Intro Way, way back, in the 20th century, the much anticipated and ballyhooed sequel to the very well done Falcon 3 was released. This is back when monthly releases of combat flight simulations were occurring, the hey-day, as it were. This was to be the Grand-daddy of them all, and it was, in an odd way. It was extremely complex and plagued with bugs right out of the box.
MicroProse, then owned by Hasbro, were fairly forthcoming with patches that made it playable, but about a year after release, when patch 1.08 was released, Hasbro pulled the plug on the entire MPS studio, and an early combat simulation pioneer was no more. Some others tried improvements as third party add-ons. The patch dance, followed by other groups' enhancements started to wear thin for some, but the original intent was closer to fruition.
Of these third party folks, a gathering was formed under the banner of Lead Pursuit. They have recently released a modernized version of Falcon 4 known as Allied Force. Additional items included with this iteration are graphics acceleration without the old Glide (VooDoo2) standard, a new campaign area, and most important, stability.
How did they fare on these areas? Let's have a look.
Install and Docs It comes with a single CD, and a 100+ page Basic Operations manual, which is just that—basic. The real meat is on a nicely searchable Adobe PDF file in the documents directory of the install. That, along with a keyboard command file which is not printable on any paper size I tried.
Luckily, I have the big old binder version from years past and it is still, for the most part, applicable. There are 116 more pages in the new PDF than the old binder version, so there are some serious differences.
Install was very straightforward via an auto start on CD insertion, a few minutes later, and the 1.62 GB install was complete. Much better than the fish-slap dance of patches and add-ons prior to this. I tried a different add-on by a third party—just since I was back in the F4 mode—and it was much more complex and severely time consuming.
Upon fire up, the familiar old menu layout with new backgrounds are shown. A quick look into the setup area gets audio, graphics, and game play aspects squared away. Time for a bit of a fire up!
Graphics These are not cutting edge by any stretch of the imagination, in fact they were back in 1998 when this sim was released, but have been improved upon in many ways. The biggest leap is the ability to work with the T&L (transform and lighting) features of newer graphics cards, and not be restricted by the old 3Dfx video codecs. Clouds have been totally revamped and look very nice. One of the old bugs my creaky brain recalls is the lack of weather as the campaign rolls on. This still seems to be true. Day 1 showed all types of high puffy clouds and lower cover for "socked in" conditions. By day 3, it was 5x5 all day, theater-wide. But, unlike the original, by day 5 another front moved through west-to-east and made areas where it was tough to hit ground targets. One of many plusses, but it would be nice to have a weather report for an area marked on the map. It sucks, later on in a campaign, to tote a slew of Mavericks and have little use for them with a 1500 foot ceiling.
Serious secondary explosions
For the most part, the aircraft look very nice as does the terrain. It definitely looks like 1998 fare and no where near the newer titles like LOMAC. If eye-candy is your main reason for combat simming, this is not the place to be. But the lessened requirements for graphics make it ideal for older systems. Some other situations were discovered while in campaign mode, the Hornets off the carriers to the east of the Korean peninsula were without textures. Overall, the graphics are useable and not a detriment.
Sound There is nothing earth-shattering here, but enough tweaks to really add to immersion. From take-off to landing, and all combat areas in between seem, like the rest of this combat simulation, tightened up.
Training One of areas that really shined in the original also goes over very well in Allied Force: not only are all the Korean lessons for all aspects of the flight regimen present, such as take off, landing and use of combat arms here, but they are faithfully re-created in the new Balkans terrain. I feel a special kinship to the area, as I was a terrain tiler back in 2000 when the third party group started its creation. Julian "Codec" Onions brought my tiny work forward into the release, as I see some of my work in the area south and east of Aviano AFB, Italy, lo these five years later.
Missions The single missions are somewhat plentiful from the original title but are lacking in the new theatre. Nothing much to do for that but use the mission builder to make your own. Place them in the correct directory, and there is fun to be had. There will be more on that in a bit under the Mission Builder.
Campaign This is where the bullet hits the bone, so to speak, for us old timers, and off-liners. Not to say anything against the continuing trend of "all for Multi-player", but this is where this title leaves them all in the dust. It's tough to build the complexity of two campaigns and keep them stable. This was done fairly well by the folks at MicroProse, but has been finally completed by the gentlemen at Lead pursuit. I have flown for 24+ flight hours, and have had one crash to desktop. And that is because my beta testing background made me do it. I did weird things, just trying to flip it out. I finally did, and a window asking what I was trying to do appeared. They do seem to want to keep this puppy tight. No mods until otherwise notified, but keep it clean, and it is pristine.
The immersion of a campaign with all the ground, sea, and other air units is where this simmer thrives, and there are no equals. An added facet which really adds to this title's depth has also been accomplished: while viewing the campaign overview map you may see an item of interest...a right-click previously gave the options of status and recon; now, an extra item, which adds a quantum leap in playability, is the "add package" option.
Add a Package
Not only can you call up a strike on a point or battalion of interest, but you can tweak in the multiple strikes, recon, and other aircraft from other squadrons, and different aircraft types. You were previously allowed to adjust ground units on a strategic level to affect the outcome of the war, but are now able to do tactical strikes, which can play into the overall campaign. An excellent and far-reaching addition, in my opinion.
Multiplayer Some folks have reported problems, while others have done 16-player co-ops with no reported errors. The big area of error seems to be with folks using dial-up. Sure, it still exists, but should only be used for forum fnebbing and general browsing, not for gaming online. The Lead Pursuit folks are very forthcoming in their dealings and are on top of the known quirks. For example, there is a particular router manufacturer that has known EPROM quirks, and a beta, that has tested well, is addressed on LP's website.
AI The Artificial Intelligence has been improved in most areas, but can have sporadic stupid attacks. As I have a tendency to pound the ground, there have been many opportunities to see the AI in action striking a target or three. On occasion, they're devastating. If you hear them ask for permission to engage, let 'em loose and they will wreak havoc. On other occasions, you mark the spot with RADAR or a Maverick sensor, and they hang on your wing. In these latter times, a call to return to base sees them confirm, then crank back toward the target to drop whatever ordnance they have, sometimes scoring, others not. There seems to be no method to the madness.
When tasked with an air-to-air target, they are consistent killers, utilizing their longest ranged missiles first and moving in as required. They can be a little too obsessed on occasion, but very effective, and in stark contrast to the mud-moving routines.
Comms Falcon 4 was one of the pioneers, back in '98, of the multi-menu very deep comms menus. In Allied Force, this area has been expanded a bit and works pretty well. There are times, I have found, where your AI wingman just don't want to get with the program no matter what you request—at least with the aforementioned ground-pounding situations. There are some helpful additions, like the ability to assign separate targets on OCA strikes, though the AI doesn't always pull through with the options presented.
Mission Builder Yup, and it is GUI-ized, like the original. Not the most user friendly, but powerful. I have only dabbled with it a bit, but it does look to be every bit as useful as the original was and user created missions should be popping up at various sites, I'm sure. But, with the complexity of the campaign system, it would be really hard to come up with anything with severe "wow" factors to it. Except maybe the ability to drop nukes, which you'll rarely see in the campaign.
Mission Builder
Expandability Currently there is no policy on modifying the contents this title, as has been going on for many years. Lead Pursuit has said they will release one, and by the time this review is posted, there very well may be one on their site. (http://www.lead-pursuit.com/news.htm) I, for one, hope they stick with a strict, "it will be tested thoroughly before we give our blessing" type of deal. The large driving force by these gentlemen has been stability. This they have done very well, and I applaud their efforts. It may take a while to get an official sanction on add-ons, but will be well worth it, if the CTD's are as they are now, slim to nil.
Conclusion Well, folks, as you may have guessed, I feel that this release is a real winner. It is all of the things that the original crafters of this simulation aspired for it. The game is stable, graphically dated, but still immersive; good tweaks to the campaign system, which add serious depth, the whole ball of wax, so to speak. The choice to keep stability as a focus is excellent, I believe. There is nothing more frustrating than planning a mission, taking off, getting shot at, doing your mission successfully, despite the enemy trying to thwart you, and suddenly having a crash to desktop. An hour or so of your carefully allotted sim time squandered, bad scene, beyond words. And, if you've saved your old pilots from the original, they slide right into the pilot directory, where you can proceed on. The best truly is now...
)
)
)
)
)