Review: Falcon 4.0

By: Kirk Hiner

Genre: Flight Sim

Format: CD

Developer: Microprose, Hasbro Interactive, Westlake Interactive

Publisher: MacSoft

Minimum Requirements: 200 MHz 603e processor, System 7.5.3, 32MB RAM, 175MB hard disk space, 800x600 color monitor supporting

thousands of colors, 4x CD-ROM, 256K L2 cache, joystick

Network Feature: Yes

3Dfx Support: RAVE and 3Dfx/glide

Retail Price: $47.99

Availability: Out now

Airman First Class Kirk Hiner reporting for duty, sir.

The reason that's not in quotes is because I never really said it. Despite being in Air Force ROTC for all of one year at Bowling Green State University (although I was attending Ohio Northern University at the time), I never got to report to duty. What I did get to do was write a report on the F-20 Tigershark and march around a lot. I think I also participated in an Air Force car wash one time.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not knocking the USAF. On the contrary, I often regret leaving the program. But I knew even then that I could better serve my country by writing Macintosh game reviews than by ripping the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle through enemy skies at 1,200 mph, my twin Pratt & Whitney F100-100 afterburning turbofans pounding out 23,930 pounds of thrust as one of my AIM-7Fs finds its target. Also, I knew I wouldn't be able to listen to Queen on my walkman like Doug Masters in "Iron Eagle," and I do like to listen to that Queen band.

That's partly why I was so looking forward to MacSoft's Falcon 4.0. Ten years after leaving ROTC, I would finally get to see--to a minute extent--what it would've been like to fly the F-16 Falcon. And after playing this game, I've come to the following conclusion...

The country should be happy I got out when I did.

I knew I was in trouble when I first pulled the instruction book out of the box. People, this thing is thicker than most text books I had in any of my college classes, let alone the ROTC books. If you have to learn this much to fly a computer simulation, I'd hate to see what you have to know to fly the real thing. Even the quick reference guide takes a good ten minutes just to glance at!

But people like this, I know. Flight sim enthusiasts want their games to be as realistic as possible, and that's what they get in Falcon 4.0. I could go into some detail, but what's the point? You either know when to use Boresight ACM submode or you don't. Let's get to the gameplay.

Actually, let's wait. First, there's the requirements. Those listed above are the bare minimum, and make for some pretty pokey piloting. However, you don't necessarily need a top-of-the-line Mac to enjoy some jam with your toasted MiGs. My 604e/200 handled the game just fine with a Voodoo2 card. The key ingredient there being, of course, the 3Dfx card. To really appreciate this game, you simply have to have one. And trust me, it's gorgeous. I'm not sure which effect I liked the most, watching my missiles seek out their targets, seeing the enemy plane explode, or glancing through the reflection on my canopy as its pilot ejected to safety...or imprisonment, depending on where he landed.

All of your engagements in Falcon 4.0 (whether they be single engagements or part of a campaign) take place over the Korean Peninsula. The campaigns are what you really want to fly, as this is where the meat of the game is. The scenarios take place in real time, so the outcome of one mission affects where the enemy will be in the next. But it'll take you a while to get to this point, I'd expect. Aside from a lot of material to read, you've also got a lot of training to do. Luckily Falcon 4.0 features a "instant action" option in which you're already in the midst of battle. A never ending onslaught of enemies attack you, but you can choose to be invincible until you get used to the stick and learn how to control your weapons system.

Your next step is to get through the thirty-one training missions that follow the beginning chapters of the flight handbook. Perhaps then you'll be ready to take to the skies over Korea. There are many options for doing so, as you get to choose your sorties from a list generated by what's going on around you. Once you know who you want to kill, you take to the air and, if you're anything like me, promptly get shot right back down.

I was somewhat upset about this at first, until I saw some other reviews of Falcon 4.0. It seems that I'm not the only one who has had trouble with cockpit interface of this game. I was forced to switch from joystick to keyboard to mouse so many times that I lost fifteen pounds from the exercise. Falcon 4.0 would be much better to play with two people, one to control the stick and the other to man weapons and nav controls.

Then come the bugs. And oh boy, are there bugs. Falcon 4.0 shipped with more bugs than a Pixar movie; for a while, I thought I was back playing a Sierra game from 1995. I've read reports of instruments not working properly (not that I'd know if they did or didn't), but many are more glaring even then that. The sound for many functions is either horrible (my gun sounded more like...well, I'll say it just seemed to be coming from the wrong end of the plane) or simply not there (many of the commands I was supposed to hear, according to the manual, never came). When I called MacSoft to learn how to fix these problems, I was told to reinstall QuickTime 2 and use it.

No, I'm serious...stop laughing. QuickTime 2. Heck, why don't I just install the game on my mom's LCII and play it there while I'm at it.

To be fair, many of these bugs are the result of porting the game over from the PC side. In fact, MGL has reported that many of the PC bugs were fixed by Westlake in the Mac port, so we're still doing better than them. However, far too many got through to make this game very enjoyable. That combined with the extreme difficulty in learning to fly the plane, let alone become any good at it, seriously damage what could've been an amazing game.

So if you're big into flight sims, Falcon 4.0 should keep you busy for longer than your boss/spouse/children would like, I'm sure. It's gorgeous to look at, and the action is certainly intense (of course, it's during these intense moments when the frame rates drop, but it's too late to get into that now). If you're just looking for an afternoon of light entertainment, however, I think you'll want to pass this one up and give "Fly!" a try instead. After all it's much easier to learn to fly a plane when you don't have an unseen enemy trying to kill you...but I've found that's pretty much true of everything in life. Haven't you?

Raised on Intellivision and "Tron," Kirk Hiner has been an avid gamer ever since he was tall enough to look through the viewfinder on the Battlezone upright. Although he makes a living using a PC (not by choice) to design websites for Dynamics Online, Inc., Kirk never strays from his 9600/200 or 3400c for computer gaming. When he's not playing the latest Logicware release, he can either be found working on his next "never to be published" novel, rereading anything by Kurt Vonnegut or watching RAW is WAR.

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December 02, 2008