by D. Eric Marlow, "Snacko" January 11th, 2000

  While I tend to not comment too heavily on flight models, SH bears a little departure from my norm. The flight model feels a bit too hot; it is too easy to accelerate, and speed does not bleed very much during sustained high-G turns.

While I do not have access to actual F/A-18E performance data, an actual Hornet driver in the COMBATSIM.COM™ newsgroup forum mentioned that a fully laden Hornet would take approximately 30 seconds to reach 350kts after a catapult launch, maintaining 10 degrees of climb. In DI's Super Hornet it takes approximately 13 seconds.

I found some strange behavior when I turned off all "easy" setting and attempted to catapult launch. Upon cat launch, my aircraft would go into a spiral and land in the drink if I didn't immediately press the "g" (gear) key at the end of the catapult. The timing of the "g" key press is difficult, and I wasn't always able to master this.

I was quite impressed with the avionics, especially how the terrain that resides behind obstacles such as the far sides of mountains does not render on the radarscope. Standard US air-to-ground radar modes are available: MAP (GM), GMT, and SEA. Air-to-Air is made up of several modes including VS, RWS, TWS, and ACM with sub-modes. Check out Bill Hewett's radar mode comparison article HERE. Anyone who is comfortable with GSC's Hornet Korea, or even Falcon 4.0 will be comfortable in using the SH radar modes.

Multiplayer

I was disappointed to find only "deathmatch" available as a multiplayer option. DI claims up to 24 can enter into a deathmatch, but I've not had the chance to test these limits. I would have liked to see the ability to run single player missions for cooperative battle.

No CD is required for multiplayer play, which is a nice feature for those players that want a multiplayer experience on their home LANs.

Click to continue

Bugs

Recent sim releases haven't given me much confidence in the ability to identify and fix problems before a product ships, noting the need for additional quality assurance and testing time.

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised that I was relatively unaffected by bugs. I had one "crash to desktop" when I tried to reset my FLIR, but other than that it was satisfying to see that SH was relatively problem free.

The biggest issues seemed to surround certain features that didn't work as advertised. I had great difficulty in figuring out how to slew the FLIR and Maverick cameras using keys only. Not matter what I attempted, there didn't seem to be a way to make this work. Also, when I switched between air-to-air missiles, I would frequently lose my radar target lock requiring me to re-designate.

Evaluation: Hard Disk Factor

A new aspect of simulation enjoyment I've come to realize recently is what I call the "Hard Disk Factor™", or how long a particular title remains on my hard disk.

For a sim to remain on my hard disk, it must have those unique qualities that allow me to maintain my interest over a longer period of time.

Go to Part VII: Summary and Rating