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WWII and F-15 are pretty demanding; Commanche is light fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: October 16, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is a mixed bag of sims that I owned separately. The interesting thing is that while "F-15" and "WWII Fighters" are incredibly detailed, "Commanche" is a pure Novalogic product - content to offer lovely graphics and implausible flight modeling. Based on the US Army's Commanche stealth gunship/recon chopper that hasn't seen combat and (in real life) looks hard to believe, "Commanche" the game seems impossible to judge. Are its space-age handling qualities and next-generation sensor suite an accurate reflection of a futuristic machine? Or perhaps Novalogic is merely finding a niche for people intrigued by the idea of rotary-winged flight, but convinced that all helicopter sims are as intimidating as "Jane's Longbow". I couldn't get into it because, having played Novalogic's "F-22: Lightning 2", I believed a devotion to arcadey-simming was what we were seeing. Every time I tried, I felt guilty for not dusting off my copy of the more worthwhile "Longbow Gold" (and stupid for the cash I spent on it). For those with less emotional baggage about their simming, Commanche's gorgeous colors are a treat.

"Jane's F-15" is also a treat - that is once you get past an encyclopedic manual, a comprehensive avionics suite, a none-too-forgiving flight model and the hordes of enemies your wonder plane must confront. This game is specific to the F-15E that, unlike F-15 versions which are optimized for air-superiority and only begrudgingly carry air-to-ground ordinance, is a primarily air-to-ground fighter. This means that while the F-15E can handle MiGs in both real life and in this game, it's really at a disadvantage in both. By the time your flying missions in this game (not necessarily succeeding at them, mind you) you will have mastered the F-15E's radar in all of its many modes (and I don't just mean "air-to-air" or "air-to-ground"), learned to navigate around the unfriendly edges of the F-15E's flight envelope (stall? F-15's don't stall?!) and confronted overwhelming odds (never tell me the odds!), you can pat yourself on the back for mastering a sim that actually does make good on its claims of realism. "F-15" is also good because, though it may age, you'll be too busy trying to master it to worry about needing a new computer powerful enough to run newer games. If the game has one vice, it's a lack of a comprehensive training module - everything today is "Instant action", "Multi-player", "Campaign" and "Single Missions". You of course have to train by flying the single missions, keeping in mind that they are just practice. Unfortunately, the entire sim is just practice - it's a sim! They could have just as easily created a training module in which you flew an F-15E stateside, with special training paint-jobs, non-armed versions of smart weapons - instead of flying unrealistic versions of simulated missions, you'd be flying realistic versions of training missions. Instead, you get a hardcore game that lays on the detail for the sake of realism, but can't wait to get in there and blow something up. Sure it's an old game - and unfortunately optimized for graphics cards running using a Voodoo2 chipset, meaning you'll get lame graphics unless you're running a high end system inexplicably running on a 3dfx card. Still, "F-15" is a perfect reminder that there's more to a great flightsim than pretty graphics. I flew this game with little problem on my P200mmx, with an old Voodoo2 card. Despite the compatibility problems I experienced with "Jane's F/A-18", the sequel to "F-15", the older game had no problem with WinXP.

"Jane's WWII" is more of a survey sim - you can fly a bunch of airplanes, none of them as detailed as the F-15E in the other game. Jane's WWII was one of a trio of WWII games that debuted in 1998-99 - along with Microsoft CFS and Microprose's "European Air War". Each offered something you couldn't get on the other - the planes felt more realistic on EAW and you could fly more of them on CFS because that game allowed you to import games off the internet. Jane's looks and sounds best, but that's more than just eye candy - with the rumble of the engine, the glint of the sun off your wingman's chrome exterior and the sound of supersonic bullets narrowly missing you convincingly make you feel like you're stuck flying over Europe in the last winter of the war (the period in which the game is set). The cockpits aren't quite functional - they switch on and off ala "Fighters Anthology", and you rely on pop-up instruments - but they seem much more realistic than that older game, or at least less of a façade. The flying is much more enthralling on this game, and the graphics look less cartoonish than on the older "Fighters" games. The fireballs of exploding enemies look realistically liquid, while damage is convincingly modeled both in flight dynamics and external appearance of aircraft. The AI is rather interesting - with two-ship formations of planes like the Me-262 playing an interesting version of "cops&robbers" (after making its attack run, the first plane serves to distract you from the other). The joke is that, once you scratch one of the primitive, if formidable jets, the other will try and dogfight against you, mindless to its deficiencies as such a plane. This title requires at least a 300Mhz machine to come into its own. However, despite compatibility reports, "Jane's WWII" worked just fine on my WinXP machine.

Truly Amazing

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: July 19, 2001
Author: Amazon User

These games are astounding. If spectacular graphics in Jane's F-15 and Jane's World War II Fighters isn't enough, bring into consideration the great gameplay for everybody. It has great single player missions, and if you want more, challenge your friends, or foes, to a dogfight in multiplayer mode across an Internet, LAN, or IPX connection, or, team up and take on the extremely challenging computer's AI. From 88 milimeters to Wirbelwinds, Mig's to P-470s, Commanches to F-15s, and more, this compilation is the way to go.

Although Novalogic's Commanche Gold doesn't have quite the graphics, and can be hard to control, and Jane's F-15 is somewhat complicated at first, the game I have gotten the most out of is WWII Fighters, because of it's simple controls and commands, (balanced perfectly for both those who like it plain and simple, and those who like it complex) and fantastic gameplay. Though, don't get me wrong, they are all great games.

To sum it up, I would say these are probably the best flight simulator games that you can get and the gameplay is wonderful: Just sit down in front of the screen, know how to use the joystick, and take off into the action. These are three thoroughly enjoyful games.

good games

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 13
Date: October 22, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I liked the games themseves but found it confusing and hard to understand the instructions.Great graphics but each game takes too long to set up and play,not like Micro Softs Combat Flight sim.

Realy lousy flight sims

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 7
Date: July 24, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Janes F15 Terrible graphics and sound, the controls are way to hard to use, and there is absolutly no choice of planes. Comanche Gold A little better graphics and sound and the controls are easier to use but the missions are either realy simple, or realy tough, the menu is impossible to use, and the chopper doesn't show damage, same problem with lack of variety here to just A Comanche. WW2 Fighters Probably the only decent game of the bunch, with above average graphics and A OK sound. More planes here though 7 and beutifuly done, but the damage could be better, and all the planes respond about the same. Overall don't get this game unless you realy like flight sims. Check out my individual reviews of these games for more info.

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