F/A-18 Operation Desert Storm

bigvern · Post by **bigvern** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 2:57 pm

To anyone who may have seen this in Game and thinking of buying - my advice is don't. First of all Game are selling at Â£29.99 whereas Play are selling online for Â£9.99 and Amazon UK for Â£13.69 with a listed RRP of Â£19.99.

The whole thing seems very arcadey and the actual gameplay simply consists of a series of standalone missions. No dynamic campaign and some of the missions seemed bugged - you complete the criteria and exit and get told you have failed. The menu fails to record which missions you have completed or failed nor do you need to complete certain missions to unlock the next.

Flight model appeared to be by Airfix, not a patch even on US Navy Fighters from 10 years ago. Graphics looked better in F15 Strike Eagle on the Amiga. Oh and no printed manual in the box, even the keycard had to be printed from pdf.

After a severe rollicking by the missus took it back to Game and managed to get some vouchers in exchange (they wouldn't refund cash).

Far be it from me to deter anyone who wants to buy it, but it's basically a big pile of steaming poo.

ca55ie · Post by **ca55ie** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 2:59 pm

You got the Eurofighter Tycoon game Vern? I can highly reccomend that...

Sam

bigvern · Post by **bigvern** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 3:04 pm

Think I did have it but sold it as it was during my MSTS obsessive days (which needless to say are no longer). For me the glory days of military flight simming were epitomised by aforementioned US Navy Fighters, Tornado from DI, Janes Longbow 2 and maybe a couple of others. There's a dearth of really good military flight sims at present and crud like F/A 18 will not serve to rekindle the development of future decent products.

Speedbird083 · Post by **Speedbird083** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 5:05 pm

DID's Tornado and Jane's Longbow 2 really were quality and I've not found a helicopter sim to rival the latter yet. I thought Novalogic's entire Commanche series was very poor.
I had the original Jane's Longbow and that was good but was astounding by Longbow 2, one of the first 3DFX games I possessed, it was stunning at the time.

I used to enjoy F-16 Combat Pilot too but I don't recall that having a dynamic campaign... something I think is a must have in a sim.

I've never played Eurofighter Typhoon. I ordered it, the remake/replacement of/for Falcon 4.0 (which is yet to see the light of day

) and Lock On : Modern Air Combat with Amazon last year but only the latter came. The Falcon product (still) doesn't exist and they couldn't get me Typhoon and so it was forgotten about.

I lost track of all the Hornet games/sims. There was a point through the late 90s when there seemed to be a new FA-18 and F-22 Lightning game out every other week.

bigvern · Post by **bigvern** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 6:26 pm

The Amiga version of F16 Combat Pilot certainly had a dynamic campaign, four in total ISTR. Quite tough but do-able if you took time to think about your strategy. Had a nasty habit of coming back to your airfield to find it cratered or even sometimes under attack when taking off. All pretence of the mission abandoned while using your mavericks to fight a rearguard action instead.

Happy days, where's my Tardis!

Fodda · Post by **Fodda** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 2:34 pm

I'll second Lock On: Modern Air Combat as a good sim.

I was shown it by a mate and it looks, sounds and is awesome (cheap at the mo as well).

Has the usual plenty of missions and a dynamic campaign.

Also incredibly realistic which means you need to learn how to fly AND fight in a modern jet aeroplane. I'm still enjoying MSFS too much to try to learn it at all, so I've just managed to fly the A-10 across country and along a railway WITH TRAINS before hitting a bridge I thought I could get under. Never touched the radar or weapons sytems as they just confusticated me!

Speedbird083 · Post by **Speedbird083** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 11:02 am

Have a look at this video. Was posted on the BAV forums a while back but its of LOMAC with a twist. Breathtaking stuff. Its a biggy mind - 80Mb http://tinyurl.com/523ns

Redbaron · Post by **Redbaron** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 12:07 pm

I have LOMAC, and love it. There were loads of bugs with the original release, but a patch released on the LOMAC official site cured all of them for me, and the gameplay, graphics, realism are awesome! I think it's even better than the DID F-22 ADF, which I have installed on my 6-year old Windows 98 PC (sadly it won't run on my newer XP one), and still play on!

Speedbird083 · Post by **Speedbird083** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 12:34 pm

I have it, played about with the carrier-born aircraft (Sukhoi?) and the F-15 but didn't do a lot with it. I kept getting shot down or shooting down the wrong things (an E-3A Sentry for example - bad when you're USAF

) and I was enjoying MSFS more at the time, racking up ridiculous amounts of hours with BAV.

I came across this the other day. http://www.lockon.ru/index.php?lang=en
It appears Ubisoft aren't that fussed about developing it further but the Russians seem to have adopted it.