home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Falcon 030 Power 2
/
F030_POWER2.iso
/
ST_STE
/
MAGS
/
MAGGIEBO.ARJ
/
best1_11
/
DATA
/
F29.DOC
/
F29.DOC
Wrap
Text File
|
1995-12-03
|
10KB
|
191 lines
066010303050000132002006006010000
11
2#1
F0110000001
9[....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆...]0110
Ç
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS 2 INDEPENDANT REVIEWS OF THE GAME
F29 Retaliator - A review
---------------------------
WARNING!!
This is not quite a conventional magazine-
type review giving any frilly bits such as percentage ratings,
long-term thrill-rated pictorial curves (pardon??) flow-charts,
bar-graphs and especially not pictures of assorted prats (Yes, You
people responsible for ZZAP 64/Amiga magazine!!) whose facial
contortions divulge their keenness, or not, for a particular game.
(By the way if I come across a bad `un, I have been told I look as
"pleased" as if the cat drops a large smelly number on the kitchen
floor overnight for me to clean up in the morning...)
Anyway, enuff of this, on to the subject in hand.. THE SCENE,,a
backstreet in Northampton, the nation`s favourite ONE HORSE TOWN.
THE DATE, about mid-June, I-don`t-know what-date-it-was-a-
Thursday-don`t-hassle-me-with-numbers-man. THE PEOPLE,,myself,
fellow `reviewers Stuart B. (How much to keep your name out of
here???) and John B. ALSO one ST and John`s copy of F29
Retaliator, and this is what roughly happened..
Stuart had the first go, and took off from the USAF test range in
Arizona (harmless) where the only person he could hurt was
himself. In flight-Sim terms, Stuart and I are the kind of people
who fracture a leg whilst cutting out folded-paper patterns. First
Stu had to negotiate the start-up screen ENROLMENT into the USAF
which is peasy, no horrid waiting six months to get near a plane
and getting up at five in the morning whilst a nasty man wearing a
`Smokey the bear` type hat yells at you business, instead a
computer I.D picture of an idealised fighter-pilot, Rugged and
prematurely balding (he works long hours, and has wife, kids, and
mortgage repayments to think of.) glowers back at you from the
screen.
This done the actual plane starts up very much like falcon (You
will hear more in this vein guys and gals...) takes off ok and off
you go, you have a number off missions to do in all the scenarios,
but in the USAF range, the targets are all dummies, and the `Migs`
on this occasion are non-lethal drones. Stu opted for a bit of
train-busting and set off to singlehandedly cancel the entire
Network Southeast services for the day. Down came the F22 (for
that was what we chose, The supposed Advanced tactical Fighter to
replace the good ol` F15`s, F16`s etc) found a very nicely drawn
railway line with embankments and cuttings and spotted a train
plodding along... Well what do you do, yes chuck a maverick or
two!! Some reasonably priced explosions later the train grinds to
a halt in a heap of computer-simulated twisted metal, the problems
only really start when Stu goes in for a closer look as he wishes
to strafe any RAILWAY CHILDREN in the vicinity, he then spots
Çsomeone he met in 1987 in the third (undamaged) carriage down the
train, tries to do a three-point turn to strafe them, and loses
the `missing the ground for as long as possible` aspect of the
mission.
Some of the above may not be 100% accurate, but it is the best way
to explain otherwise irrational and stupid conduct....
John has a go now, he submits to the same prematurely balding
registration and enrolment procedure, but this time we goto the
USAF Solomons Isles base for the South Pacific campaign (I`m gonna
wash that MIG right out of my hair..). John is actually quite good
at this sort of thing, having played Falcon, F16, Bomber etc, and
he rates F16 for realism, and his mission is to deal with three
MIG29`s. For John this is just a simple matter of picking them up
on his long-range radar and banging-off several AMRAAM`s in their
direction. After not too much trouble, all three expire and the
mission is completed. Coming back into land there are a number of
points to note, graphically speaking. There are real live clouds,
or solid vector representations, which cast a shadow, and move
about, the cockpit and Head-Up displays are very pretty indeed, I
liked the Multi-mode rader and Moving-Map displays, these are
superior to Falcon, A slight minus is the way in which some large
vector drawn objects don`t quite appear quickly enough. To
illustrate, we came in to land, on the map display was the island,
whilst out of the window was a very long aircraft carrier, aha
here comes the island. I always thought it would be `Island first,
runway later` but this is not the case.
After that it went rapidly downhill from there, We got shot down
by a shipboard SAM system, went back to Arizona where I discovered
how easy it was to do High-G turns and black-out (and also the
very useful ability to push the stick back where it came from and
regain control WHILST STILL BLACKED OUT!!!) I also discovered if
you have an autofire capable joystick and unlimited munitions, how
well your home airfield explodes (from end to end and very
impressive it is too..) At least I THINK it was my home base as I
crashed to avoid finding out.....
Other Scenarios include the Middle East (You defend a country
which is NOT Israel against NOT QUITE Syria and other ARABITES).
For the hardened military air-crash freak there is a European WW3
scenario. (Just how does that work these days?? You are on a
mission to bomb open parts of the Berlin Wall at the request of
the E.German (OOoops we`re out of a job guys) govt???!!!???)
THE SERIOUS SUMMING UP BIT....
Generally and after a very long wait (This was anticipated and
`reviewed` for Xmas `89) I am a bit disappointed in what I saw.
There are no serious flaws inherent in the game structure or any
problems with the graphics, and the non-vector parts of the
graphics are of a very high standard. The fundamental problem is
that F29 is no great advance over Falcon in my view, and this
Çproblem has been brought into sharp relief by the very long delay
for this product, and more especially by the massive attendant
hype by Ocean which has the result of leaving a less than 100%
product in the lurch. Having said that, if you are an avid
collector of military flight-sims or otherwise interested, F29 is
very reasonable indeed and can be recommended. I am personally
waiting for Microprose and the ST version of F19 Stealth Fighter
for the next major advances programming and content-wise on the
ST for this format.
(c) Chris Holland 22/06/90 Thanks to JOHN BAMPKIN for being there,
and loaning his copy of the game, Thanks to STUART BRAY for
donating his house and attendant electrical supply, ST and
Television, coffee and sticky coconut cake for what was a major
laugh-riot of an evening..Also thanks for the raw material for
this "review" and I hope I can come back safely after you have
read this little lot!!!!!!
****************************************************************
* *
* *
* F-29 RETALIATOR *
* *
* By Paul Brennan *
* *
* *
****************************************************************
This flight simulator will surely knock Falcon from the number
one flight sim spot, as the graphics and playability of F-29 is
unbeatable. While loading, you are presented with a number of
excellent pictures. After having logged yourself into the Air
Force computer,you are asked to choose where you would like to
fly. Here you can choose the American desert, the Pacific
Ocean, the Middle East or Europe. You are then presented with a
menu, which lets you load a previous pilot's log from disk, or
log in again, after this menu you are presented with another
menu, which lets you chose the mission you require, ammunition,
plane and starting base. After you have accepting the mission
you are again presented with some more excellent pictures, and
then you are placed in the cockpit of your chosen aircraft.
Build up your revs, let the brakes go and pull back on the
joystick, and you must not forget to retract the undercarriage if
you wish to land the aircraft again!!!
Missions include hitting canvas targets on the test range in the
American desert, engaging and destroying enemy MiGs, destroying
Çencroaching amphibious tanks, destroying radar tracking stations
and industrial works, destroying enemy tanks, airfields, aircraft
carriers, bridges, and the big one is to provide air support to
your aircraft carrier, which is to meet with an enemy carrier.
If you complete a number of missions, you are promoted, given a
medal and a whole set of new mission to complete, but beware,
when your rank increases, so does the skill of the enemy!! All
in all there are a massive 95 missions to choose from, but you
will have to fly very well to qualify for some of the harder
mission.
This flight simulator is the best around at the moment and the
only downfall of the game is that it is a little hard, but the
mission can be completed, and if I can complete them, then anyone
can!!
Enjoy this game, I did.
THE BEST FLIGHT SIMULATOR IN YEARS (SAMMY JOE)