Dynamic Campaigns

This sim has the finest of pedigrees, based as it is on the best helicopter dynamic campaign engine ever built.

Enemy Engaged: Apache vs. Havoc had arguably the most successful modelling of dynamic battle environments ever seen on a PC in the 1990's. It featured not one, but two of the premier Helicopter Gunships, created in stunning detail and placed in dynamic combat environments. The world of EECvH is so dynamic and interesting that it invites you to get in there and look around, beyond the attraction of flying missions. It really set a gold standard for this kind of sim environment that has still not been matched some 20 years later.

It was early April 2000... and two of the world's most fearsome helicopter gunships landed on home PCs worldwide. One of the best pieces of news to me was that 'Enemy Engaged: Comanche vs Hokum' is backward-compatible with Enemy Engaged - Apache vs Havoc, meaning you still have access to the campaigns and flyable helos from AvH. That of course is if you have AvH installed - if you don't, and you have a PC 300 Mhz or faster and a 3D graphics card, then run out and get it!

In 2001 Digital Image Design (DID) released Eurofighter Typhoon, an accessible and immersive simulation of tactical jet combat.

With this flight sim classic Microprose continued their tradition of creating sims which you could live in for months or even years, never getting bored. European Air War recreated the epic west European air battles which helped change the course of World History 1939 - 1945. Every aspect of this sim was superb, from the graphics and sounds to the atmospheric interfaces.

F-117A Stealth Fighter has been referred to as "the mother of all sims" due to the many innovations it presented and the atmospheric way the sim is presented. It set standards of game-play which have probably never been exceeded.The sim was a major enhancement and re-release of F-19 (1988) by Sid Meier. F-117A runs very well on a 386 and is a "thinking person's sim" emphasising tactical thinking over reflexes.

F-15 by Janes had to be the strike fighter sim of the Millenium! Although it does have a formidable Air to Air capability in terms of Radar and ordnance, the F-15E is about half way down the ladder in manoeuverability... not a dogfight machine! But for fans of the Strike Aircraft community... F-111, A-6 Intruder, Tornado... 1998 was hog heaven!

The original code for this flight sim weighs in at a hefty 53 K. That is NOT a misprint, not 53Mb or 53 Gb. To put it in perspective, that is the size of an email. This was one of the first sims published by Microprose and launched many a lif-long fascination with flight and flight simulation.

In 1989 F-15 Strike Eagle II had one of the richest and most interactive sim environments ever seen.The world was full of activity from enemy fighters and ships. Who can forget "Director Mode", which let you sit back and watch as the sim followed the action. Pour a cup of coffee, grab a donut and watch the action unfold!

F-15 Strike Eagle III was a ground breaking simulation of the premier Strike Fighter and one of Microprose's greatest achievements. It was also one of the few sims that enabled two people to fly in the same aircraft over a network, in this case as pilot and Weapons Systems Operator.

The simple graphics of this sim belie the amount of information it presented to the pilot in real time, a milestone achievement for flight sims of the era. I first played it in the 1980's on an Atari ST. I used to fly on instruments most of the time and play with the comprehensive information available on the 3 Multi-Function Displays. It was the first flight sim with a dynamic battlefield.

An obscure sim, this was Gilman Louie's Falcon project before the 'original' Falcon.

F-19 Stealth Fighter was the first version of the wildly successful release "F-117A Stealth Fighter". The smoothly profiled aircraft you can see on the box was based on aerospace industry observer's best guesses about what the mysterious 'Stealth Fighter' actually looked like. Bear in mind that the F-117 was flying in secrecy for about 10 years before the general public got a look at it! Quite a remarkable achievement. The Atari version had digitised sounds, I distinctly remember the "click" of the recon camera. The manual was probably the largest and most informative we had ever seen for a flight sim. Playing this sim on my Atari ST prompted me to get back into scale modelling, so I went out and bought a 1/72 scale F-117 model, which although more accurate in general shape than the F-19 guesses, still wasn't quite right, being too short and stubby.

F22 Air Dominance Fighter by Digital Image Design was the most extensive attempt to recreate the modern air combat environment seen on a PC.

Total Air War (TAW) is an aptly-named product. More than a combat flight simulator, it offers a strategic component based on modern air warfare theories first applied in the 1991 Gulf War. In addition to a detailed simulation of the F-22 fighter, TAW simulates a near-future war in the Red Sea region (northeast Africa and Saudi Arabia). It does so many things so well, that the player could easily concentrate on any of several single aspects of the sim and still find a lot of depth and fun.

An iconic flight simulator, Falcon 3.0 pushed the boundaries of air combat sims. It had all the features anyone could dream of at the time and the gameplay was riveting, with dynamically generated missions. It was also demanding on hardware, needing a 486 with a maths co-processor to run the "High-Fidelity Flight Model".

Falcon 4.0 was probably the most ambitious air combat sim ever attempted, with a full scale war on the Korean peninsula being modelled. From a problematic beginning - with several patches released before the development team was disbanded by Hasbro to a glorious maturity with user supported development, Falcon remains an iconic sim.

Under the stewardship of sim veterans Graphsim and Falcon 4.0 experts Lead Pursuit, Falcon 4.0: Allied Force keeps alive the seminal combat flight sim dynasty which originated in the late 1980's.

Flag bearer of flight simulation's most distinguished dynasty, this release is a heavily modded version of 1998's Falcon 4.0.

Flight of the Intruder, released in 1991, is one of the classic combat flight sims of all time! It was developed by two teams, one in the USA and one in the UK. Flyable aircraft were the A-6 Intruder, F-4 Phantom, MiG-21 - this was the first time I got to fly a MiG-21! I remember flying head-to-head against my brother - he in the F-4 Phantom and myself in the MiG-21. Somehow he could always tell which aircraft was piloted by me despite my best efforts to send in the drones first! Until Falcon 3.0 was released, Flight of the Intruder led the pack in features. I remember getting FOTI for the Atari ST, sometime after I came across Falcon, and being amazed at the depth of the simulation, especially the mission planning options.

In Gunship there were no external views available, just a cockpit with a bedazzling array of engine sensors and weapons displays. Engine start left, Engine start right then drop the clutch to start the rotors spinning. Collective up and the rotor blades bite savagely into the air. With a leap and whoops, you're airborne! 1987 had never been more exciting!

Gunship 2000 was an Apache Gunship sim released in 1991 by Microprose. As usual with their products, a strong sense of atmosphere was maintained by seamless menu screens and music. You could also fly the A H-1 Cobra, OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, MD 530MG, UH-60 Blackhawk, RAH-66 Comanche and AH-64B Apache Longbow. 1998: "If you only have a 386 and want some exciting chopper action then get this!"

One of the last great sims from Microprose, this reprised their 1988 and 1991 AH-64 Apache simulations and took full advantage of the relatively new technology of 3D graphics acceleration.

Longbow from Janes was released in 1996 and remains possibly the most immersive simulation of the AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopter.

Longbow 2 has a more sophisticated campaign engine than Longbow, giving you the ability to preview Allied missions, alter waypoints and arming and select which choppers will be flown.

Add-on to Falcon 3.0 which enabled you to fly head to head MiG-29 vs. F-16 as well as containing full campaigns for the MiG-29. A good snapshot of 3-D modelling in the early 1990s.

MiG Alley is a simulation of Air Combat operation in the Korean War June 1950 to January 1951. MiG Alley achieved very close to a perfect blend of action and graphical realism as a simulation of the air war in the Korean conflict. In November 2001 Rowan released the source code, so expect the sim to keep developing in the hands of dedicated fans.

The third in the series from Microsoft, the sim raised the bar again with a detailed and fast low altitude environment suitable for ground attack missions, and a dynamic campaign. On September 18th 2002 I interviewed Scott Lee, product manager from Microsoft's Aces Studio, and checked out the beta version of Microsoft Combat Flight Sim 3.

This was the first SVGA sim, which meant that instead of VGA graphics of 320 x 200 pixels, we now had 640 x 400. The visuals were similar to what we had previously only seen in military simulators and were rendered in a beautiful set of pastel colours. SVGA Harrier had immense replay value as the campaign never played the same twice, and it was entirely up to you as to how you won the ground war. Or didn't. SVGA Harrier had immense replay value as the campaign never played the same twice, and it was entirely up to you as to how you won the ground war. Or didn't. This was the first sim I connected to MiGMan's home-built cockpit, and I spend night after night flying it, in the dark and with a flight suit, helmet and nomex gloves!