions are displayed for selection. Early on, the bulk of the taskings are sweep and BARCAP, with SEAD missions coming in during the morning of day one. The campaigns are dynamic, meaning that the success or otherwise of each package affects not only what sort of opposition you are likely to encounter later on, but also the missions generated in the ATO. Fail to take out the SAM sites in your SEAD mission and some poor bugger will have to either go get them later, or fly right over them on the way in to a deep strike. And that poor bugger may well be you!

Having selected your mission, there is a good briefing page and even the opportunity to look at intelligence photographs of the target (if you are off on a bombing run). A superb feature of this is the ability to look at the target from the persepective of your ingress heading, so that you will know exactly what to look for as you wing in at 500kts with the flak and SAMs whizzing around your head.

Some of the missions, especially the bombing ones, comprise a package made up of many discrete elements, of which you are just one. A deep strike will probably have SEAD back-up, with BDA coming in behind and CAP covering the whole lot. Some elements are four ship, some just two, and you can choose whether to lead (not a good idea to start with), or go number 2 and follow the leader's directions. These are communicated over the radio by voice, with any replies or comments of your own being chosen from one of five menus. Amongst these is the ability to talk to the Eye in the Sky (E3A), from whom you can find out whether the dot on your radar is friend or foe, where the nearest threat is or, if and when you get completely lost, where the rest of the package has got to.

As you cross the Forward Edge of the Battle Area (FEBA), things really begin to hot up, with the war on the ground raging visibly and a great deal of unhealthy interest beginning to be taken in your carcase. On a SEAD run, you will see the SAM and AAA radars light up as your flight is detected in enemy airspace and it is difficult to resist the urge to loose your ARMs at the first hostile emitter you spot and then hightail it for home at 50 feet. Instead you are supposed to push on to the target so that the next lot of lucky bozos can scull around over their target without undue worry.

ONLINE

As well as the scripted campaigns, you can design your own, from single missions, right up to the full monty. The mission editor is relatively straightforward and intuitive, but it's no easier than doing it for real, so don't expect to spend five minutes clicking in a few waypoints, strapping on some ordnance, kick the tyres, light the fires, last one airborne's a cissy! If it's a multiple package, you need do the flightplans for each element and make sure the right guys turn up at the right time. Send the SEAD in before the CAP cover has arrived and there will be four empty places at lunch. Fail to get the BDA flight through and you won't get a success/failure result. Having put your mission together (or downloaded one from the Net), you can then invite your fellow wannabees to take part, with any empty jets being flown by the AI. On the subject of which, the friendly AI is just as good as the enemy. Your wingmen stick with you if at all possible and will usually try to push on to the target. If you are Lead, then they will take the targets you give them, fly trail, battle or anything else you order, clear your six and follow you home, whatever you want. For something simpler, you can use the Internet, LAN or Modem options to connect and then do the old dogfight thing. The lag is extraordinarily low considering what is going on on the screen and the connection is usually pretty robust. I have played with a chum who only has a 28.8 kps modem and even up close, it was almost as if we were on the same machine. Truly astounding.

SUMMARY

This is the top flight sim' by a mile. The fidelity of all its elements, from the cockpit, through the avionics and handling, to the terrain and enemy/friendly AI is incredible. Only security considerations have modified anything, and then not by much. If you stick with the training and pick your missions sensibly, then you can look forward to rapid promotion. Leap in too quickly and you'll be lucky to reach the target, let alone get back home. However, if you aren't into the long haul of learning to fly the thing, then forget it. You won't get even 10% of the value of this incredible piece of software.

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