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Strike Fighters

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: October 28, 2002
Author: Amazon User

In my opinion this is a poor flight sim for the following reasons:

The flight sim has nice eye candy regarding the models of the planes, but that is where this flight sim stops. Something is very wrong with the flight physics and modeling of the planes they do not fly correctly. Just try landing the plane if you don't believe me. The thing bounces like a ping pong ball after you hit the ground. The planes do not accelerate properly nor do they stall properly. Most jet landings I've experienced in other jet simulators give you two results you either crash and burn or you make a pretty good landing. MS Flight Simulator 2002 does this well. Falcon 4.0 does this very well. Strike Fighters is a joke compared to these programs.

Another problem is gaining altitude. Gaining altitude is very hard to achieve in this flight sim. It is almost down right impossible to gain altitude even when flying the phantom II on full afterburners (this plane is suppose to act like a mach 2 plus plane), which should have no problem flying to 15K to 25K feet. Your AI wingmen have no problems gaining altitude but you sure do. Seems like your AI wingman are always dogfighting 10K to 20K feet above you. The use of panning views outside your plane to keep track of where your enemy is are way too slow when assigned to the hat of your joystick. You must use the mouse to pan around quickly or number keys on your keyboard to do snap looks which just don't work well in a jet fighter dogfight. It is hard as hell to fly with your right hand flying the joystick and your left hand on your throtle and then having to move the mouse to pan around the cockpit looking for your target! This surprised me when the manuel stresses how important to keep an eye on your enemy "lose sight and lose the fight". Too bad it is so difficult to find your enemy either visually or on radar, which is pretty worthless.

Also the manuel is very poorly written I have read it 5 times and it does not convey clearly how to operate the weapons systems on these aircrafts. I still can not figure out how to acquire a target with the radar missiles nor fire them at a target. Guns and heat seeking missiles really are the only effective way I have found to kill enemy planes. And the AI planes instantly explode when you hit them with even one bullet. The AI planes should take damage first if you hit them with just a couple of shells. Half the fun in a flight sim is watching the planes flying damaged and slowly meeting their death or actually making it back to base. Your plane seems to take damage slowly most of the time even after missile hits. This part of the sim is nice when viewing it from the outside of your plane. But I like to be able to eject from my burning plane to save my virtual life. I still have not found the eject button!

This brings me to the next problem the buttons assigned to do a function in this game only work half the time or not at all. For example the chaff and flare deployment did not work when I hit the buttons to deploy them. Buggy software in my opinion. I really wonder who wrote the code for this program it sure does not seem like the same guy who wrote the software for European Air War. It is almost like the programers rushed something out the door. The map is horrible I could draw a better map with the MS paint program which comes with my windows operating system.

Needless to say I am returning this software to the vendor for a full refund.

My suggestion to everyone is to skip this one and just wait until Lock On comes out early next year! Just stick to flying IL2 which is still the best flight sim I have seen and played to date.

By the way if your wondering what hardware I ran this on. I have a P4 2.2 mhz, 850i intel motherboard, and a GeForce 3 graphics card, and a ms precision pro 2 joystick. I have a very expensive computer I custom build just for games. It is too strike fighters did not live up to its promise of providing a great flight sim program.

Strike Fighters is a BUST!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 11
Date: January 05, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is another example of What Not to Do by a software developer. This product is still in beta. Too many to list features simply do not work or cause Crash to Desktop. The graphics look really good.. but that is about the only positive thing I can say about this program. I have been involved with Flight Simulations for over 20 years and this is one of the WORST examples of an unfinished product I've ever seen.

Strike "Biter"

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: November 02, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This Sim is a classic example of marketing hype, must have been where all the $$ went for this project, it certainly didn't showup in the software. Save your money and download a few BMP's from a military URL for free. SF should be rated a big zero, but one star was all I had to work with. What a temendous disappontment! Shame on you Strategy First/"Last"

BL
Texas

Strike Fighters

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: August 02, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The game after patch 2 corrects issues found of the first release. The Sim community have developed many modifications and planes to add to the original game. The game has an open architecture so the game can be customized to your own liking.

It is not a high fidelity game but neither is an arcade style. It is a lot of fun to fly.

Beware of the JB World copy, the game was pushed to Wal-Mart by the original publisher at an unfinished state and cannot be updated. JB World's version is the Wal-Mart version.

You can find the game with patch 1 included at Circuit City or through the new publisher ValuSoft Web Page

Well. I like it.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: November 11, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I think that, although I can understand the complaints of the other reviewers before me, Strike Fighters is still a lot of good fun for people who aren't all that interested in the microdetails of flight simulators. True, it's a little buggy, and true, the flight model isn't perfect, but from what I hear there is going to be a pretty big patch released that addresses a lot of the technical issues, and let's face it, no flight simulator is ever perfect right out of the box (not even MSFS, though MS refuses to believe that). This is not the best flight sim out there, but it's got potential, and since it will have some of the best modification support of any sim on the market today, that will give modders a heck of a lot of help in making this the sort of game we want it to be.

Much better than Microsoft sims

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: December 13, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is a wonderful combat sim. I am aware that there have been some negative things written about this sim but it has far fewer problems than any Microsoft sim had when it was first released....and I own and enjoy all of the MS sims. Strike Fighters does require the latest fastest computer to do it justice. I have a Pentium 4 with 2 gigs of memory. Installation was a breeze. The graphics are terrific. The choice of planes to fly and the weapons you have available to use is awesome. The learning curve for flight and fight commands is steep but take one little bite at a time by flying single missions. This will eventually help you learn the skills to really get in there and mix it up. There is a rush of excitement when you "lock on" an enemy,launch your missile and watch him.....or maybe her, go down in flames. In single mission you earn points for success and get promoted based on the number of points.......yeah, the game rewards you for your skill. I understand from the sim's website that they are working on add-ons. I highly recommend this sim. It will give you hours of enjoyment and a feeling of accomplishment. Larry K

Best survey combat flight sim ever

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Strike Fighters Project 1 was the first of a series of combat flight sims based on the same core engine with an architecture very open to user modifications. It is intended to provide a modern equivalent to Jane's Fighters Anthology via its fun gameplay and a large variety of flyable aircraft. The aircraft, weapons, and terrains are interchangeable between the various games in the series, which currently includes: the original Strike Fighters Project 1, its European market refresh Strike Fighters Gold, Wings Over Vietnam, Wings Over Europe, and First Eagles.

Over the years, countless user addons have been created. Addons available include hundreds of aircraft, several terrains, weapons, and much more. Most of the addons are completely free to download. Someone new to this series will be overwhelmed by all of the options availble.

Each time a new game is released, patches are released to bring the other games up to the same core engine version level so that any features added to the new game are available in the older games. For example, Wings Over Vietnam added aircraft carrier operations and Wings Over Europe added 3d clouds, now both of those features are possible in a fully patched installation of Strike Fighters Project 1 which originally had neither of those features.

So, besides being fun and fairly realistic, this sim series has the advantage of expanding every year with the full support of the original developer and a devoted group of modders. The latest release, First Eagles, officially expanded this sim series into WWI biplanes. User addons cover WW2 and Korea since the rest of the games focus on jets from the 1960s and 1970s.

This particular copy is cheap and patched up to Service Pack 2a. [...]

One of the Best!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: October 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I honestly can't understand the negative comments here concerning this sim. Installation is simple, fast and the product only takes up 300MB of disk space unlike it's peers IL2 FB and CFS 2/3. The graphics are excellent and on par with IL2 FB while providing extremely fast frame rates. Menu lag time is virtually non-existent and options set-up is intuitive and easy to understand. At first I was hesitant to purchase based on the mixed reviews here and on other sites. I went to the publishers web site first and downloaded the patch (only 2.8 MB) and then purchased the sim; installed and then installed the patch immediately; so my comments are completely post-patch.

I'll address some previous reviewer's comments:

Key-Commands/Mapping: there are almost 100 different commands and I spent apprx. two hours changing them until I was satisfied with the layout for the keyboard and my joystick (Logitech Extreme Digital 3D); by taking the time to set up the commands where they are user-friendly the learning curve is reduced in the extreme.

Views: you can map the snap-views to the hat on your joystick and then pan with your mouse - ideal for combat flying and simple to perform (Options Screen then Controls). You need a solid, programable joystick to fly this sim.

AI: the wingman commands are easy (TAB Key) and they will cover you by attacking your target, etc. if you tell them to; both their AI and the enemies is excellent - better than I've seen in any of the current generation of sims available. The enemy pilots will perform ACM based on historical precedents and the abilty to scale the difficulty is a plus.

The F-4: if flown correctly using the lift vector (as described in the manual) can out-fight any of it's opponents as it did historically given equal conditions; if 'you' can't climb in the F-4 in this sim - blame the 'pilot' not the sim itself!

The Manual: again, better than any other currently available. I suspect, here, that previous comments are based on not reading it carefully!

Radar: the most complicated aspect of the sim but if you read the manual, set up the six basic key commands (i.e., Radar On/Off, Cycles to next radar mode, Cycles to next radar range setting, Cycles to next radar target, Acquire currently selected target and Reject and deselects current target) so that they are user-friendly (e.g., I changed them to single key presses in the same area of the keyboard/joystick, etc.) and practice - you will reduce the learning curve and really enjoy flying the F-4 and A-4!

I also suspect that many negative reviews are based on casual sim usage: in other words, the current generation of flight/combat sims simply demands that you spend 'time' learning them - the days of loading the cd in the drive and mastering the sim in a few hours are gone! Further, if the user is not willing to maintain (correct drivers, scheduled system maintenance, etc.) his/her system in order to provide the best possile platform then there will be problems with install, game play, etc., and unfortunately, the product will be blamed.

There is a host of freeware available for this sim in terms of skins, additional aircraft, terrain, effects, mission builders, etc. (i.e., just do a seach under the sim title on the 'net). If you're looking for a solid performing combat sim depicting the aircraft of the 60's - 70's - this is it! I've been 'flying' combat sims for 18 years now and this is one of the best in terms of pure enjoyment value: just the right mix of flight modeling, graphcs, speed and atmosphere.

My system: P4, 2.80 GHz, 15" XGA TFT Display, 40 GB/2 HD, 512 MB DDR SDRAM, ATI Radeon IGP 345 M HAL Video Card.

fun and style

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: November 18, 2002
Author: Amazon User

maybe is not vietnam, maybe the terrain is not like Il-2, but the important is the fun, and is the only one that i know that is based on 60's fighters...

the plane models is very good, you can check that on any screen shot.

Best Vietnam Era Flight sim out there

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: August 04, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I can't say enough good things about this flight sim.
It has far fewer problems than most other sims.It automatically picks up your hardware connections. I have an Intel Pentium 3, 700mhz, 128 meg of ram, and a 3D accelerator card running on XP.My CH pro peddals USB work fine with it.The sidewinder warble (lock on sound) is perfect. Installation was a breeze. The graphics are terrific. The choice of planes to fly include the
F-100, F-4, A-4 and F-104. The learning curve for flight and fight commands are intuitive. As far as I know no other flight sim has ever produced an F-100. It has a few bugs, but then what doesn't ?

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