"The things you can count on after attending E3 are ringing ears and sore feet." - Snackoism

The 1999 E3 conference in Los Angeles was my second opportunity to rub shoulders with industry insiders and knowledgeable military simulation enthusiasts. On a professional level it was a great opportunity to learn more about what's going on in the industry and communicate it back to the readers.

On a personal level, it was a good place to hook up with friends and talk seriously about our collective personal passions for military simulations. Over the course of three days I was able to get my fill on both levels.

I must say, while E3 is a great place to get a look-see at sims that are currently in development, it's a bad place if your intention is to wring the software inside and out. The loud, often obnoxious, roar of voices and music often drowns out your questions.

Last year was better: we seemed to have access to more "behind the scenes" rooms that if nothing else were a way of sitting down and asking questions without straining your voice. Several people I spoke with on Saturday (the last day) had already lost their voice, or were quickly heading in that direction.

Although my Mark One Eyeball is always on the lookout for the next killer sim, I have to constantly remind myself that we are viewing products that are in different states of completion. Most were in a high-alpha code state, which means that we could only observe small sections of the sim that were "working." Unfortunately, "working" can be a very subjective term.

When conducting my interviews, certain patterns start to emerge: you can ask the person showing the sim about a certain feature, and the response is about 95% of the time "yes, it will be in there." Kudos to all the developers for trying to be aggressive with their feature set.

But unfortunately the realities of business sometimes get in the way, and some of the features will get axed as delivery time nears. After seeing this pattern several times you learn to adopt a "wait and see" approach.

"The feature set of any given sim will be the one decided upon about a month before it's released to manufacturing." - Snackoism

Following are detailed previews of most of the popular sims, but for the moment let's take a look at our whirlwind tour of the E3 floor.

Armored Fist III

First on our stop was Novalogic. We hooked up with Dan Bennett who has taken up shop as Novalogic's PR Manager in-residence. We got a look at several sims: F-22 Lightning 3, Delta Force 2, and Armored Fist 3. Several sims in development were also noted: Maximum Overkill, Wolfpack 2, Joint Strike Fighter, and Commanche 4. Whew - Novalogic is going to be quite busy!

Maximum Overkill

The best look at a sim I received at the Novalogic booth was Armored Fist 3. Nigel Mills, Associate Producer on the product, walked me through the sim.

Scheduled for an early fall release, AF3 emphasizes team-play more than any other tank sim to-date. Their interest is to allow up to 3 human players to play inside an M1A2 tank. Also emphasized is the commander function, which allows a person to coordinate the movements and actions of the 4 tanks in their platoon, and up to 8 platoons.

Shadows, weather effects, smoke, fog, and grass will all be resident in the sim, but the sim continues to use the Voxel engine to render it's graphics. Voxel is great from a low-to-mid system where frame rates are a concern, but to me the engine has never been visually pleasing.

F22 Lightning III

Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear

Next stop was to speak with Carl Schnurr, producer of Rainbow Six: Rouge Spear from RedStorm Entertainment. While not a revolutionary upgrade from its predecessors, Rouge Spear represents continuation and improvement on what was already a great sim.

Most improved in Rogue Spear are the motion capture aspects. The range of motions has been greatly enhanced: if a terrorist/friendly gets wounded, you will see the limp. You will also see the terrorists nodding off.

The AI and graphics have been heavily reworked as well: improved special effects and character models have all seen a dramatic enhancement. The flash bang effect now affects your retinas for a 30-60 second window. There are several new weapons including 3 new sniper rifles. There will also be an "encumbrance" model included that better simulates being weighted down by dress, equipment, and wounds.

MiG Alley

Andrei Nadin was kind enough to walk us through Mig Alley. I think this sim has a good chance of giving Falcon 4.0 a run for its money because of the depth of campaign play and the sense of environment.

Multiplayer includes support up to 8 players and they can work in opposition or cooperation.

The modeling of the terrain and objects in the Mig Alley world was nice, but it's not up to the standard that sims are demonstrating. While "eye candy" is not what it's all about, in my opinion it really helps with the suspension of disbelief and it contributes to the overall enjoyment of the experience.

The use of a Forward Air Controller (FAC) really sets Mig Alley apart from other sims. You will be given the ability to interact with a pilot who's sole purpose is to ID and communicate enemy activity. The FAC will fire Willie Pete (White Phosphorus) rockets at your intended target and you are to follow the rockets in with an explosives strike. You will then be scored as to how accurate your strike was.

Hidden and Dangerous

Hidden and Dangerous was an interesting sim. Set in Europe during WW2, this first person shooter gives you the ability to perform commando operations behind enemy lines.

While the motion capture of the soldiers could stand some improvement, the mission selection, ordnance, and general atmosphere are incredible.

SSI: Naval Heaven

For the grognards, SSI had the most going on. Between Flanker 2.0, Harpoon IV, Destroyer Commander, Silent Hunter 2, and Fighting Steel, the hard-core fanatics should be satiated for some time to come.

Carl Norman, Rick Martinez, Sean Decker, and Joel Billings were all kind enough to step us through their products.

Flanker 2.0 - A lot has been written about this already, so I won't attempt to repeat the details. Suffice to say that multi-player will be robust and allow cooperative missions. The number of players allowed by the multiplayer missions will be determined by the available bandwidth. As the comms code has yet to be tweaked, the maximum number of on-line players has yet to be determined.

Harpoon IV - This will be the one that the naval hard-core fans relish. Early prototypes of the user interface look to be clean and useful. Add in a fair amount of 3D graphics to view the action and this one should cause many sleepless nights and broken relationships.

HIV Notifs

Destroyer Commander - I'm looking forward to this one very much. Naval combat is one of my favorites and having the ability to conduct surface operations anywhere in the world during WW2 will be a real kick. Add in the ability to multi-play with Silent Hunter 2 and you will get one robust environment.

In Destroyer Commander you will have the ability to control one ship or a squadron of up to eight. According to Rick Martinez, the producer of Destroyer Command, every station aboard ship will be modeled - all except the head.

Unfortunately there wasn't much to see at this point and we should look for Destroyer Commander to hit the shelves sometime during the 2nd quarter of 2000(?).

Deck Gun

Silent Hunter 2 - This time you have the opportunity to become a U-boat commander during WW2 (Ed. See our Military History Index.) We got a look at some alpha code during E3 and we've been given some information that the 3D engine will be undergoing a major improvement. Information on this is forthcoming from the developer. Look for Silent Hunter 2 sometime this summer.

Fighting Steel.

Fighting Steel - SSI showed Fighting Steel during the 1998 E3 show, and from what I saw of the sim this time around it was almost complete. Joel Billings, the producer of Fighting Steel walked us through it. For the most part, Fighting Steel looks very similar what was shown last year, at least on the surface. I've recently received a preview build of Fighting Steel and I will be sharing an advanced look at this incredible sim in the near future.

F/A-18 Super Hornet - This sim from Digital Integration/Titus was one of my biggest surprises at this year's E3. I was expecting a nice sim, but what I saw will keep me watching anxiously for the day that it hits the store shelves.

Carrier Ops to the MAX!

I will be conducting a more in-depth review of F/A-18 Super Hornet in the near future, but suffice to say this sim is truly unique. Not only has it retained the famous Digital Integration mission planner, but it also has carrier ops!

Not only do the carrier ops have little "yellow shirts" and "green shirts", but the jet blast deflectors (JBDs) and catapults are fully articulated with motion and steam. In one scene I observed all four cats launching aircraft simultaneously. Imagine four aircraft being queued for launch while the carrier desk personnel run around performing their tasks. Too cool.

Jane's F/A-18 - Jane's is at it again, and their "Project X" has came to light as an F/A-18. In this sim they model the forthcoming Super Hornet, but just the E model - the now infamous front-seat/back-seat doesn't look to make it into this version. Even so, what I saw was incredible.

Multiplayer will include cooperative play, and the sim does include ACMI functionality. The F/A-18 object itself is truly amazing and the cockpit it very nice. The flight model displayed is undergoing some work right now, as one would expect for a product so early in the development process. The sim makes use of the best facets of F-15 and should give us something to look forward to.

Fly! - Terminal Reality set up across the street from the main hall an actual fuselage of an old Cessna. Inside the fuselage they had installed all of the controllers necessary to fly the sim. I had a great time with the realistic yoke and pedals. This set up gave me a good feel as to how the flight model performed. They really weren't set up in this display to explore the other options of the sim, but according to recent press releases, this sim is almost ready for prime-time. From what I saw, this sim will give Microsoft and Looking Glass a run for their money.

MS Flight Simulator 2000 - Well, I tried to give this one an honest look-see, but the versions they had set up at the booth were quite rough. Frame rates were very poor and I had a lot of trouble in getting my booth to work at all.

Granted this is probably early in the development cycle, but a working prototype should have been on display. What I did see didn't look that different than MSFS '98, so I think we'll come back to this one when it's had a little more time to simmer.

Jane's USAF - Although it might be easy to dismiss this survey sim as just another soft-to-medium core game, Jane's/EA has put together something more than what might look to be on the surface as an improvement to IAF.

There looks to be voice activation for wingman commands as well as mission recording and playback. High-res fanatics should be please as screen resolutions should go as high as 1280x1024. And yes, the shimmering terrain has been fixed. USAF also includes virtual as well as 2D cockpits. When you hook this into Jane's World War, we may have a winner here.

Let's take a look at some of my highlights:

Best Jet Sim

Finalists: Digital Integration/Titus Super Hornet, Empire/Rowan - MiG Alley, EA/Jane's F/A-18, and SSI's Flanker 2 - Winner: Tie - Super Hornet and MiG Alley

Gunship III

Best First Person Shooter

Finalists: Redstorm's Rainbow Six Rouge Spear and TalonSoft's Hidden and Dangerous - Winner: Tie

Best Naval Sim

Finalists: SSI's Harpoon IV, Fighting Steel, Destroyer Commander, and Silent Hunter II - Winner: Harpoon IV

Best Helo Sim

Finalists: Microprose's Gunship III, Simis Ka52 Team Alligator - Winner: Gunship III

Gunship III

Best WW2 Sim

Finalists: Microprose B-17 II, EA/Looking Glass Flight Combat - Winner: B-17 II

Best Civilian Flight Sim

Finalists: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000, Terminal Reality Fly! - Winner: Fly!

Best Hardware

Finalists: Game Commander, Matrox G400Max, Turtle Beach Montego II - Winner: Game Commander

My "winners" really reflect being able to bring something new to the table. I probably will be playing all of these sims when they arrive and I'm sure I will enjoy each and every one of them. It's just nice to see some developers/publishers concentrating on new environments, technology, situations, and gameplay.

"The amount of time I have is inversely proportional to the number of new sims released to the market." - Snackoism

With respect to Gene Siskel, here are some of my 1999 E3 highlights:

Thumbs Down to the many sim developers/publishers that did not include adequate HOTAS setups with their displays. All too often we were asked to get the feel of simulations while using Microsoft gaming sticks. Yikes.

Double Thumbs Down to Psygnosis for displaying Nations with NO STICK what so ever. What gives?

Thumbs Up to SSI and Digital Integration for giving us good HOTAS to fly their sims with. Hoo-ah.

Thumbs Down to Jane's for not showing any of A-10 or Fleet Command. Jane's reasoning for not showing Fleet Command was because it was a released product. Well, it did release, but only days before E3 and we did not have access to preview versions. I'm still wondering why they didn't show A-10.

Thumbs Up to the many gaming companies that included "show babes" with their displays.

Thumbs Down to the babes for not inviting me home.

Thumbs Down to the sim companies as a whole because they didn't.

Thumbs Up to EA/Jane's who got pictures of Xena, Warrior Princess flying F/A-18. Ok CJ, where are the pics?

Thumbs Up to ME for remembering to bring sturdy walking shoes and my knapsack to carry my E3 literature in.

Our intrepid Editor at SSI

Thumbs Down to ME for forgetting to set my voice tape recorder properly and loosing some valuable "question and answer" time. Damn this new fangled technology.

Thumbs Down to Dan "Crash" Crenshaw for forgetting his camera on one particular day, and not allowing us to take pictures of Bubba Wolford in front of the "Bubba's Hunting Lodge" display and the entire COMBATSIM crew in front of the Mattel Barbie display. Damn, lost opportunities. (By-gones)

Well, there's always next year!

Left - The COMBATSIM.COM™ crew at the Jane's display.