From: rdd@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Robert Dorsett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: REVIEW of Falcon MC
Date: 6 Jan 1993 11:35:17 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: rdd@rascal.ics.utexas.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu


This is a somewhat amended version of my Falcon MC review, which, considering
the lack of flamage, not many people saw over the holidays.  It incorporates
a few more bugs sent in by the few respondents.

The more I think about this flying turkey, the more pissed off I get.  It's 
one thing for SH to sell a "fighter" simulator, with the neat HUD, and 
apologize the worse-than-arcade-quality flight dynamics away, but it really 
rubs me the wrong way when they sucker people into thinking this junk is 
"realistic," across the board.  It helps sell units, and it's good marketing,
but it's also intellectually dishonest, and that ain't right.



---------------------------


Title: Falcon MC

Publisher: 
    Spectrum Holobyte
    2490 Mariner Square Loop
    Alameda, CA  94501
    Tel. 510-522-1164

Cost: $69.95.  $40-$45, mail-order.

Requires: a color Macintosh, 2.5M free disk space, 2M RAM partition.

Test machines: Macintosh IIsi, Macintosh SE/30 w/ color monitor.

Capsule summary: It's a lousy game, and a lousy simulator.  Don't buy it.


Falcon is a self-described F-16 flight simulator.  More precisely, it
is a systems simulator, with its heads-up display and comprehensive
weapons logic its major selling points.

The first version of Falcon was done on the Mac.  Screen art appeared
in advertisements in  the Mac magazines in late 1986; the actual game
appeared about a year later.  It was  designed for the then-current
"toasters": the Macintosh 512, Plus, and SE, with their 9" monochrome  
displays and 512x342 matrix.

Version 1.0 was an awesomely buggy product: it required skill even to
escape from the  "crew roster" without taking down the system.  2.0 was
released as a free upgrade about nine months later, fixed many of
1.0's more serious bugs, and added a couple of new features, such as
the multi-player mode.  Subsequent releases of Falcon have been minor, 
incremental updates to 2.0: the last one for the older machines is 2.2.

One central problem with the 1.0/2.0 series was the extremely poor
simulation clock the simulator used: 2.0 apparently used busy-waiting
loops, to "slow down" the basic simulation so it could be used in real-time
on the Macintosh II.  This precluded 2.0 being useful on the later, faster 
machines, since it wouldn't run in real time. 

It also made the multi-player mode surrealistic, with "things" happening, 
but never, for instance, the airplane moving, or calculating fuel burn, 
during complex situations.  60-second dogfights could last two hours, on 
afterburner.  I vividly remember trying this out, the first time: the guy
I was playing with wanted to see what would happen if one of us shot the 
other.  So he just flew in a straight line, and I did a straightforward 
intercept.  It took FOREVER...  I don't believe I actually shot him, having
given up after tracking a SideWinder for fifteen minutes.

Needless to say, 2.0 didn't run in color, either, on the new machines.  
Falcon was not  a very Mac-friendly program.

Following the Mac version's commercial success, Spectrum Holobyte all 
but abandoned the Mac line,  and pursued IBM versions for the next five
years, first with Falcon AT, then with Falcon 3.0.  Somewhere along 
the line it seems to have gotten a small-business grant to develop a
HUD  training interface demo for the Air Force.  Ever since, Spectrum
Holobyte has been using this as a cornerstone of its informal marketing
effort, claiming this exposure legitimizes nearly every aspect of the game. 
With the tendency of  many users to justify their simulator-playing on
the basis of "fidelity," they found a receptive audience, and have
developed a loyal user base.

So now it's nearly 1993.  Apple's selling a lot of color machines, and
Spectrum Holobyte, the  publisher, has perked up, and released a new
version.  Falcon MC (Macintosh Color) is a "colorized" version  of 
Falcon 2.0, with a new manual, different interface, and an allegedly 
different "core."  As  a strong indicator of its "new" market, it's only 
distributed on a single HD disk, compressed, with alternate formats (such 
as two 800K disks) available for $5.  It expands to about 2.4M.  


With Falcon 3.0, written for the IBM PC, under  Spectrum Holobyte's belt, 
one might conclude that this version shares at least a few  similarities, 
but it really doesn't.  It is a much inferior product.

The good:

- The manual (SH writes GREAT manuals, tutorials on modern warfare--IMHO, 
  they should give the book-publishing business a shake).

- For everyone, the detailed HUD, slightly improved.

- The fact that it's in color.

- The new & improved weapons selection.

- It doesn't lock the machine quite as easily, but there are still 
  easily repeatable, sure-fire bomb  methods: select "head to head," 
  with AppleTalk off, sometime...  From user comments, most fatal 
  bombs seem to occur in its multi-player mode.

- An improved, cute, "loading" screen.

- The Macintosh-level user interface is an improvement over the old
  one, with good sound and modal design.  Certain aspects are somewhat
  confusing, however, especially modalities involving the duty roster and
  "Sierra Hotel," combined with non-standard buttons.

- The game defaults to 16 colors, regardless of target platform.  It 
  adjusts this at launch time, however.

- Really nice packaging and artwork.


The bad:

- The "run-time" user interface is poor.  The airplane is difficult to 
control.  Falcon apologists will try  to explain that this is because the 
REAL airplane is difficult to control, but this is a cop-out.   The F-16 is
a high-performance airplane: it is a "pilot's airplane," with exceptional 
visibility  and controllability.  The user interface we are provided with 
in no way approaches this  level of "friendliness."  Any real airplane that 
flew like this would never be accepted.   There are three problems:

    - The control characteristics are erratic, very jerky, leading to
    overcontrolling.  This makes  me suspect synchronization/clock
    problems, yet once again, but I haven't tested it on other  machines. 
    It does NOT feel like a load balancing problem.  Rather than integrating 
    a command via the mouse, keyboard, or mousestick,  over time, Falcon 
    seems to sample current mouse values and "goes there," very rapidly.   
    The *graphics* are NOT jerky, as earlier net commentators indicated; 
    rather, the *control system* is so erratic that the impression of 
    "jerkiness" is an inevitable byproduct.
    
    I suspect that the dogfighting mode would be akin to 2.0's "molassis
    in January," but  haven't tried it out.  However, user comments on
    America Online indicate that this is, in fact, the case.
    
    - The view out the window is too small.  Falcon MC uses the SAME sized
    window as the original Mac versions: 512 x 342.  So not even on larger
    monitors do we get the benefit of increased situational awareness,
    through better visuals.  Spectrum Holobyte has commented publicly that it
    does this to work on the LC's out there with the 12" displays: however,
    they run the risk of alienating possibly more people with better 
    displays--and have designed a built-in obsolescence, since 12" displays, 
    with their limited resolution, are a transitory phenomenon.
    
    To add to the cramped feel of the display, there are too many
    shaded patterns, which makes it difficult to accomodate what we DO see.
    And, absurdity upon absurdity, there is no "look-up" view.  The F-16
    pilot's vantage point is like sitting in a fishbowl: Falcon, on the other 
    hand, seems to go out of its way to obscure the view in every direction.
    
    - The 3D graphics are inferior.  There are many more shapes, object types,
    and secondary characteristics  (haze being a particularly nice one, not 
    to mention the various types of ground objects) than the earlier
    versions, but there are strange perspective problems, particularly when
    objects get near the corner of the screen.  These perspective problems
    extend to distances: ground objects don't look anything like what one
    would expect from high altitude or at any distance.  There's nothing
    approaching the fluidity of "Hellcats over the Pacific," or even
    "Flight Simulator."  And, to be frank, the graphics are still UGLY.  
    Especially the airport areas.

    Don't believe me?  Try this: descend,  approaching the
    main airport tower.  Note the point at which the top of the tower
    meets the horizon.  In an infinite-perspective graphics model, that
    will be YOUR altitude, too.   It works this way in real life, works
    this way in Hellcats, works this way in Microsoft Flight Simulator,
    any halfway decent graphics package.  You will reach the "tower"
    point at 500'.  A 500' tower, for crying out loud!  It'd be listed
    on sectionals as a hazard to navigation! :-)
  
    My theory is that SH as with the flight dynamics, doesn't have a clue
    how to do decent graphics, either: this is a major game detriment.  More
    precisely, I don't think they know how to do coordinate transformations,
    to show far-away objects nicely scaled down.  Proof?  Note how the
    various targets don't get much smaller after your're more than 20,000'
    away (horizontally or vertically).
    
- The flight dynamics are mediocre, at best, utterly unrealistic, at
worst.  Once again, the  atmosphere is not simulated properly: the
airplane flies at relatively constant performance,  for instance, up to
about 67K, then suddenly loses performance.  In the ensuing stall, even
with the airplane 80 degrees nose-down, it doesn't gain airspeed for
20,000 feet--not until one jiggles the throttle a bit, that is.  Falcon  
MC's "flight dynamics" seem to be the result of a bizarre combination of 
throttle setting and  the displayed HUD pitch angle.  There's utterly no 
sense of inertia, and there are strange limitations on the flight model. 
For example, one can pitch up 90 degrees, roll 90 degrees,  pull back on the 
stick, and the AIRPLANE WON'T MOVE.  One has to re-align with the "entry" 
angle, and pull out that way.  In this respect, Falcon's no better than most 
of the flight simulators released in the mid-80's: a glorified video game, 
with the "flight  dynamics" hinged on what one sees out the window.  With
Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.0,  performance was hinged on pitch (not 
AOA); with Falcon, performance is hinged on HUD  angle and throttle 
setting.  

   [ I returned my copy--couldn't stand it--and deleted it from all my
     disks, but I'd not be surprised if the old 1.0 bug is still present.
     Fly straight and level, 60% power, full realism.  Hit full afterburner.  
     Do you climb, or just go faster?  Law of conservation of energy says
     you'll climb as you go faster. ]

- There are still no tunable nav instruments, and the simulator takes
place in fantasyland--no real-world scenery.

- There is no game sound control.  IMHO, all games should duplicate the
standard sound control panel's volume functionality: forcing the user to
go to Apple's control panels every time one launches the game is inap-
propriate.  It should be possible to set a user default for this game, in
particular, considering the high quality of the sounds.


It's tempting to compare this game with another recent product,
"Hellcats over the Pacific,"  but I won't.  Instead, let's look at
Microsoft Flight Simulator 4.0.  Like Falcon MC, it's based on an ancient 
game line: it really hasn't changed in its various iterations--but 
secondary and tertiary aspects  continue to get jazzed up: high-resolution 
color, better sounds, etc.  The  1985 Microsoft product was an extremely
marginal implementation, and, like Spectrum Holobyte, Microsoft didn't
"mature" it for several years.  However,  given the comparable waits,
the ultimate FS 4.0 is a MUCH better job,  compared to the base
product, than Falcon MC is.  FS 4.0 is a product that  easily *matches*
the capabilities of the current PC version, with an  interface that far
surpasses it.  And it's a design that's built to last  through at least
a few more major Apple product revisions.  The way MS FS and  Falcon
were upgraded reflects a totally different level of respect for their 
respective user bases. 


As a *game*, I WOULD compare it to Hellcats over the Pacific: HotP far
exceeds it in  playability.  It "flies" more like a real airplane
(although not necessarily an F6F!), and is  pilot-friendly.   Leyte
Gulf, in particular, is an orgasmic experience, compared to this hack.


I do not like Falcon MC.  In fact, I like it less than 2.0, if for
nothing else than the utter lack of real evolution since 1988.  It is
an overpriced,  flawed simulator, and an absolutely awful game.  Sure,
the user can  certainly "stick with it," and learn to anticipate the
wild  oscillations  on landing, or how to work around the 90 degree
problems when  maneuvering.   If this is what you buy games for--to
learn the publisher's weird  interface--then this might be what you're
looking for.  I have absolutely  no interest in doing so--why bother? 
In games like this, the interface should be as transparent as possible,
to let one concentrate on the tasks to be accomplished: the
"difficulty" of flying an airplane lies not in any single task, but in
effectively managing the workload imposed by a large number of tasks at
once.  Spectrum Holobyte is marketing Falcon on the basis of  realism,
so it should at least have "reasonable" flight characteristics, AND the
visuals needed to perform its mission.

Falcon is fundamentally a "systems simulator," with one spectacular
feature: the heads-up  display.  Users unfamiliar with this technology,
or who haven't seen the earlier version,  may enjoy a singular exposure
to it (especially with Spectrum Holobyte's fine  documentation).  In
that respect, this as good an introduction as any other version.  
However, as a game, and especially as a flight simulator, Falcon MC
certainly doesn't measure up to 1993's state of the art.  


Lastly, a perhaps petty aside: I would recommend that users of the previous 
version NOT buy this: you'll likely  be disappointed.  If you do wish to 
upgrade, be sure NOT to upgrade through Spectrum  Holobyte: buy it from
a mail-order house, instead.  The difference is that Spectrum will make
about $30-$35 in pure profit if you buy direct from them, as opposed to 
$5-$6 if you buy  through a mail-order house.  I do not believe Spectrum 
Holobyte should be rewarded for  such an opportunistic, exploitative, and 
mediocre product.  It is representative of a policy which regards the Mac--
like the Amiga--as a diminuitive PC, as if the loyal Falcon users should 
be happy for the crumbs which get tossed our way (a sentiment which has been
echoed by some USERS, if you can believe that).  I suggest we settle 
for nothing less than Falcon 3.0 on the Mac.

And if you do follow this advice, and buy it from another source, be sure
to drop a post card to Spectrum Holobyte explaining why you're doing it.



Disclaimer: I have no association with Spectrum Holobyte, except as
a dissatisfied customer. :-)






---
Robert Dorsett
rdd@cactus.org
...cs.utexas.edu!cactus.org!rdd

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games