Falcon 4.0 Revisited: Well worth it

In early 1999, while serving as the faculty editor of a school newspaper, I had the chance to review Falcon 4.0. I was excited about it then, but I could tell this game was a beast. It crashed a lot, it needed a mega-system to run, and it was hard to master.

But, it was still fun. I played Falcon 4.0 on and off ‘till December ’99. At that time, my frustrations got the best of me and I took it back to Electronics Boutique for a trade-in.

Then, about a month ago (June 2001), I felt a longing to try it again. I had heard that great strides had been made to make Falcon more stable and to make campaign play more plausible. Luckily enough, just when I wanted to get it, I found a used copy at, yep, Electronics Boutique.

The great thing about the version I got is that it came with the 1.08 patch, crucial for stability. The one drawback is that the manual only included excerpts from the original, 600+ page behemoth. One can access the full manual in .pdf form on the CD-ROM, but it would have been nice to have the full book (what I have is still big, just not complete). One tip: my box was quite thin, so I suspect the thicker Falcon 4.0 boxes include the full manual.

I installed it, and the first thing I did was go to the training missions to refamiliarize myself with the controls. If Falcon 4.0 does only one thing right, it’s the training missions (and believe me, it’s NOT the only thing the game does right).

With other flight simulators, you might get 10 training missions. With Falcon, you get about 30 (I can’t quite remember, as I’m writing this at work, and the game is at home). Every system is covered in detail. Landing alone is covered three times, once under normal conditions, once by instrument, and one with a flame-out. Air-to-air radar, air-to-ground radar, mid-air refueling, basic navigation, offensive flight maneuvers, missile evasion, on and on. Once you finish all the training missions, you feel very confident in flying successfully.

Each training mission is described in minute detail in the manual. For example, dropping laser-guided bombs. You read about the systems involved, and how to drop the bombs. Then, you are given step-by-step instructions on what to do within the training mission. While I’m on the subject, let me say here that Falcon 4.0 has a really cool “freeze” mode, which pauses all the action, but still lets you manipulate the jet’s controls, like locking up the ground target.

While Falcon is a hard-core flight sim, players have a lot of options to choose from in the area of realism. I personally don’t like to have the radar at full realism, so I have avionics set at “simplified” or something like that. Falcon can be a very challenging game, but the options are there to make it much easier.

Falcon’s graphics still look great after 2 ½ years. The aircraft are highly detailed and weapons effects are superb without being too flashy or exaggerated. The terrain may look a little funny, but look out the window next time you’re on a plane at 33,000 feet. It’s all done very, very well.

Of course, this comes with a price. I play the game on a Gateway PIII 500, with 256 RAM and a Voodoo 3 3000. I actually just upgraded to the 256 RAM (from 128) and the upgrade has helped. Now all I need is to get a GeForce 2 or 3 and the game will really rock. Graphics settings can of course be adjusted. With most settings maxed, I was getting 30-40 frames a second.

The game is set in Korea, The heart of Falcon 4.0 is the dynamic campaign mode. Three separate campaign scenarios are offered. One favors the allies, one is a stalemate, and one favors the North Koreans. When a player starts a campaign, he can select which airbase to fly from. Each airbase and/or squadron will have a specialty, such as air-to-ground (my favorite). Now, thanks to post-release user add-ons, players can fly any plane in the game, so choosing a squadron of A-10s or F-4s is possible, too.

Falcon 4.0 is a groundbreaking, highly ambitious game, and this is never more evident than in campaign mode. I can’t think of a flight simulator that has so successfully created the feeling of being involved in a full-blown war. Sure, you’re just one pilot in this thing, but when you can see tanks exchanging fire on the ground below you, and as you hear the radio chatter of different flights, and see the countless sorties your side is undertaking, you can hardly believe it!

As the campaign starts, missions are randomly generated based on what is happening in the campaign world. You have some control over the missions, as you can specify which types of missions to set as priorities, and which areas of theater have priority. Don’t let the computer send you on a 300 mile deep strike when you can specify the forward edge of the battle area as the priority! If “your” ground troops are getting the snot kicked out of them north of Seoul, set that area as the priority, and set artillery and armored units as priority targets.

Mission types include CAP or BARCAP, Combat Air Support (helping out the ground pounders), SEAD, Offensive Counter Air, Interdiction (search and destroy), BAI, even Recon. Before each mission, you can arm your jet (and your wingman/flight as applicable) like you want. Here’s a little secret. If you need to blow up some enemy bridges to keep them from advancing, you can hi-jack a BARCAP mission. Just set the “time on station” to zero minutes. This guarantees the mission is a success. Then, load up with Mk-80 or GBU-24 bombs, and off you go.

From what I understand, the human player must fly one mission every game-hour. The only way to be successful in the campaign is to fly successful missions. In other words, if you’re not completing missions as briefed, the ground troops and other pilots will perform poorly as well.

The game also features instant action and dog-fight modes. And, one really awesome feature, is the ability to create your own missions. While that’s nothing special with today’s games, the really cool thing with Falcon is that you can create missions and link them together as a mini-campaign! How cool is that? Heck, it wouldn’t even have to be a mini-campaign, but creating something that takes more than 24 hours to resolve in the game could take 24 days.

I could go on and on about Falcon 4.0, but time is short. Falcon 4.0 has a rabid following, and a lot of these virtual aces have programmed some great additions to the game. I’m terribly happy I went back to Falcon 4.0 and encourage all of you to try it.