From The Book of Dweeb

In the beginning there was the Land of Warbirds. Over this land hovered HITECH and PYRO, who had lovingly created it. And many were the men and women from across the globe who came and saw the Land and the Air where dids't fly the aircraft of their forefathers. And the people were amazed.

And lo' dids't they feel privileged to pay two US dollars an hour to fly the aircraft of their forefathers. Lo' there were Dora Dweebs and Vulchers and Alt' Monkeys and multifarious creatures of the air. And the creatures made scenarios and held conventions. HITECH and PYRO looked upon their Land and said it was Good.

The End of the Beginning

Then, unto the land came the new gods. The two-faced Gods of Venture Capital and the wing'd, horn'd Lawyers. And they spaketh to HITECH and PYRO of gold and paper "stocks" and the Creators were swayed by their sweet words and sold the Land to the new IMOL Gods.

In time, the IMOL Gods grew boastful and full of pride that they ruled the fine Land of Warbirds. Yea dids't they forget that their profit center was the product of the Creators. So, in a fit of pique they drove HITECH and PYRO from the Land. And, as the last of their steadfast men dwindled away, HITECH and PYRO looked one to the other and with fire in their eyes they vowed, "We will make a new land my brother. We can make it better. For we are the original Gods of Warbirds."

So much for mythology. Dale Addink and Doug Balmos don't want much out of life. They just want to make the most immersive, realistic Second World War combat flight simulator in the world.

Now, most people in society- at-large would consider this an odd and quixotic career goal at best -- assuming that they even recognized that there was a WWII combat flight simulator field to be the best in. Generally speaking these people would be right. However, Dale "HITECH" Addink and Doug "PYRO" Balmos have one thing going for them; they've already done it once.

And so, on September 28, HITECH and PYRO, now organized as Hitech Creations, Inc., released the public beta of Aces High. Aces High is designed to host up to 1000 players in a highly realistic World War II air and ground combat environment. The system requirements are hefty, a 200MHz Windows-based computer with a 3D card is the base system. The beta's core download is rather compact however, at a mere 3.5 megabytes.

Me 109

Enough about the glorious careers of these two, the main question is how does it stack up against the competition?

Well dear reader, the flight model is great, almost every detail of aircraft modeling is attended to, the graphics are unfinished but off to a very good start, and the general atmosphere is designed to keep the player deeply immersed in the illusion that they are a World War II flying ace.

AH Loadout Interface

GETTING STARTED

Long time WWII flight sim junkies will be gratified to know that the curious sheep obsession that pervades the genre continues unabated and sheep safely graze alongside the airstrips, nay even on the airstrips.

Anyone who comes to Aces High from Air Warrior, MS Fighter Ace or the recent iterations of Warbirds is going to be in for a whale of a surprise. Once logged in, the player goes to the oh-so-familiar control tower where he is assigned a clipboard which allows control of all game settings, even while in flight. The clipboard goes everywhere the player goes, including to his knee in the aircraft.

First, off to the Map Room to get a look at the combat situation and choose an airfield. The AH world is divided into three countries, the Knights, the Rooks, and the Bishops. Once one has decided to fly either for the horsies, castles, or pointy-thingies, one's little avatar scuttles across the field to the hangar where one picks one's ride for the day.

The current aircraft stable comprises the usual suspects plus some choices that have been much sought-after by enthusiasts. Currently available the current beta, which as of this writing is version .35, are: The North American P-51D Mustang, The Douglas C-47 Skytrain, The Boeing B-17G, the Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX, the Lavochkin La-5N and the Messerschmitt Bf-109G10.

In the very near future HTC plans to add the Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden Kai "George,"and the Focke Wulf 109A-8. These will be followed in short order by the Macchi C.205 Veltro, Consolidated B-26 Liberator, Hawker Typhoon , Chance-Voight F4-U Corsair and Lockheed P-38, -- variants unknown at this time. PYRO, who designs the flight models, says that they hope to ramp up to a pace of releasing 3-4 aircraft and variants per month.

While picking out one's aircraft, one is faced with a series of options which include bomb loads, external fuel tanks, rockets and common battlefield modifications. This includes, for example on the Bf-109G10, the twin 20mm wing gondolas cannon or, on the Spitfire, a choice between the 20mm cannon with four .303 cal. or two .50 caliber guns in wing.

One can also set the convergence in the hangar area. Included in AH is a feature that is, to my knowledge, a first in the flight sim market, the ability to set incremental convergence for each pair of wing guns, i.e., 200 yards for the inside pair, 225 yards on the middle and 250 yards on the outside of the three pairs of .50 caliber guns on the P-51. This was a common practice in real life and adds not only more realism but will help many players' gunnery, yours truly included.

Oh, the external tanks. You'll need those. The arena settings are currently set for a high fuel consumption rate. This is mostly to test the multiple fuel tank modeling. Any reasonably long sortie will eat up your internal fuel in a hurry. You will naturally discard your external tanks upon sighting bandits. Just be sure to switch back to the internal fuel tanks first.

  FLIGHT MODEL and COCKPIT

You're loaded up and ready to rumble. Hit the "fly" button on the clipboard and off to the runway, where the canopy neatly slides shut and in you go. Addink commented that he thinks that the AH flight model is "pretty close" to the maximum flight model fidelity that is possible given current PC technology.

Says Balmos, "This flight model was basically designed from the ground up to handle all the stuff we figured we'd ever want to do. And it's put together in a really nice package." He adds that at this time, they are still, "working on getting everything working solidly in there, but in terms of potential it's not lacking anything we'll wish it had."

Cockpit Shot from the FAQ

Addink points out that while there are a lot of methods for modeling the various systems of the aircraft, the physics engine of AH offers a full six-degrees of freedom axis system. "That has always been the key difference between the two types of flight model out there. Is the aircraft capable of flying backwards."

Realistic it is. These planes really "feel" like high-performance aircraft. While Warbirds and Fighter Ace allege to have "full realism" in ground handling, I found the AH fighters to be totally new beasts as far as running them up to takeoff speed on the runway.

This is especially true in the legendarily squirrelly Spitfire and Bf-109 with their narrow landing gear. Lots of rudder and aileron pressure is needed to get up straight. The fully loaded P-51D will need just one notch of flaps, an early run-up on the throttle and the entire runway to take off. Can't wait to see the much talked-about but never seen, infamous "Corsair Flop."

Once in the aircraft one will appreciate the 3D rendered cockpit. While the 3D art is not as sharp and clear as the finely done 2D graphics in Janes WWII Fighters, for instance, the 3D model does produce Aces High's very flexible view system. Views around the plane can be set to one of three modes: smooth panning where the view glides á la real head motion, snap panning where the view pans but very fast, and snap view which instantly takes the viewpoint to wherever is selected e.g. font-top to rear.

All quite nice, but the most important aspect is how it works in combat. Here the only view that matters - as far as I am concerned at any rate - is the six view. AH allows the pilot to lower or raise their head perspective (within reason, of course) and also to move forward and back in the cockpit and to save some of the head positions. So get this -- in the Spitfire for example, one can set the rear view to be high and to the right, allowing the pilot to see around the armored headrest. To some extent, anyway. U.S. Navy pilots rejoice!

Each aircraft's gauges have been nicely reproduced. AH has set a new mark in realism here as well. Instead of a non-accurate "throttle" for engine control, pilots will have to master the intricacies of the constant-speed propeller and the manifold pressure control. There are also manual trim indicators, gyrocompass, individual turn-and-bank indicators, clock and so on. Not all gauges are fully functional or accurate for all aircraft as of this writing.

AH Loadout Interface

As for the dynamics of flight, I am not a licensed pilot, and have never been closer to any of the aircraft modeled here than the ropes at the museums. I do however, have quite a few hours in gliders and light planes and once got a ride in a Czech Mig-21Y -- long story. Disclaimer aside, it all feels pretty good to me. Stall behavior and pre-departure "mushing" of the controls seem quite accurate. The Mustang flat spins quite realistically, as I can attest.

Rob "Robocop" Coppock, a former Australian Air Force test pilot and member of the PC Test Pilot staff, posted his early impressions of the .33 beta to the HTC bulletin board.

"I am very impressed with the flight modeling. Roll acceleration and inertia are superb, far better and more realistic than in Warbirds. Flick rolls are realistic. Stalls, turn rates, performance, all look excellent at this stage," Coppock wrote.

Coppock's only beef is the same as mine, which is the simulated head-jerk every time one performs a roll or pitch. Planes just don't do that except in rough air or particularly violent maneuvers accompanied by opposite stick force, like in a four-point roll.

For those inclined to nit-pick even further, Balmos adds that the flight models are far from complete. "They're still just kinda' been roughed in. There's so many forces acting in the model… there's lots of inconsistencies and little wierdnesses right now."

Even though it is an early beta, Aces High appears to be well on its way to setting the standard in realism and historical fidelity. There were several times during extended combat sorties in high-threat situations that I had to remind myself to "get my head out of the cockpit" as I fiddled with trim, manifold pressure, prop speed, and fuel load to get the most out of my aircraft. It makes for an intense experience right out of a Bob Johnson memoir, except without the Jug- yet.

MULTI-PLAYER TECHNOLOGY

The server-side technology seems very stable. According to HTC, they have had some early problems with arena capacity. However, in my entire beta experience thus far, I have not experienced a single dump or disconnection. PYRO says they don't even have the T-1 line in yet. Lord knows what they are hosting it on, 128k ISDN?

The day after the .34 beta was released, I got into my first really big fur ball of about fifteen aircraft at low level in the lovingly rendered canyons. Although rather preoccupied, I did notice that I saw absolutely no "warping" or jerking about the skies of any aircraft due to network lag or dropped packets.

My frame rate was rock-solid smooth right up until the point I was run to ground (literally) by a Lavochkin in a very nasty, very low-level scissors. Some players have reported warping, but by and large, the smoothing code is very good. The warping phenomenon is a problem that is likely to exist as long as there are dial-up connections and limited bandwidth; which is to say, for the foreseeable future.

  As for the prospect of scenarios both large and small, HTC has a terrain editor that is now in use by one Alpha tester, XXX who designed the beta terrain. Addink says that the terrain editor will have the finishing, cosmetic, touches completed and will be released to the users soon. There will also be a full set of game management tools for players to design and run their own scenarios.

HITECH also noted that Aces High has "full server configurations built into their environment right now," that will allow up to 8 players to fly together. Addink says this system is very similar to Sierra's Half-Life independent multi-player model with players hosting games via the HTC network either privately or for open play. Multi-player games are "open architecture and totally free," says Addink.

Play in the various arenas will cost a flat monthly fee of US$29.95. There will be a number of arenas, although neither Balmos or Addink would comment on the exact structure at this time except to say that there will be various, scaled "easy mode" arenas that will allow new pilots to acquire the skills to survive in the full realism arenas.

B17 Gunnery Position

Gunnery Positions on the B17

GAME PLAY and STRATEGY

Like it or not, Aces High is still tabula rasa when it comes to long-term game-play and member retention issues. For the time being the familiar open arena, Capture the Flag motif is the order of the day. The beta terrain gives a few clues about the potential for the strategic game model and ground targets to come. There are a few factories and towns set up and odd light-colored blank areas are scattered about the map.

The general graphics standard is very good. The terrain file, while still in development is very pretty and has some of the best distance fogging I have seen to date. Low altitude terrain resolution is also above average but still inadequate. However, this may be a technology and hardware limitation more than a design defect. Plane graphics are quite good also and are sure to improve.

New aircraft: N1K2

Bullet tracer modeling is very nice if a bit overdone. I'm not quite sure that it is necessary to model every bullet as a tracer, complete with smoke trails. But, again this situation is sure to change. And, if that weren't enough, Addink says that one of their short-term priorities is to finish the cloud models - actual, ephemeral clouds.

My few attempts at air-to-ground were snuffed (literally) pretty quickly by the very lethal AAA. Balmos says AAA lethality will be dialed down a bit pretty soon. I had a hard time putting any ordinance but guns on ground targets. I think that some of the ballistics and graphics are incomplete. Or perhaps I just suck. Most likely both.

A full-on strategic model is already up and running and elements of the model will be added during the beta. This is a multi-level model leading directly from the "strategic" targets such as factories and cities to the "tactical" level of destroying targets at the airfields and will affect combat readiness and effectiveness.

Taking out factories and towns will lead to reduced fuel and armament availability for that country's forces. Balmos says all of the strategic engine components are up and running and the economic links are currently functional, so bombs away. The Norden bombsight is scheduled to be completed in a couple of weeks to make this a bit easier for the buffers.

Soon to come will also be "hot-refueling and rearming" points at the airfields where players can taxi up, get gas and ammo and continue their mission. Damage incurred will not be repaired here, but hopefully this will encourage players to extend their streaks and scoring will certainly reflect this.

Lastly, player-drivable ground vehicles will be added along with roads, bridges and other ground targets that will complete the entire "virtual battlefield" picture. Parts of this capability are already manifested in the game wherein once a pilot successfully bails out and lands her parachuted pilot, she can run around the arena.

Theoretically, she could hoof it back to one of her bases and replane. A long walk to be sure - the arena sectors are 25 mile grids and even a short flight to an opponent's airfield will be at least 30 miles - but hey, soon she'll be able to thumb a ride back to base. Are friendly peasant girls and the Resistance far behind?

Addink and Balmos state that the beta period will run "a minimum of three months," with the possibility of it's going longer.

  CONCLUSION

The attractiveness of World War II flight simulations, at least for me, has always been the beauty and poetry of flying at the apex of the development of propeller-driven aircraft. In WWII you have a technology -- the piston-engined aircraft -- that, by the end of the war, was simply as advanced as physical laws and existing materials were going to allow it to get, period, full stop.

That precision technology combines with the end-of-an era feel of guns combat. Eyeball-to-eyeball, seat-of-the-pants flying in personal combat is an increasingly romantically remembered type of war fighting. It has become as relevant and well remembered as the chivalric duels to which it is often compared. Unfortunately, the monumental deeds performed by the O'Hares and Gallands will soon be equivalent to Arthurian legend in the popular mind. Only a few will wish to keep their sacrifices alive.

The bottom line for people like Doug Balmos and Dale Addink will always be: how REAL is it? In the final analysis this is going to continue to be a very crowded market for what is considered a "niche" game genre. There are going to be multi-player flight sims that are fun and easy to play but which stint on the realism - Quakebirds is the pejorative I'm looking for.

But, the developer that gets it the most "real" is going to get the cream of the market. That magic 20% of any potential user base that is totally committed to fidelity and will pour money into their habit year after year can make a new player in the market viable.

Many have asked the question, "But isn't Aces High just a better Warbirds?" as if that were not enough of a goal for Hitech Creations. I think the answer here is, yes; it is a better Warbirds. If comparisons to Warbirds herein seem gratuitous - well, let's face it people, Aces High is definitely a way better Air Warrior or Fighter Ace -- and is therefore in a class that places Warbirds as it's only serious competition as far as realism is concerned.

Will Aces High succeed? Well, these two guys have a track record and street cred' that the folks at Microsoft and IEN would give their port reproductive organs for. The Aces High beta is a bold, entertaining beginning. As the old WWII ditty has it, "We've done it before and we can do it again." I think that one is getting hummed a lot down in Grapevine, Texas these days.

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Connor "Cman" Anderson is a recovering journalist working as an IT consultant. He is a member of the infamous Dweebs of Death virtual fighter squadron.

You can download and fly the Aces High beta from HiTechCreations. Total download with the hi res textures is around 5.5 MB.