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A History of Military Flight Simulations on the PC
by Len "Viking 1" Hjalmarson The Growth Years: 1990-1996 1993 also brought Tornado, the classic from Digital Integration. With a 330 page manual, the game allowed detailed mission planning and sported a dynamic campaign system. It quickly became a huge success as virtual squadrons formed to plan tactics and fly together via modem or LAN. 1994 roared into life with Microprose Pacific Air War, the best WWII simulation at the time. Flight models and the AI held great challenge; almost too much since the AI pilots pulled superhuman maneuvers. Graphics were limited to 320x200 but looked good. I spent many hours in Pacific Air War, and it was an atmospheric game. The manual was a spiral bound collection of history and anecdotes, including color plates for each of the key aircraft in the conflict. In the same year Domark released Flying Nightmares, an AV8B Harrier simulation. Origin released Pacific Strike in 1994, and EA released US Navy Fighters. Meanwhile, Empire released Rowan’s Dawn Patrol. |
This article is copyright ThrustMaster and Leonard Hjalmarson. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part by any means without permission. These last two titles both pushed the envelope for raw beauty, with US Navy Fighters allowing up to 1024x768 resolution. US Navy Fighters was great fun and combat action was intense, with powerful wingman control and good voice interaction. Meanwhile, Dawn Patrol set a new standard for flight modeling. Sometimes challenging to configure, it came to life on the new Pentium 90 systems introduced in the latter part of the year and modeled a large variety of WWI aeroplanes.Email MiGMan with your experiences or any information related to this sim. |
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