Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Monday, 21 Dec 1992 10:35:09 CST
From: ALAN C. FUSCO, Ph.D. <U38339@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games
Subject: F15 1st Impressions

Here are my 1st impressions of F15-III as they pertain to Falcon3. This
is after playing about 10 hrs.

Negatives
  -No wingmen
  -No management of campaign or squads
  -No Red Flag for practice/training/mission generation
  -No Mission Builder
  -No REAL campaign mode - The campaign mode in the game is just a
  series of missions strung together. You get no  "feel" for what is
  happening as in Falcon 3. Even GS2000 had a somewhat better campaign
  feature. At least you were managing your team.
  -No Teamwork. It is YOU against the world.
  -No ability to set your own waypoints.
  -Typical MPS kill primary/kill secondary missions.
  -No inflight refueling. Well there is but you don't actually take part
  in it. Strike Aces (a poor game) was the only IBM flight simulator
  that had inflight refueling. It was almost worth the price of the
  game.
  -No intelligent autopilots. You can pilot or play back-seat weapons
  officer (Wizzo) but neither is handled for you. In other words- you
  have to do everything. You can not set your Wizzo to automatic or play
  Wizzo and set the pilot to an INTELLIGENT autopilot. Autopilot just
  maintains altitude and heading.
Positives
  -F15 has the most detailed cockpits and instrumentation of ANY sim.
  The cockpit is a very accurate representation of the actual F15
  cockpit (based on photos, I have never flown one).
  -FANTASTIC implimentation of the AN/APG-70 radar and TEWS in
  authentic mode.
  -Graphics are VERY good, although I don't know whether I prefer the
  smoother look of F3 or the more boxy, pixel look of F15. Both are
  good, but it is hard to compare them.
  -The flight equations in authentic mode appear to be good (again I
  have never flown an F15). Some have commented on the sluggish nature
  of plane-- this is accurate for a FULLY loaded F15. The flight
  equations model drag and weight, probably better than F3. As you drop
  ordinance (or fly with a clean plane), handling improves.
Other Comments
  -The F15/E is modeled. This is primarily a ground strike optimized
  aircraft. Therefore F15 focuses on ground strikes. This is fine with
  me, because I prefer ground strike missions to dogfighting. I haven't
  done enough dogfighting in F15 to comment on the AI, but ground
  strikes in realistic mode are challenging.
  -The frame rate on my 386DX/40 is fine. Many people are commenting on
  how slow the rate is, but I haven't found it to be a problem. The rate
  on F3 is better, but F15 is more than adequate IMHO.
  -I haven't found any bugs yet, other than in the install procedure.
  Install wouldn't recognize disk #3 until I put in #4 and back again to
  #3. Disk #4 resulted in an install failure (couldn't read the disk).
  The disk checked out fine with Central Points DiskFix. So, I cleared
  off several more megs of hard disk space, made a copy of disk #4,
  rebooted my machine and tried again with the new disk #4. It worked!
  -Do NOT use the QEMM loadhi /link command. F15 will fail.
  -F15 works fine with QEMM in ST mode and with SuperStor Pro.

This game will not replace F3 for any type of campaign and squad
management experience. The the ground attack missions and the accurate
modeling of the F15 avionics makes this game a keeper. MPS should have
seen what was great with F3 and built that into F15. They didn't. Right
now SH doesn't have a thing to worry about. F3 and F15 are two different
beasts. Both will stay on my HD for a long time, but I suspect that F15
will lose its play value over time.

More comments as I play more...

Alan
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games