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Rubber on the .. uh, Road
So, is it any good? Yes.
Would you as a hardcore Falcon 4/F-15 player like it? Well, everyone likes Star Wars, so yes, you would.
But is it an interesting space combat experience? Well, sort of.
Basicly simmers will be upset and confused by the fact that there is no energy bleed, no up, no down, and all your cute Falcon 4 moves won't work. The handling is remarkably bland, even though Origin had upped the ante in this by introducing a modicum of flight modeling, as we would understand it, for Wing Commander: Prophecy.
However, wouldn't it be cool if the developers attempted to convey some of the effort of flying a starship in the game? Wouldn't it be cool if the developers allowed some simulation into their sim?
The Star Wars novels spawned one very interesting series: the X-Wing series by Michael Stackpole. In this series the author mentions that Wedge Antilles trains his pilots with some sort of artificial gravity in the cockpit, so that they would respond better to the handling of their craft. In other words, he gives them g loading. Wouldn't it have been nice if the developers were to give us g-loc?
Also, wouldn't it have been nice if the developers attempted to create a physics model to somehow convey the strangeness of flying X-wings in the Star Wars universe? Perhaps they could take "sim-lite" flight models of things like F-16s (for the X-Wing), F-4s (for the Y-Wing), Harriers (for the A-Wing) and Tornados (for the B-Wing) and plug them into a Star Wars physics model.
They didn't so so, but it would have conveyed the feeling of being there. The TIE Fighters seem to handle just like in the movies, so we should leave them alone. But notice that in the movies, the X-Wings seem to use something that resembles "real world" ACM.
Click to continue
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Prometheus Unbound
Although you can fly any of these other craft, you only get to fly them in "simulated" missions, in a game within a game. The multiplayer function also suffers from this anomie, this sense of futility. It is a bit annoying to fly a mission, survive against overwhelming odds, and then realize that you haven't achieved anything, and you are in a simulator. Okay, okay, I know…. But a simulator in a simulator?
Multi-play can be summed up by one phrase: pointless, but great fun. No F4 co-op campaigns here, just blast away and shoot things. It supports Internet online play via the gaming zone as well as LAN play.
"Alliance" appears to be the last of the X-Wing series, which is a pity. A Tie Fighter type add-on HAS been rumoured, but unconfirmed. Apparently, things have shifted in Lucasarts towards creating spin-offs based on the prequels. Not a bad idea in and of itself, but it leaves a strangely incomplete game series behind it. Recently, the entire series was re-released, updated to 3d-supported standard.
However, as far as I am aware, the older 640x480 2d cockpits were still being used. The new, cool 3d cockpits are only in Alliance. The logical step would be to patch the whole lot so that you can now fly down the trench of the original Death Star with the 3d cockpit.
Part III
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