Combat Flight Sims: The Good, the Bad, and the FUGLY
by Blacktail

- Chapter 1 -

Inspired by Kazukiferret's game reviews, I've decided to review some of the flight simulators I've played on various game systems over the years. Some of these are good, some are bad, and some are so incredibly awful that they can only be described as fugly (short-hand for "f***ing ugly").
In each chapter, I'll cover three of them, usually from a variety of different game systems and eras.


The Good:
F-22 Interceptor --- Electronic Arts --- SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive (1991)
"ATOLL."

This is possibly the best console flight sim of the early 1990s. It was originally made for PC, using the "Lerner Research Engine" (Ned Lerner himself was also one of the game's designers).This was only the second-ever console flight sim I ever played, shortly after Air Diver (which you'll see a review of later). It's an amazingly-detailed and realistic game, considering that it was stuffed into a 16-bit cartridge with only 8Mb of memory.
At the time this game was made, the F-22 wasn't actually a well-known aircraft --- I once asked a guide at the Pima Air Museum about it, and he'd never heard of it!

The story of the game is..... well, there isn't any. The player takes the role of a newly-assigned F-22 pilot in the USAF, and has 5 different campaigns to choose from. These campaigns are Training, the Persian Gulf (shockingly, this game was released BEFORE Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm!), North Korea, Russia, and the Aces Challenge. A nice touch is that the beginning of each of these campaigns (except the Aces Challenge) introduces the player to three of the F-22's weapons and/or ECM systems.
The background story behind Iraq is that Saddam Hussein is escallating the Tanker War (remember that conflict?), and the USAF is called-in to stop them. North Korea and Russia are the stereotypical, pre-fab, cut-and-paste, Cold War era dollar-thriller scenarios; that those scheming North Koreans have finally struck when the time was right, and that a Russian general whose subordinates obey without question has gone insane. Yeah, REAL original...
The Aces Challenge is something completely different. Here, the player is pitted against the top pilots from the Iraqi Air Force, the North Korean Air Force, and the US Air Force --- no, I kid you not, and the US pilot flies an F-22(!!!) as well. The player is tasked with combating increasingly larger formations of increasingly more advanced aircraft, before finally taking-on all 4 aces at once. And yes, that IS every bit as scary as it sounds.

The graphics, for the era, are simply astonishing. Not only is the ground very detailed and loaded with landmarks, but the aircraft are made-up of *3D polygons* --- and remember, this is a SEGA Genesis game from the 1991, not an SNES game with the Super-FX from 1995! They aren't very detailed, but there's no mistaking a Mig-23 when you're looking at it. The frame rate is smooth and uninterrupted by anything that happens in the game, but slow at only about 5fps.

The sound is one of the best aspects of the game, because F-22 Interceptor includes legible digitized speech (something which even some of *today's* games seem to lack...), and the explosions, missile launches, and collision sounds. The one sound that you'll remember most of all is the sound of your own aircraft blowing up, or crashing into the ground; it's pretty fierce. The only sounds that aren't all that good are the SFX for the F-22's engines (which is not heard AT ALL, if you have music enabled), and the Chaff/Flares (you hear a faint "swish") but they aren't all that bad either.
The game is also notable for it's lucid digitized speech, though the female voice is a bit harsh.
The music is of good quality, but there's only two tracks in the WHOLE GAME. One is played all the time while you're flying the F-22, the other is played at all other times --- so the music get's VERY annoying, very quickly. Overall, the music is typical fare for an early 1990's flight sim; repetitive, boring, unimaginative, and repetitive some more. Fortunately, you can turn off the in-game music track, and replace it with more engine SFX (with BGM on, the only engine sound you get to hear are the afterburners).

My opinion of the weaponry is mixed. To start off, the depiction of the F-22's M61A2 Vulcan autocannon is TERRIBLE --- it's rate of fire is too slow, it doesn't sound anything like an autocannon, and the tracer animation shows TWO lines of tracers! It still gets the job done, but it looks, sounds, and feels cheap.
The missiles are a bit more believable, but some are pretty weird. For example, the icons representing the AIM-120 AMRAAM, AGM-65 Maverick, and BGM-71 TOW don't look anything like the real missiles. And yes, I said *BGM-71 TOW* (what's a 50lb, subsonic ATGM with wire guidance, and a 3-mile range doing on an F-22?!); amusingly, the game depicts the TOW as being faster, longer-ranged, and more powerful than the Maverick (which is a Contrary-to-Fact Hypothesis). Also very weird is that one AIM-7E Sparrow can be fired at a time (Why? The game never elaborates), and that it's depicted as having a longer range than the AIM-120 AMRAAM (in fact, the latter has TWICE the range of the former).
On the other hand, the depictions of the AIM-9M Sidewinder, AIM-120 AMRAAM, and AGM-56 Maverick are spot-on. The AMRAAM is fire-and-forget and long-ranged, the Maverick is camera-guided, and with the exception of range and firepower, the Sidewinder hugely outperforms the AMRAAM (which is consistent with the Pk ratios of IR-Homing AAMs, versus Radar-Homing BVR AAMs).
In addition to the TOW and Maverick, the game also features HVR (Hyper-Velocity Rocket) pods, which can be used to shower static ground targets with a multitude of high-explosive warheads (or catch an enemy pilot off guard with a VERY nasty surprise!).
Most interestingly of all, however, is that F-22 Interceptor features a more imaginative mix of ECMs than you usually see in a console flight sim. The F-22 has the obligatory Chaff & Flares, but a nice extra touch rarely seen in ANY flight sims is that you can fire them manually; this is very useful for when you have to speed past a SAM site or a patrol of enemy fighters. Furthermore, the game also gives the player an ASPJ (Airborne Self-Protection Jammer) to play with, which will temporarily mess-up the enemy's tracking and missile guidance when used; another feature lacking in most contemporary flight sims (unless you count some PC sims). Most unique of all, a missile-like Decoy (it looks a bit like a miniature Tomahawk cruise missile) is featured in F-22 Interceptor, which mimics the F-22's flight profile, RCS, and EM signature; fire one of these past a SAM site you have to take out, and at least *some* of the launchers will be fooled!

The actual gameplay isn't terribly sophisticated, but considering that EA had 16 bits, a control pad, and only 4 buttons to work with, they didn't do too bad. Besides pausing the game with the Start button and steering the F-22 with the Control Pad, the A, B, and C buttons control the afterburner, a selected weapon, and the gun, respectively. Weapons are selected by simply pausing the game, and moving the cursor over it.
The flight physics are very austere as well, but real air combat maneuvers are doable, and stalls are a constant menace in fast-turning dogfights. Sun glare is a factor as well, and so are black-outs and red-outs. These drawbacks are all very important for gameplay, because many flight sims lack such detail and realism (even the games in the Ace Combat series lack sun glare, black-out, and red-out effects).
There are also numerous take-offs and landings, and even the occasional air-to-air refueling. In fact, if you start running low on fuel during the campaigns, you can call-in a KC-135 Tanker to refuel your aircraft in between shootouts.
One of the very best features, however, is a "Mission Editor" feature, where you can create your own battles against up to 10 different opponents on the ground or in the air!
Lastly, the game has numerous cheats and "dip switch" effects, a menu of which is accessible anytime during gameplay by simply holding-down A+B+C, and pushing Start.

If all that isn't impressive enough, the instruction manual for the game is over 1/3 of an inch thick, and is LOADED with detailed technical specs, combat tactics, in-depth information on featured weapons, and few really funny quips (if you look hard enough). If you can get the game with the manual, do it.

The bottom line is, if you have a SEGA Genesis (or a Mega Drive, if you live in Japan or Europe) and flight sims are your thing, this is a game you must have. In fact, buying a F-22 Interceptor AND a Genesis console can be a cheaper buy than most new video games!


...the Bad...:
Lethal Skies --- Asmik --- Sony PS2
Newsflash: Global Warming triggers volcanic eruptions!

This game had a LOT of promise; sharp graphics, a background story that wasn't overused, many flyable aircraft, and a (somewhat) realistic selection and availability of weapons.
The bad news is, the soundtracks all sound almost the same, the voice acting is budget and uninspiring, the script is in Engrish, fuel goes from 100% to 0% in literally MINUTES, fighting "bosses" is somehow made very tedious by the designers, and the aircraft don't handle the way they're supposed to. Another problem is that while the aircraft all have their real-life weapon stations, the game puts whole *racks* of missiles on most of them --- combined with the fact that it usually takes multiple missile hits to kill a single enemy fighter, and you get dogfights that have a very dry, chintzy feel.

The background story of Lethal Skies is that by the mid-21st century, Global Warming's anticipated long-term effects suddenly strike all at once (how?), and at least half of the world is submerged into the ocean (which is physically impossible --- all the ice and snow on earth, if melted and poured into the ocean, will only raise the average global sea level about 3 feet), and the remaining landscape has been radically altered. This has led to a mad rush to re-develop the world's infrastructure in order to cope with the calamity. The wealthiest nations have little trouble doing so, and are able to build sufficient habitation for their populations on land and at sea; these countries came to be known as the "Frontier Nations", or "FN". Those that weren't so well-off all got together, and decided that they could get the real estate they need from the FN... by force. This latter group becomes known as the "World Order Reorganization Front", or "WORF", and they serve as the aggressor, and --- naturally --- the bad guys.
Also, we never hear about what the FN do after they win. Did they provide housing and/or construction resources to the billion-or-so people of the WORF countries anyway? Did they just leave the enemy's people to starve? Or did the FN push them all into the sea? We never find out in Lethal Skies, and the later Lethal Skies 2 doesn't really help elaborate either.
However, while the overall background story is plausible, there are some aspects to the plot that are... well... stupid. The one that stands out the most is the extreme volcanic activity depicted in Siberia, which is implied to be the byproduct of Global Warming (are Asmik's staff actually that stupid?). How an exclusively meteorological and oenological phenomenon is supposed to rearrange the internal geology of the Earth to make this possible is never explained. Being a student of Geology, I REALLY have a problem with this.

The only really good thing about Lethal Skies were it's graphics. They're extremely impressive, even by 2011 standards, and the game moves at a seamless 60fps.

The actual handling of the aircraft is questionable as well --- they all fly too fast, accelerate too quickly, turn too sharply, and in general move around in a manner too twitchy to be believable. I suppose this is acceptable for an "arcade" style game, but Lethal Skies purports to be a proper flight sim. The way I see it is that the designers of this game were targeting an audience whose understanding of flight physics, the innate capabilities and limitations of modern jetfighters, attention span, education, and IQ in general are all very low; by doing so, they've isolated the MAJORITY of gamers, who bought this game expecting a hard, serious, realistic combat flight sim. This would also explain why Lethal Skies got so little attention (and sales) in spite of offering attributes missing from the ubiquitous Ace Combat games, and why the subsequent Lethal Skies II is almost entirely unknown.
I've also found a very interesting bug in Lethal Skies, which does NOT improve the gameplay. The neutral position of the all-moving canards in the Typhoon is extremely unstable; if you repeatedly pitch the nose up and down too quickly, the canards won't steady the aircraft into neutral position, and the trim will keep oscillating. The wobble will get greater and greater, until all control is lost and you crash!
Needless to say, this doesn't reflect well on the Typhoon.

Also, recall that I mentioned how fast you use-up fuel in Lethal Skies. Even though most fighter aircraft with topped-off fuel will hold-out for 20 minutes or more in extreme combat conditions (i.e., frequent afterburner use), they don't last 5 minutes in this game --- you'll find yourself becoming one with the landscape very often. You can actually call-in a Tanker to refuel in mid-air (or maybe I'm thinking of Lethal skies II?), but herein lie two other problems;
1- You'll probably run out of fuel before you can tank-up.
2- If your aircraft has engine or control damage, you won't be able to fly it enough to refuel.
You're not allowed to leave the battle area (which is ALWAYS very tiny) to RTB and refuel, either.
Another screw-up on Asmik's part is that they rated the F-15E Strike Eagle as being one of the shortest-ranged aircraft in the game --- it has absolutely no loiter time whatsoever, and runs out of fuel even faster than an F-16C (which is funny, because in real life, the F-15E has a longer range on internal fuel than the F-16C, and can carry more external fuel as well).

Another of Asmik's screw-ups is that in Lethal Skies --- which, I reiterate, was sold on the promise of being more "realistic" than the Ace Combat series --- is that not only are the speed and acceleration of the aircraft totally off the wall, but the ranges of all the weapons are far too short. You have to get about 5 times closer to the enemy to use an AIM-9M Sidewinder or AA-11 Archer short-range AAM in Lethal Skies than in real life, and the effective ranges of all the other weapons are in the same boat.
Most of the aircraft can also carry racks of 2 to 4 missiles on hardpoints that, in real life, could only carry 1 or 2 of the type of missiles that Lethal Skies *clusters* on them. There's simply no rationalizing the whole "Player versus 50 enemies" meme the game inherits, especially given the fact that the player commands 3 wingmen.
On a more minor note, the AA-12 medium-ranged AAM carried by the Russian aircraft in Lethal Skies is referred to in the game as the "AA-12 Kegler". This is an egregious error, because;
1- The AA-12 is codenamed "Adder" by the ASCC --- not "Kegler".
2- The ASCC assigns code-name to missiles based upon what type they are, AAMs always starting with an "A", and AGMs starting with a "K" or sometimes an "S".
How could as many people as the staff of Asmik make such a huge mistake? I mean, that's like including an aircraft in the game called the "Mig-29 Flanker" or "F-14 Eagle"! These people had the technical prowess to create accurate and highly-detailed 3D models of all the aircraft, and even map-out the number, location, and (roughly) the payload capacities of their weapon stations --- yet they STILL let this screw-up make it all the way onto the market!

The script, voice acting, and often ridiculous mission titles and boss names is the cherry on top. One mission is actually code-named "Jetroller Destruction", which pretty much sums up the whole game --- it tries to impress by being different and "badass", but it's so badly-executed that it's hilariously bad.
(The sequel, which I'll outline in another review, is even worse)

There are other problems with Lethal Skies, most of which are rather small, but collectively it's a very half-assed attempt at a flight sim; something we see far too often, these days (*cough* Heatseeker *cough*).


...and the FUGLY:
Turn & Burn --- Absolute Entertainment --- Nintendo Game Boy
*engines go silent, and you crash*

To start off, let me make it clear that one should NOT expect a Game Boy title to be a paragon to high-tech console (portable?) gaming. It's an 8-bit game system with very large pixels, 4 colors (all various shades of black and/or green), and a liquid crystal screen. Nevertheless, any game released on any game system should at the very least be PLAYABLE... and Turn & Burn is NOT.

The graphics and sound aren't all that bad, considering what little technology is available on the Game Boy for them, but that's about all there is to this game.

The music is lousy, the engines sound like a blow-dryer, and the Catapult Officer seems to be flipping you the bird on the flight deck. These set the stage for the mediocrity that is Turn & Burn's "gameplay"... which consists of searching for enemy aircraft, never making contact with them (even when you see on the map that you FLY RIGHT PAST THEM), then repeating this meaningless gesture until your F-14 runs out of fuel, your Game Boy's batteries go dead, or you get sick and tired of the whole thing, and decide to play Tetris instead. In my experience, the latter usually happens first.
In addition to the forgettable gun, your fighter carries "missiles", which don't seem to have the ability to home in on your target. As far as I've seen, those are your weapons.

Except on the rare occasions when I was *lucky*, my experience during the first mission was always that I would fly past the "location" of the target again and again, until I either ran out of fuel after a few minutes and crashed, or until I turned off the power. I got to the second mission once or twice, but I don't even remember what the objective was (perhaps to shoot down TWO unarmed and non-evasive opponents, instead of just one as in the first mission?).
.....and that's EVERYTHING I have EVER experienced playing this game.

As for the rest of Turn & Burn's features... well... there aren't any. It *really is* that bad.

The really sad part is that Absolute actually made an outstanding combat flight sim for the SNES, which is also named "Turn & Burn". Playing THAT game, you'd never know that the same company made both of them.