Format PC CD-ROM

Flying Nightmares 2 represents an aggressive step forward in flight simulation entertainment, seamlessly merging traditional simulation techniques, cutting edge graphics and real-time multi-player strategy facets into an innovative and compelling title.  The game will combine two of the most popular gaming genres with ease to provide a whole new experience, that will offer simulation fans everything they look for in a flight sim and more, and will also entice strategy enthusiasts into the flight arena.

Features

Superior Graphics 
The visual detail of Flying Nightmares 2 surpasses that of all other simulations.  The game utilises an amazing 16-bit (65,000 colour) high-resolution graphics engine that takes advantage of all the latest hardware and technology, including the latest processors and Intel’s MMX series.  However, maximum emphasis has also been placed on developing adjustable graphics details that will allow a whole range of machines to run the game smoothly.

Realism
Flying Nightmares 2 is being developed with the assistance of several real-world Harrier pilots, as well as Scott Warren, former Chief Flight Test Engineer for the USMC’s Harrier 2+ project.  The Producer of the project, Bryan Walker is also a former attack helicopter pilot and Gulf War veteran.  The insights and technical expertise these individuals provide allows FN2 to take realism to the next level.

Ease of Play
FN2 is designed to allow even the most novice player to enjoy himself instantly, but still provide a challenging experience for months.  Easy to adjust difficulty levels mean that there can be cutting edge realism for those who want it, and instantaneous action packed play for those who don’t.

Windows 95
By utilising Win 95 as the game environment, Flying Nightmares 2 will be a much easier game to install, configure and run, than a DOS based version.  This will also make for less complicated network play.  Direct3D is supported.

Multiplayer Support
Supporting up to 16 players via a local-area network, Flying Nightmares 2 allows unprecedented levels of communication and co-ordination between players.

Real-time Strategy
Commandant, FN2’s real-time single and multiplayer strategic game feature is an industry first.  Merging the flight simulation and strategic genres with an intuitive and easy-to-use interface, Commandant greatly increases the level of immersion and challenge for players, while adding an entirely new dimension to the flight sim genre.

Commandant’s primary goal is to combine a dynamic strategic experience with the ability for players to actually see and fight the battle while flying Harrier Jets or Cobra helicopters.  The strategic battlefield in Commandant is designed around a series of realistic units and capabilities, but deliberately simplified in order to allow players to focus on the action, as opposed to the huge level of administrative and logistical issues real military commanders endure.

More Ways To Have More Fun
For further information please contact Lidia Stojanovic or Steve Starvis at Eidos Interactive on 0181 636 3000.

Bryan Walker Eidos Interactive Biography

When Bryan Walker, the designer and producer of Eidos Interactive's new flight simulation game "Flying Nightmares 2," says he wants to "create an authentic combat experience," he knows where to look -- in his own past.  The former AH-64 Apache attack helicopter pilot flew actual military missions during the Gulf War and experienced the exhilaration and horror of aerial combat first-hand. 

If some journalists liked to call Desert Shield a video game war, they did so from the safety of the ground, not skimming ten feet over the Euphrates River where Walker steered his helicopter one night through a soup of fog and squashed insects.  Walker, and his co-pilot Tony Wallace, were hunting for Iraqi ground munitions while flying low enough
to evade enemy radar detection.   Besides dodging powerlines, Wallace had a dangerously low fuel gauge to contend with.  To make matters worse,  he knew that the body armor that protected him from ground fire
would sink him like a stone if the chopper struck the marshy waters below.
    
What could have been a nightmare turned into the realization of a dream.  "I always wanted to blow up a helicopter," said Walker who speaks quietly and with military poise.  "We though it was an ambush but went in anyway and opened fire on some Iraqi aerial gunships."  Mission accomplished though the return flight turned dicey when Walker's Apache, low on fuel, was forced to ground land alongside a friendly copter that had transmission fuel problems. Digging foxholes for a sleepless night,
Walker and his friends saw the sky light up in massive explosions before the good news at dawn that the war was over.
    
Bryan Walker compares the Apache to a Harley since both ride low to the ground and are best not messed with. He wanted to fly Apaches every
since studying aerospace at University of Tennessee and joined the army
since its merit-based aircraft selection would get him a crack at
piloting the helicopter that tangos with enemy tanks.    

After completing basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky he advanced to Ft. Rucker in Alabama for flight training at the Apache equivalent of San Diego's "Top Gun" school.  In 1990, he was deployed to Frankfurt, Germany and in 1991 found himself in the Persian Gulf.

After the war, he returned to Frankfurt and was intrigued to read about a computer game that supposedly simulated the Apache piloting experience.  A computer gamer himself, Walker reviewed the game for Computer Gaming World magazine and soon became a frequent flight sim critic.

In 1993, he turned down a six-year Army promotion that would have had Walker "flying a desk," and took a job at Domark.  When the company merged with Eidos Interactive, Walker became the military flight sim producer and designer.

While several companies bring in military "consultants"  to rubber stamp game design, Bryan Walker is the only full-time flight simulation game producer and designer with actual combat aviation experience.  His new mission?  To bring gamers more realistic military scenarios while
increasing their understanding about the amount of team work needed to survive and excel in battle.

"I've found most flight simulation games to be grossly disappointing," explains Walker.  "On one hand, they're sterilized and unoriginal with no immersive capability; on the other, they're boring and dehumanizing and don't teach the public to respect either our military or the other side."
     
"The biggest problem with flight sims is it's always 'you against the world,' and that isn't real," says Walker who blames this fantasy approach on "the Tom Clancy effect."  With both "Flying Nightmares," and the new "Flying Nightmares 2," Walker provides regimented missions where
the player works closely with his or her team and honors believable rules of engagement.  

In "Flying Nightmares 2," players will fly both AV-8B Harrier jets and AH-1W Cobra attack helicopters from virtual cockpits.  The game is the first sim to offer multi-player options for up to 16 players with cross platform capabilities on PC and Mac. 
    
"Flying Nightmares 2" sports another first a two games in one component. The title features both a single player flight sim, where the gamer must save Miami from a nuclear attack from Cuban terrorists, and "FN2 Commandant" a multi-player flight sim and real-time strategy game
that includes ground troop movements, varying terrain and weather conditions and a 63,000-square kilometer map. 
    
To bring added realism, the flight sim will also include real-life voice orders recorded from Capt. Steve "Shoes" Dunkin who was taped during actual aerial exercises in Spain.

"Flying Nightmares 2"  is a truly immersive game that merges real-time strategy with the flight sim genre; more importantly, for those who want a flight game that's real, it will be real," promises Walker.
    
Eidos Interactive develops and publishes interactive entertainment products for the PC, Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Macintosh and Internet.  Eidos Interactive is part of Eidos plc which includes Eidos Technologies, a software-based video compression and decompression company, Glassworks, a state-of-the-art post-production facility specializing in digital effects and video editing for the television and advertising industries, and an independent record label called Naked Records.