Test System

• AMD K6-2 333/MHz
• 128 meg SD RAM
• ATI Xpert@work x2 AGP w/8Mb
• Diamond Monster II w/12Mb
• 11Gig DMA 33 hard disk
• 40x DMA33 CD

Thrill of the Moment

I could just make out the French coast when the radio crackled to life, "Unknown contact, 2 o'clock high!" I had two P-38's stay with the bombers and ordered my wingman to form up with me to investigate.

As we grew closer, my wingman called: "Enemy fighters, 12 o'clock." I ordered him to engage the Fw-190's and called on the other two 38's to assist.

I had no time for fear, long experience taking over in the heat of battle. I tried to look everywhere and be everywhere at once. I was too busy to be worried; I was living in the moment. All that mattered was the enemy in my sights as I shot him to pieces, and survival.

There were too many of them. For a brief moment time froze and I saw over a dozen aircraft filling the air with screamin' death. We were outnumbered. No matter how many we shot down, there were always more.

The moment ended abruptly with loud impacts on my fighter. Desperately, I twisted my 38 and nearly lost control as I pulled instant max G's and micro-blacked out. I could hear the rattle of the elevator and feel the plane flex and shudder from the strain I put on her. She came around in an impossible move, the edges of blackness tunneling my vision to nearly a pinpoint again.

Fear gripped my gut in an icy flash, and I thought, "I can't blackout now, I need to get around, I need to survive -- I want to live..."

If you thought that was an extract from a real W.W.II fighter pilot's memoirs, well it was -- but a virtual one, and that pilot was this reviewer. Which is better for a simulation, suspension of disbelief or real-accuracy? I will make every effort to answer that question, amongst others, in this review.

ActiVision Makes Its Bid

The much anticipated and long awaited release of Fighter Squadron: Screamin' Demons Over Europe (FS:SDOE), a World War II combat aircraft simulation, has finally happened. FS:SDOE, published by ActiVision and created by ParSoft, hit the gaming community like a bomb, polarizing the hard core community overnight. Let's take a closer look at what this product did to cause such uproar and whether it really warranted this much attention.

Like the other W.W.II air combat sims released this year, by Microprose, Microsoft and Origin. ParSoft and ActiVision had hopes of captured market share for themselves by promising an ultra-realistic World War II Fight Simulator. FS:SDOE does deliver some stunning graphics, the sensation of flight, dogfighting to a refined edge, and introduced some new technologies, pushed back the envelope, but did it keep its promise intact?

Promises Made

When the hard-core community heard that ParSoft, the creators of A-10 Attack! and A-10 Cuba, were teaming up with ActiVision to put out a World War II flight simulator there was dancing in the streets. There was great hope that ParSoft would put out a flight model of the same quality as A-10 and the hard-core flight sim community would finally get what they had been craving for so many years.

Early information and previews seemed to indicate that the dream would come true- the tension mounted. The two main contenders ParSoft faced were Microprose's European Air War (the First, and some say the best), and Jane's WW II Fighters.

Both of these titles, despite teething problems of their own, immediately grabbed high ground: EAW with its 'dynamic' campaign model, massive air battles, and the ability to fly online with friends and foes in co-op battles for the recreate the war crowd. Jane's stood out with it's intense and stunningly beautiful aircraft graphics and excellent online play.

Yet both these sims fell short of the mark. EAW was hobbled by it's failure to allow personalized markings, lack of working surfaces, functional but drab graphics and poor online ability. WWII Fighters was limited by it's rather relaxed flight model, limited scope and lack of campaign.

Interestingly, EAW is considered the premier solo simulation available, with a small but strong following for online play, and Jane's has become the focal point for many online enthusiasts. With the split decision there was no apparent king, and the hardcore community gazed with longing toward ParSoft and their coming release.

Previews, rumor, and speculation promised a game that would model true Newtonian physics, a flight model that would match or surpass that of A-10, and a sensation of flight as real as today's technology could support. On the down side, it was also made clear from the start that FS:SDOE would not have a campaign.

ParSoft also stated that this would be a serious attempt at a "true" simulation, including the opportunity for expansion. Players would be able to add in their own planes, with their own flight models (FM's), custom paint scheme's, custom mapping, custom mission designing and support for 8-16 online players.

In short, although FSSD would lack the ability to put you in the WAR (campaign), it promised to put you in the cockpit! The stage was set, and ParSoft and ActiVision set themselves up for an acclaimed simulation or just another disappointment.

Reality Check

Like EAW and WWII Fighters before it, FS:SDOE provides a remarkable game and simulation, but it's not perfect. Despite a wonderful physics model and a FM that conveys the sensation of flight very well, there are noticeably missing elements which we'll cover later.

The simulation community had concerns about what planes would be included in the game, as well as their number. FS:SDOE released with 10 aircraft, and all of them flyable. For the American's the P-38J, P-51D and B-17G. The British received the most variety with the Spitfire V, Mosquito VI, Typhoon, and Lancaster. The Germans come equipped with the Fw-190A2, Me-262 and Ju-88A4.

This decision also raised some criticism as the typical Me-109's, P-47's and such were not present. This isn't as big an issue as it seems, however, because these aircraft and others will eventually be added in with OpenPlane®, ParSoft's instruction set for construction of aircraft.

Even the manufacturer's label on the gunsight is relatively legible.

Room with a View

The graphics come very close to Jane's in both functionality and beauty. The clouds in the game are the best seen yet in any aircraft simulation. Planes are beautifully modeled with moving surfaces for ailerons, rudders, flaps and elevators. Put too much stress on the wings and watch them flex and warp. Do it for too long and they break!

The level of detail is incredible. Break a wing, and see the wing rib exposed and in complete detail. Shoot off the tail of a bomber and see inside the fuselage. Lose part of your wing and see the jagged edge and small super structure dangling. Fly past an aircraft and look through the cockpit and see his instrument panel, with all dials and gauges working.

The instruments are legible even out here.

Everything you could hope in terms of detail is present except bullet holes. The terrain graphics are also well done and allow the pilot to determine his altitude when low over land with little effort (it is not as easy over water, but that's the way it is in real life.) Hills, valleys, farmlands and small communities are present on the landscape.

Airfields are well done and enhance the sensation of flying, landing and taking off. There are coastal defenses, bunkers and ground units. Planes smoke when damaged, sometimes from engines, but also from wings and from the landing gear area as well.

Wind is modeled and smoke from chimneys bend as the wind blows, enhancing the experience. Fires spread when ignited, from building to building and even trees. Oddly, fires on planes are the least represented of all the graphics. Fires on aircraft are more functional than they are beautiful when compared to the rest of the simulation.

Now Hear This

Sound in FS:SDOE is well done. There is nothing truly awesome about it, but it does convey the sensation of being there. Engines vary for pitch depending on throttle settings, machine guns and cannon are easily distinguished, and multiple gunfire is easily understood. One of the simulations nicest sound features is the ability to hear the plane creak, groan, grind and scrape when you load stress and G's onto the frame.

Although Air Warrior II and III also modeled this, FS:SDOE seems to have taken it a step further. You can hear the ailerons scrape when you move them and with increased speed you can hear them flutter slightly along with the elevator and rudder. Your aircraft is constantly talking to you, and for me this really enhances the in-flight experience. After all, planes really do that. A few have reported soft background hissing or pilot voices that are too soft. There has even been one person who reported that sound cuts out altogether for him.

These occurrences are isolated, more system related than software related and with a bit of troubleshooting should be easily addressed. If your sound card is capable of it and your CPU fast enough, you might try adding this to your sdemons.ini to see if it improves your sound quality: DSFreq=44100 and DSbps=16. Although this won't do much for the sounds that come with the game which are in 8 bit, 12000Khz sampling, any future sounds added can take advantage of the higher Khz sampling and may improve your sound quality just slightly.

Where's the Beef?

Gameplay is smooth and well executed. FS:SDOE has the typical key commands with a wide variety to allow you to control your engine, prop feathering, flaps, landing gear, braking, ejecting, weapons selections, etc. Also there are trim controls, view commands (internal and external), and HUD overlays to help the new flyer or experienced flyer who desires that extra amount of information on what goes on around him or her. System commands like gamma control and window sizing are also present. For online communications there is the typical chat key and type-in communications.

The sensation of flight is truly stunning. The physics that were promised are fully present. Watch a piece of a wing get shot off and flutter away on it's own spiral and maple seed effect. Lose a wheel and see it race down the runway until its momentum fades and then see it spiral in like a quarter, tighter and tighter until it stops. Come in too hard and watch your plane bounce and possibly damage the landing gear.

Or watch two planes collide in mid-air and see them both careen out of control as you would expect. Blow up a target and pieces and parts fly away on their own trajectories, reacting to their environment as they should.

Naturally, the physics of flight are also present. Each aircraft has their own unique characteristics which closely parallel the historical abilities of those aircraft. This adds greatly to the immersion of flight. You can even feel the airflow over the wings and tail, modified by your aileron/rudder/elevator inputs!

Who Stole My Flight Model?

Oddly enough, despite this wonderful sensation of flight and seeing the FM working and interacting as you would expect, ActiVision, during the beta process decided to dampen the effects of three key elements: energy bleed, stall effects and spins. ActiVision did this in an attempt to attract the common gamer as well as the hard core gamer. Here is an example (pointed out to me by a fellow enthusiast) of the FM remaining intact but somehow the Stall/Spin just isn't fully there:

Get the Me262 up to normal speed and with the power full on begin a climb of 40 degrees nose up and to the left at around 30 to 40 degrees (turn on the HUD.) Keep that attitude as your speed bleeds off, and dwindles down to around 120 kts and below. You should have full deflection on your elevator, and use your ailerons just enough to keep you at that 30 degrees turn to the left. When you feel airflow completely separate, the plane will snap roll off to the right violently. Unfortunately, that's it, it won't stall any further.

Looking through the open bomb bay doors.

Oddly, this is only true of undamaged aircraft. Once a plane has been damaged to the point that stalls and spins are a real danger, then they are modeled as such in the game. This discrepancy has caused more than one gamer to turn red in the face, and I'm don't mean from embarrassment. Why ActiVision didn't decide to deal with this as an option setting will remain a mystery.

I tried contacting ActiVision as well as ParSoft. Although ParSoft responded and all our correspondence was Cc'd to ActiVision, ActiVision has remained silent. This is not unusual for a Software company, since they usually have a policy to not preannounce any planned fixes or updates until patch/updates pass QA and are ready to launch.

Michael Harrison, the lead programmer for FS:SDOE at ParSoft, on the other hand, has been very open. He had said on some forums that ActiVision had requested that ParSoft tone the FM down. I contacted Michael about this, and he had this to say:

Well, what I actually said was: Fighter Squadron belongs to ActiVision (at least, the game and name do. The engine's ours) and there are some things that got dumbed down at their request, but overall I'm pleased with the way it turned out.

And to be equally honest, I regret using the words "dumbed down". This has resulted in many people making the assumption that ActiVision came along and told us to make the planes arcadish, which isn't true. What I was referring to (with my unfortunate choice of words) was us (ParSoft and ActiVision) working to get rid of some extreme stalling behavior that made the aircraft much harder to fly than they should have been.

At the time we were making these changes, we were also working like mad to get the game out the door and it would appear that we may have gone too far in the other direction for the hard-core sim fans." 1

When I asked Michael about ActiVision's silence and ParSoft's immediate plans to address some of the FM issues, he had this to say:

To be perfectly blunt (which is normal behavior for me), we have given the public what we can as far as information goes. As soon as the game came out I let people know that we were working on the CD problem and a Rush patch, I've stated that I'm working with ActiVision to determine what will be in the more general patch and that I'd let them know what we're going to do, as soon as we know. Many of the people who are complaining that we haven't told them what we're going to do, simply haven't taken the time to look for the answers that are already out there." 1

Although there is a tremendous amount to like about the physics that are modeled and the FM as well, there are other issues that can set one's teeth on edge. Like:

• · Fog that limits visibility as a fps saving convention
• · Airwalls at the edges of the map screens to prevent players and planes from fall off the edge of the map.
• · Bomber engines falling off and disappearing after catching fire, as if the engine never existed on the wing.
• · Landing your plane without landing gear or raising your landing gear while landed, then drop your landing gear and watch your plane rise up like an elevator, sometimes damaging it, sometimes not.
• · Occasionally pieces that break off your plane don't act like a piece of the plane but paper or cardboard and flutter like you would expect for paper or cardboard.
• · Multi-engine controls that are not documented, but can be adjusted within the keyboard.inp, does not fully work and Michael has openly admitted to a bug with multi-engine control, which is being worked on.
• · SLI and Rush video cards not fully compatible with the initial release.
• · Once the program is installed, the game not recognizing that the CD is present and not letting one into the program.

There has already been a beta patch release which takes care of the vast majority of the CD problems, and ParSoft is working very hard on the SLI/Rush video issue. This latter patch is in the QA stages as this article is being written. There are high hopes that the other issues and especially the FM issue will be addressed as soon as the dust settles from the release.

Anyone Seen My Padlock?

Some of the more interesting features of FS:SDOE are enhancements of current technology. One of the gems in the game is its padlocking system. Not since Falcon 3.0 was launched has there been an evolution in the implementation of padlocks. Many have tried, with various degrees of success, but none have really taken it to a new level. The padlock feature in FS:SDOE, however, has succeeded. Its movement is smooth and accurately mimics head movement.

The experience is enhanced by the ability to zoom in and out while in padlock view, independent to the zooming from the static/virtual cockpit view. Also, as a target gets closer to the center of the gunsight, the padlock view slowly and automatically zooms in closer to the target aircraft. This auto zoom feature can again be adjusted with the zoom control keys "[" and "]".

A flyable B-17.

This outstanding feature draws you into the scene and does an admirable job of mimicking the ultra-concentration one feels in situations like this as you focus attention on your target! As the target moves away from your sights, your view pulls away (depending on how you have your zoom configured), leaving you with that sensation of reawakening to the world around you.

The targeting keys for friend, foe and neutral are all available in the game and matched flawlessly with the padlocking system. One of the interesting features of targeting is the ability to look somewhere and "lock" your view with the Ctrl-t. When combined with the padlock this allows you to target "areas," very useful for ground strafing and landings.

Targeting controls allow you to cycle forwards and backward (t and Shift-t) as well as tag your wingman or other friendlies with Alt-t. Used in padlock mode, it will smoothly orient your view (as you would imagine your head would do) to the target of choice in real time.

Couple this with the HUD assist of target tagging (like Jane's and EAW) and you will easily pick up your target. For a challenge and treat, like the pilots of the time, don't use tagging. The farther away you are from your target the less precise the padlock feels, but as you get closer and closer the more "focused" it becomes.

Missions Anyone?

Although the mission editor is powerful, flexible and has an easy to use interface it is not easy to master. This is in part due to the documentation, which is more of an outline than clear how-to directions. There are many factors and variables you have to account for when designing the missions. Be prepared to spend a lot of time with the editor until you become familiar with it, because the rewards are definitely worth it.

All missions can be created for use as both solo and multiplayer. Be aware that a multiplayer mission has a limit on the maximum number of planes. The default is 8 planes, but if you add this: NetMaxPlayers=16, to your sdemons.ini file you'll be able to extend that limit to 16 players/planes.

Besides being a fully functional mission editor, this is where you also determine the computer's AI ability. AI in FS:SDOE has five slider variables: Skill, Aggression, Loyalty, Morale, and Sanity. These variables are not truly a general AI, but represent how the computer pilots will react within the design of your mission. Design it poorly and the AI may not do what you expect based on other factors or variables you have not clearly defined.

The mission designer will require a major investment in time to master. I suggest you start small and as you become comfortable, expand into more complex mission designs. On the Internet there are already several areas where created missions are available. You might want to take a look at one of these in the editor and see what that designer did to make it work.

Plainly Open

One of the features that gives FS:SDOE it's greatest potential is OpenPlane®, the ability to create from scratch your own planes, ground units, new structures, maps, pretty much anything that the designers of the program could do. WARNING: The documentation that comes on FS:SDOE's CD, explaining OpenPlane®, is not a program or an editor, but the tools and notes you'll need as a competent programmer to design your own editor to do this type of thing.

Although ParSoft has given all that is necessary to do this on your own, it is not for the casual gamer, but geared more for the professional programmer. I expect that there will be a torrent of editors soon from the talent that is available on the net, but right now, a lot of people are scratching their heads over OpenPlane®.

Is Anyone Home? Online Play

Online game play is also a glowing feature of FS:SDOE. It is easy to use and simple to start up an online game. When a game is started, the host has the option of setting up a Full speed game and a 1/2-speed game. Full speed is for systems that can sustain 20fps or more and 1/2 speed for all others. This allows slower machines to compete online without being edged out by the faster machines.

Some individuals, like AMD owners with fast processors, may still be forced by the program to fly at the 1/2-speed settings. This can be worked around by adding two lines to your sdemons.ini file: NetRTHWMin=10 and NetRTSWMin=10. This will let you play online at full speed regardless of your computer horsepower. This workaround will not give users of slower systems any added benefit however and may even put them at a severe disadvantage vs. faster systems.

Although the game ships with the ability to play with up to 8 players, the engine is capable of handling more. By adding NetMaxPlayers=16, to your .ini file you can increase it beyond the 8 players. Be warned, if you choose to increase the default multi-player settings to 16, be sure all the players have fast systems and good connections, or stability will suffer.

If players take all plane slots, you can decrease your chance of problems. The host systems computer will fly all slots not taken (as AI aircraft) and unless you have a strong system, it will cause connection issues as your system must process not only your plane but the AI's planes as well. Experimentation will be required to find the happiest medium for you. I found 10-12 to be a good setting on my K6-2 333 system.

Summary: Aim for Perspective

Too much pre-release hype and emphasis on the recreation of real-world flight and physics modeling was this products Achilles heel, and ActiVision and ParSoft have only themselves to blame. So, if you're into suspension of disbelief, you'll love FS:SDOE. If you're a fan of real-world accuracy you will still be impressed by the sim, but your hopes will certainly be dashed if you believed all the pre-release promises.

Fighter Squadron makes me feel like I'm actually in a dogfight - and actually at risk of getting killed - more than any flight sim I've ever flown. That feeling comes from the game's ability to color the mechanics of the sim with meaning and its ability to connect with my imagination. In my experience that's very rare. It is the strength of the fighter pilot role and conviction that this is real that is critical to my enjoyment - not the intricacy of the sim.

Perhaps this is why we're seeing some people go nuts over this game, while others are not that impressed. The people going nuts are connecting with the game in a way that's rare for interactive products, and that's because it's connecting with them in an emotional way instead of merely an intellectual one. Maybe for the first time they're actually feeling like they're IN the cockpit - which is something they've always dreamed of.

The cockpit from the co-pilot's view.

My fervent hope is that at some point the game will become polished enough for everyone to get into it, and suspension of disbelief and real-world accuracy will merge into the promise. Then you'll feel what I feel when I roll out at 20,000 feet in my P-38 and bear down on a flight of German fighters below. Because when I do that I'm not playing a game.

Recommended System

For non-3Dfx users I recommend a PII 266 with graphics turned down, or a higher speed CPU if you want it all. For 3Dfx users the box says 200Mhz, but I would recommend a 233 with graphics turned down. Otherwise, you will need a 266 or better with graphics turned up.

Note: the minimum install is 285 meg, and full install is just over 600 meg. The documentation provided with the sim is in error.

Ed. Note: Send us your custom missions! Click HERE. Please send as a zip file attachment.