MiG-29 Fulcrum (Novalogic)

Prior to 1990 you were flat out finding a picture or even an "artist’s impression" of a MiG-29. Suddenly in Novalogic’s MiG-29 Fulcrum you could go online and fly the plane with or against other pilots in real time. This was a very popular sim with simplified avionics which gave thousands of people the chance to try air combat tactics as taught to the pros, and see if they worked as advertised Flying on-line you could use voice communications to facilitate team tactics. Short multiplayer scenarios were won by destroying key enemy communications and infrastructure. Battle damage and asymmetric thrust were modelled. The sim provided a quick way to get an appreciation of the different design philosophies in Soviet aircraft. Examples of differences in instruments were the combined AOA/G meter and the NAV displays. You also had to think in metric! (Outside the former Soviet Union the standard system of measurement in aviation is Imperial). The sim ran as smooth as silk on Pentium 233MMX with 64 MEG of RAM. ( No 3D accelerator) and looked great. With a Banshee card the framerate seemed to double and the object detail is spectacular. Smoke trails are thicker, and the framerate doesn't seem to slow even at 1024 x 768 resolution.

Published: 1998