Falcon4 - a few million worth of plane for $19.95

**original article written Feb3, 2000**

I was actually very eager to get this game when it first came out, but balked a bit at the memories of Falcon3 being buggy. As it becomes more the norm by software companies to release a beta product to the shelves and patch it to a final version later, I decided to wait a while and troll the fan sites and newsgroups just waiting to strike like a HARM on a SAM site.

I finally broke down when I saw the game for sale unboxed, but with mahual for a paltry $19 -- buggy or no, it was a good buy that I couldn't pass up.

After installing the game and waiting what seemed like forever for the game loading graphic to dissappear and put me into an instant action furball, all I can say is -- wow! *Very* good graphics for a military sim (Rivals DID's EFX2000v2), Outstanding physics and glorious weapon effects (drop a cluster on a tank farm, and the secondaries will blossom!). Subtle things with the physics engine take a little longer to notice and appreciate like drag and weight effects of weapons stores are realistically modeled (far as I can tell, anyway), and sometimes wicked crosswinds upon landing (what tower flunkie gave me *that* approach?!??) and ground effect making the novice balloon at flare-out...

Dissappointing to me though is the part of the game that gets the most praise--the dynamic campaign engine. I was aware of the system requirements to run the campaign, but I was very shocked to find that even my bleeding-edge, liquid-cooled, dual processor, overclocked behemoth of a gaming machine floundered in campaign mode. I am an avid sim gamer and rarely see less than 60fps in most sims at 1024x768 even with all effects set to max, but the campaign mode frequently brought my machine to a crawl--always when I'm trying to evade 2 or 3 "telephone pole SAM's or some other equally critical moment in the sortee.

Thankfully, this sim it quite enjoyable in the training missions, downloadable missions and instant action type missions that I've gotten alot of playability out of the title. It's probably just as well that I've shelved the campaign mode; admitedly, I'm not that effective as a Falcon driver yet to positively impact a campaign.... I'm waiting for the ultimate patch, or the ultimate upgrade to run the campaign mode at the moment. Multiplayer coop is absolutely amazing--provided you don't run a campaign.

Bottom line: If you even casually fly military sims, get Falcon4. Even though the campaign mode will be unaccessable to most, the rest of the sim has enough merits to warrant purchase. The *only* thing keeping this title back is the incredible system requirements. If you don't have this title yet and are reading these opinions to decide, do yourself a favor and check the fan sites on the web--there's alot of good information and advice on how to get the game to run at it's best.

System specs;
celeronP][466 oc'd to 700Mhz
256Mb PC133 RAM
#9 128 series1 w/32Mb (2d)
Quantum3d ObsidianX24 (3d)
4x9.2Gb Seagate Barracudda UW SCSI2
Win2000Professional