This is a personal editorial and is not to be construed as official from Frugals. So if you don't agree with it don't go shooting at Mark.
That said and out of the way, here's what I want to say.
Recently, I posted a prayer request for my son and myself and the others that are now in harms way in Iraq. I have recieved alot of good wishes from people I know and others that I don't. I thank each and everyone of you very much. You have no idea how much it has meant to me and how much it has helped. I will never be able to repay you for this, but please except my thanks and gratitude.
Unfortunately, there are some that took a simple request of a worried father and hijacked it to further their anti-war views. Some of these were well written and thoughtful, while a couple were vile, infantile and down right disrespectful. One of them wound up being banned by Mark, which is bad. Bad for me, the community and so forth.
The idea for boards like this is to pass along information, to commune with people that you may never meet in person, on a hobby that you enjoy. We are people that come from many walks of life, from many countries, with different political views. To exchange thoughts and to relax and have fun, i.e. Donkey's shots come to mind.
But when you do as was done to the thread, then you cheapen and show disrespect to your fellow enthusiasts.
War is a most horrible facet of the human being. We strive to touch the stars, find cures to the terrible scourge of diseases like Cancer and AIDs. we produce some the most magnificent works of art, music that touch our souls and raise us up. yet on the same plain we can develop terrible weapons of destruction, capable of ending all life on this Earth. This is part of what makes us human.
we can produce people like Albert Einstein, Sister Teresa, people that bring out our best, and then we can produce monsters like Hitler, Idi Almen, Hussein . People that will kill or destroy whole countries and races just because their religion is different, or their skin color is different, or the politics differ from another. It is a paradox that is called Human.
It is our responsibility to suppress and contain the evil that is in all of us.
And we DO try.
Unfortunately, we fail with tragic results.
Unfortunately there comes a time when talking stops and force is the only way to solve the problem. Such is the state we find ourselves in today. My Country is involved in a war to liberate an oppressed people. My only son is a part of that force that is now engaged in this endeavor. The Coalition has already lost close to 30 lives to this bill. half was due to accidents, but 2 were killed in the line of duty . They laid down their lives for a principle , a belief that all people are free, or at least should be able to live without the fear of being turned into hamburger for expressing their disagreement with the government. That a child should be able to grow up with the right to dream of going to the stars, sitting in front of a computer screen and be able to fly a airplane at Mach 2 like WE here are able to do.
You may not agree with me or my politics. I acknowledge that and celebrate that right as I don't agree with alot of other's politics or views. That is what the soldiers of all countries -America, Britain, France, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Japan, Viet Nam, North Korea, Palestine, Israel just to name a few, are called upon to do. We the members of the Armed Forces are called upon to defend or Nations and our way of life. Thousands have died and are buried on foreign soil- look at the cemeteries with their rows of white marble markers on the bluffs of Normandy, or the crypts of the Kremlin wall, or in a lonely wind swept part of a desert. These men, women- boys and girls really- gave their lives not because they wanted to, but because they BELIEVED in the principles of their countries. They believed that they were right- even those countries with monsters heading their governments that plunged the world into the fury of global war. They are to be saluted and cherished because they are the ones that are putting it on the line while we sit here flying Falcon 4.0 and enjoy the challenge of ducking that SAM site to drop a load of JDAMs on a airfield, or lining up a MiG-29 with a AIM-9 and watching that pilot fly for his virtual life" and cheer when we nail it. These people are living what we are simulating. When we grow tired, we hit the exit button, shut the computer down and go to bed in a house with a roof over us. They have to stay in the dirty battlefield, they have to listen to the cries of the dieing or look for what's left of a friend in a burned out tank. They have to sleep in a muddy hole in the ground while a cold rain pours on their heads and are chilled to the bone by the cold wind.
These are the ones who are heroes. And when the politicians have decided that the shooting is over, we bring them home, try to repair the hurt, and help them adjust to being civilians again. We put away our soldiers in a box somewhere to lie and rust until they are needed again. Then when they are put into action, the protests begin and they who are out there begin to wonder "Why? Don't they know that I'm here fighting and dieing for them? I'm here so that they CAN walk the streets chanting slogans in freedom! "
I was one of them. I served for 13 years and though I never heard a rifle fired in anger at me, I still know. I still serve my country. I serve my country by supporting my government. I serve my country by asking my leaders why and holding them accountable. I serve my country through the sacrifices of my son and his fellow Marines. And I appreciate the sacrifices of my country's allies. I appreciate the sacrifices of my country's enemies and their forces. They serve to protect their country as my son does to protect mine.
You have that right to protest here. You have the right to argue the rights and wrongs of the present war. You have the right to call the French "surrender philes" or the Americans warmongers.
What you DON'T have the right to is to hijack a thread or show your distaste for a country polices when someone asks for simple consideration for their present state. We all were quick to post condolences when Dominator died, and rushed to help his family, without any kind of distasteful comments . This is what makes me proud to be a part of this community. But ask for someone to show some support for a simple request and you get hijacked. And this makes me ashamed to be a part of this community.
When you are alone in a car and listening to the radio or watching MSNBC and they show the combat footage where you know your son is and they announce "A marine was killed in action outside Basra during a fire fight. Authorities will release the name as soon as the next of kin is notified." and you jump and grab the telephone, fearing that the voice over the handset is a representative from your son or daughter's service telling you that they were the one. Or you have to face that son or daughter won't see their own son or daughter grow up. Asking for a simple prayer or remembrance or kind word from friends means more than all the gold in the world.
Put yourselves in that person's shoes, ignore the politics, and imagine if you can the fear and sadness if it was your child or the relief and guilt when you find out it wasn't. The guilt because he's still alive and the other son isn't.
Think before you hijack a thread. Think before you post. Even if there wasn't a "OT" in front of the title. If you want to protest, then start your own thread.
But have some consideration.
It's going to be some time before I will crank up my F-16 or play Ghost Recon. I probably won't until this mess is over. I just don't have the heart for it.
F4 was touted as " The New Benchmark in Flight sim Technology" by MPS Those of us that have the early binder version see that emblazoned on the title. Even in it's rushed and buggy state, it accomplished that. When you look at the sims that came after it, DiD's F-22ADF/TAW, Jane's F/A-18, Rowan's MiG Alley, couldn't touch it. The only sim that I have in my library that comes close is DI Super Hornet and even that isn't as good as Falcon 4.0 Look at the kit : A manual that has to be set up into sections with tabs seperating it. I measured it it's about 1 1/4 inches thick. Compare that to JF/A-18. The closest manual I have seen to this is JF-15 which was realesed about 1 year earlier. That one has 2 spiral bound books to cover the inticities of that sim. Even there it's not as intesive as F4.
Then as an after thought for those who just want to fly without reading the main manual, there is a "Cadet's Guide" of quick and dirty instructions. Falcon 4.0 lite version. Also along with this is a Comm Handbook for using the MP feature of F4. Rounding this out is a nice large theater map of Korea/Manchuria/Russia/ Sea of Japan map ( Mine's laminated and has ALOT of old grease pencil tracks on it.)
Compare that to what passes as a flight manual. Benchmark. This is more info than what was available for it's predecessor's, Falcon 3.0 manual. Somehow, I think no one's gotten that close since. Then when you add in Prima's Strategy Guide and the Rp4.0 manual that's alot of material to sift through...
The Immersion Factor..F4.0 WAS to be the core program for a series of add ons. MPS called it the Electronic Battlefield Series and it was to have been able to do what Jane's/EA/Origin aborted World War attempt was going to do- create a persitant battlefield. Where a perosn could be piloting a F-16 stike and another would be able to fly a F-15C as a MiGCap together on line! Interactive.
The Falcon Team ( not to be confused with the eFalcon Team ) had begun work on a F-15C add on when Hasbro performed it's version of Pearl Harbor ( plug: You HAVE to go see Pearl Harbor! From what I've seen of the trailers, it's going to be great.) on the flight sim section. Sometimes I think this was the main cause of the sudden decline of the genere. It wasn't untill after MPS pulled the plug that EA announced the death of A-10 and the mad rush to clear the decks of sims. In a very short time, M1 Tank Platoon III was dead, Gunship! was realesed flying into the stores on fumes ( hey this one was buggier than F4 was! First sim I ever took back to EB within 2 hours of purchaseing it.)
B-17 II barely made it out of the hanger and even there it limped along on 3 engines. And where previously we had at least 6 sims coming out we have been lucky if we got 1 or 2 new ones to share our HD with.
But I digress..Sorry about that.
If MPS had been allowed to continue the process, we probably would have had at least 2 add ons to F4 by now. Bench mark..
So what do we have now..WHat I like to call F4.8 ( with all the patches that the community have made) and a sim that refuses to lay down and die.
People, WE as a community made Falcon. WE kept it alive and growing- no matter what version you're driving- WE, THE FALCON COMMUNITY, have done this. When those people at Hasbro cut F4,we refused to stand there and take it lying down. We kept F4 at the forefront of the Genre.
And now we have ONE OF OUR OWN getting ready to bring the bird into a new era. We have someone who wants our input and comments and will listen to us. I'm excited and can't wait to hear what Eric and Co. plans are.
G2 and Force 12 managed to recover Falcon from certain oblivion-Infrogrammes is NOT a flight sim friendly company guys. Look at what they did to DiD.- and they in turn will be benefiting from US the Falcon Community. They have a good base to build off of here with what we've accomplished in the past two years. If they tok the F4 code and use either the .08i2 or eFalcon and built on either they would be 4 years ahead of the curve.
What I think is that Eric and his team , onc ehe has assembled them, will take a good hard look at Falcon and go from there to create FV. There is precident here. Look at what SSI is doing with Flanker 2.0 They are reviewing the last update of F2 and will use it as the basis for Lock On to a cetain extent. Same thing here with FV.
So I think we all need to stop and take a breath here. We are all excited that Falcon is still flying and has a future now. We are all worried about wheter or not our favorite exe will be the choice for FV and what that means to us as a community. That is a natural feeling of uncertainity that goes with news like this or any kind of change in the status qou. We all are wondering what's next.
Remember 7 dec 1999. We all were wondering and running around saying doom and gloom stuff. Well it's 2.5 years, and guess what people! WE ARE STILL HERE!!! WE ARE ALL STILL FLYING !!! And F4 is STILL THE BENCHMARK!!
Let's give G2 a chance to get their team in place and see what Eric has planned for FV. In the meantime, RP5.0 is still on track and eFalcon is still working on their next step and life goes on.
Hi again and welcome to another edition of Hunter's Column.
First of all, thanks to each of you that replied to my last column. I value all replies and commentary. That is the purpose of columns such as mine- to get you to think. This is where we improve things,and hopefully can grow.
Now on to the news.
Flanker 2.0
Well, as many of you may have heard, the FLANKER team have been busy and have announced that the FLANKER ATTACK project has been given it's Official title: LOCK ON: MODERN AIR COMBAT. From what their press release has said, it's going to be a good one as some of the aircraft in it are going to be the F-15C, A-10A, SU-24 the Flanker and MiG-29s . I can just hear the ALBINOS (F-15C) jocks starting their war cries.
LOCK ON will not be a add on but a brand new sim from the bottom up. They've released some screen shots that can be found on the FLANKER web site. From what I've seen I can't wait for this one to roll out. Another chapter in the Flanker series, which dates back to the original Su-27 sim.
FLANKER 2.5
Here's a new wrinkle that has alot of the Boo birds howling over there in Flanker land.
It was announced by Matt and Co that the 2.5 patch was going to be released in February as a free 80MB download. This has been postponed for a few weeks as a deal was worked out between SSI and Electronics Boutique to distribute FLANKER 2.0 with the 2.5 patch as a CD for $20.00
That's not a bad idea.
For alot of people, a 80 MB download is a Daunting task-especially if you are one of the lucky ones that have broadband connections for one have been trying to come up with reasons to give my spouse on why I have the phone line tied up downloading a program. Oh the pain of a 56k set up! SSI, by doing this, has ,made the problem easier. Not only does F2 get back on the shelves ( go down to your local software store and find a copy of F2-it isn't there guys) and gives an entire new audience a chance to fly the SU, but it also gives those of us who have the game already a back up copy.
Now here's where things get sticky and drew all the Boo birds out. It seems that to some this is a ploy to getting more money out of the community for a existing game. It maybe, but in my opinion, it's good sense.
Why?
1. Avoids a big download. 2. Makes it easier to patch the game especially if you have to go through a reformat of the C drive or if you buy a new rig. You have to go through that download stuff all over again.With the patch on the cd, it makes it easier. Microprose has recently done this with it's latest edition of F4 with the 1.08us patch included in the box. 3. It will build the F2 community up and lead into LOCK ON being a success. 4. The price is right. $20 isn't a bad price for a good sim like F2. Falcon has that price tag on it right now.
But, the mistake that was made was the first announcement of a free patch. To many by putting it out with a reissue of F2 and charging money flies in the face of the previous announcement. Many out there feel that SSI has reneged on their promise and the forum has gotten quite nasty there. It's gotten so bad that as of today (3-4-01) that Stormin Norman has gone off line for the week end because of the abuse that some have sent his way. A pity.
I don't see any of the creative team for F4, GUNSHIP, JF?A-18 still on the sites fielding questions or offering help to their community. Yet here they are, keeping the FLANKERS flying.
There is a place for criticism and through some of them come great ideas that can transform the game from common to outstanding. But there also needs to be a cap on them too. Insulting the people that gave it to us can result in the abandonment of the conversation. You know - "All I hear is how buggy this is, or where's the A-10, why can't I fly the MiG-29? and I'm tired of getting my face slapped. Enough already." and the creator goes silent and the insights on making the game get better is gone.
Boobirds..Ya love 'em or hate 'em ,but you can't forget them.
Hopefully Norm will be back on the boards soon.
Other FLANKER notes
You can still get a couple of the earlier Flanker sims in bundles from SSI. SU-27 Squadron Commander is available with People's General, Panzer General II, Steel PanthersIII for around $30 @ EB. Not bad for games going from DOS to Windows 9x.
FALCON Notes.
eRAZOR has issued his patch for 1.0799. This addresses some problems that has been noted. It can be downloaded here at Frugals. Go to the download/files section. From some who have it it has improved it alot.
RPGroup
Work on the next version of RP5.0 is going along very well. Leo and company have been putting together a candidate version that will begin testing shortly. We are also hunting down some bugs that have resurfaced and hopefully will be addressed in the upcoming RP5.0 But before you start questioning when the patch will be released please understand that it is in the opening stages of testing so it's still some time away from the release point.
As was the case with RP4.1, it will be worth the wait.
FAlcon4.0 still is on the shelves. The latest has the 1.08Us Patch with it, which is a required part of the RP4.1 patch. If you have this, all you have to do is download the RP4 patches and you're ready to rock and roll. All for $20. For those of us that have the earlier versions, it's not a bad idea to pick it up . See the FLANKER NOTES.
You can find it on the boxes with the red bomb burst on it.
Other items of interest.
WWII Era
Rowan's Battle of Britain has been released to good reviews. The April issue of CGW has a 2 page write up on it. It received 4.5 stars out of 5. That's a rare rating for any game much less a flight sim.
Here's some of their comments:
- can manage 5x the 200 aircraft found in EAW and this gives one the feel of all those aircraft in the actual fight itself. - has volumetric clouds to fly and hide in. - has a dynamic campaign - fairly realistic flight models with markings, convincing battle damage and decent 3d cockpits.
Negatives. Typical Rowan release bugs: incompatibilities, some broken features, an occasional lock up, CTDs, the MiG ALLEY stuttering has made a return, a banding of the sky when the game is run in 16 bit mode, which disappears when kicking it up to 32 bit. This in turn hurts the frame rates and darkens the terrain detail.
The Requirements are Win9x,ME, PII 233mhz,8mb 3d card DirectX7 compatible, 450MB HD,6xCD. Recommended requirements: PII400mhz,DX7 3dcard w16Mb ram,550 Mb HD, Dx7 supported sound card, joystick. 3dSupport: D3D Multiplayer: IPX or TCP/IP 2 to 8 players
For more get the new issue of CGW.
B-17II: The Mighty Eighth
For the good review, you get the rough one, and CGW gave the last Microprose sim a whopping 2 stars.
As many have read, Hasbro/Wayward dropped MP on it, a feature that would have allowed each player to man a position on the airplane as well as the normal mp modes.
It has some great graphics,accurate bomb runs, man any position,as well as the normal flying of the plane.
But like it's predecessors, Falcon4.0, Gunship! it was rushed out.It has alot of bugs,and broken features. It is also apparent that Wayward ( the studio that produced it) never intended to deliver B-17II in it's present state, and Hasbro being strapped for cash, rushed it out before it was ready. This is apparent in some of the performance in some of the features. I remember the howl that was put up on the boards of Combatsim.com about the dropping of the multiplayer feature. If ever there was a game that called for it, this is it.
To run this sim, you're going to need a high end machine-at least one with a PIII 500 mhz w/256 mb of ram to run smoothly. The box recommends a PII 300mhz, 128 mb and a 700Mb HD space.
For more read the review in CGW.
Looks like Hasbro made sure MPS went out of the sim biz with a whimper vice Rowan's glory shot..talk about contrasts..
End notes
Also noted in this month's CGW advertisments. SSI is releaseing SILENT HUNTER II and DESTROYER COMMAND soon. According to the ad, if you have either of these two, you can go up against each other via the net. If this is the case, the Squids will be having a blast. Sort of like what Janes' had in mind for their World War idea..
_COMBAT MISSION beat out Talonsoft's RISING SUN and SHOGUN for Game of The Year: War game Category.
_Enemy Engaged: Comanche vs. Hokum beat out STEEL BEASTS, JF/A-18, CFS 2, B-17 II as Gaame Of The Year: Flight Sim
Yesterday, SSI, publisher of FLANKER , announced Monday that the much anticipated add on would be issued to the Flight Sim Communtiy free of charge.
Excellent news, but sad also. It is a commentary on the state of the genre and what we as desktop pilots can expect. I would like to air my thoughts on the matter for what it's worth.
I've observed flight sims go from the days of the old 8 bit machines and such programs like Sid Mier's Hellcat Ace, Spitfire Ace, MiG Ace, F-15 Strike Eagle opened the world to us. These programs were cutting edge technology for the early 80's. Those wire frame MiGs were a bear to shoot down, but I gave that old Atari 800XL a work out. I think I killed 4 joy sticks on that.
As time wore on and the computers evolved into the 386, 486 P1, the sims got better and more challenging. The aircraft resembled the real things and behaved more like them. F3 and its addons, Flight Simulator , all pushed the ebvelope further, and different ages of air sims came into being. Some were junk and some are remembered as hits.
Some of these like Red Barron were upgraded to run with the more powerful computers that we have today with some degree of success. Some didn't quite measure up to their forebearer and nearly killed them. Sierra/Dynamix's absymal Red Barron II comes to mind They repaired it but soon it became apparent that things weren't right.
Looking back at the July 1997 issue of Computer Gameing World, there were a wealth of sims coming down the pike.
Let's take a look at the list and see what's still around.
Jane's F-15 EA Stiil in stores / can be found in the Classic and Bundled collections
Falcon 4.0 MPS Still in stores/ being sold in box w/1.08 patch
Sabre Ace Virgin Dead - premise good, but turned out to be a arcade
Flying Nightmares2 Eidos Never saw light of day. Eidos decided to chronicle Lara Croft..(not too bad...wait for the movie)
Fighter Duel 2 Infogames Can you say...Vaporware?
Jetfighter III Mission Studios Not too bad, can still be found in some form or another.
F-22 Lightening II Novalogic Couldn't handle DiD's F-22ADF, though they tried with a improved version with nukes!
Fighter Squadron Activision Relaeased with JWWII Fighters, CFS1. Came in 3rd and still can be found in the bins.
iF-22 Raptor Interactive Magic Just like Novalogic, they tried again but ADF/TAW still killed it.
Jane's Longbow EA The Yardstick of Helo sims. hard to find.
It's now 2001 and the glory days are behind us. Gone are marques like Dynamax, DiD, Activision, Virgin, Interactive Magic, Looking Glass Jane's, and Microprose
Jane's F/A-18 Hornet, Gunship! and B-17 II being the last three programs from two of the biggest names in the community.
And what is the cause of this?
It's a combination of alot of things. Cost of development, consolidation and mergers of companies, complexity of the sims, the community itself.
For example,we look at the boxes with the screenshots of a Falcon, loaded for bear coming directly at us and start drooling. We put down our $60.( that was what EB was charging for it in Dec98) run home, open the binder, put the sections together, load up the disk and then we try to fly it and the bugs start coming out. We start to complain and the developers start putting out the patches. We still complain and soon the sim starts to get a bad rep and sales start to drop. Within a sort while you see the sim which you paid $60. being sold for $15-20. and soon we have put the cd in with the old programs and go on to the next thing and repeat the process.
A lot of us expect alot from the developers, that the screen infront of us should be the real thing and when it's not some of us start up the hue and cry. From what I've seen over the years, we have to assume some of the blame.
The Publisher has to assume some of the blame. F4 for example, costed MPS about several mil and 4 years to develop and even though it sold well, it didn't recoup some of the development money, where Hasbro made $ off transporting it's board games to the computer. Even so, Hasbro still was bleeding red ink,and recently sold all it's Interactive assets to Infrogammes. Whether or not, Microprose will rise from the ashes remain to be seen. Still it's a matter of economics. If a product isn't selling enough to warrant continued development, then one must toe the bottom line: profit.
Developers have to share too. Some of these sims have a steep learning curve. It takes time to learn F4 for example. I can remember the shock of opening that binder up and seeing 4 sections + 4 apendices and a smaller instruction book . I thought I had picked up a genuine NATOPS book! It's been 3 years and I'm still learning it, and this doesn't take in the RP4.1 manual. Sometimes you can make things too realistic. But I wouldn't want to fly Interactive Magic's version of the F-22 all the time.
Is the genre dying?
No.
Will it get better?
Yes.
But it will not be at the same level as it was. Sims like the upcoming IL-2 , CFS2, will continue the intrest. The continued refinement of F4 by the eRazor Team, RPGroup, F4Alliance and others will continue the interest. The release of Flanker 2.5 patch later this month will also keep the genre alive.
But it will take all of us to keep it there.It will take us to cut the criticism down a notch. It will take the developer to come up with good planes to model-to give the community interesting planes and periods to fly them in and to give us the features like Multi player, internet play, an easier interface, clearer manuals that we as players and consumers want and expect.
It will take the Publisher to listen to the community. If they do this, then the sims will be successful.
It's going to be a co-operative effort all around. All you have to do is look at how far F4 has come. In Computer Gaming World's 200th issue , pg 63 sums it up pretty well: "Falcon 4.0: It wasn't perfect when released, but the community that has arisen around it has turned it into the MOST HARDCORE,REALISTIC simulation ever. For those of us who can't spend 6 years in the Air Force, Microprose gave us the next best thing." High praise for a sim that many thought was dead when Hasbro pulled the plug on 7 Dec 1999. If any sim has earned the title of the simulation that refused to die, It's this one.
I enjoy flying. The comaradierie among flight simmers is almost like being in the military. We all share a love of flying and shooting down an enemy plane. By climbing into the cockpit of a computer F-16 and going "downtown' with a full load of GBUs dodging SAMs and MiGs, we somehow share with the guy that's actually doing this. We get a picture of the complexity of flight, the danger and exhilaration of combat and the rush of, as well as the feeling of loss as we get when we have to punch out of our wounded bird. This is the closest some of us will ever get to a Falcon.
That is why I will continue to enjoy this genre and why I think it won't go away.
This is the first of hopefully many articles on FALCON 4.X and flight sims in general. I hope to inform and perhaps give y'all some insights on what the RPG is doing, as well giving the community some items that they may not know about.
I'm a former Marine, with most of that time being spent with several Marine Air Groups. I've been flying sims since the days of the Atari/Commodore 64 8 bit programs ( I have many a fond memory of trying to shoot down those wire frame MiG-21s in Sid Meir's F-15E Strike Eagle, as well as the original Flight SImulator.)
I'm a member of the RPGroup and serve as the Loadout Team Leader. I've been flying Falcon4.0 since it first hit the stands as well as other sims like F-22ADF,TAW, CFS1/2,
I'm not an expert, but if I don't know the ansewer ,I will try to find out or point you to the person that does.
That out of the way here we go....
Products
A while back I was lucky ( wish it could've held out a couple of days longer for that great BIG lotto drawing ..) and won a copy of Control Zone Interactive's keyboard cover for F4.
It arrived a week later and I tore into the box and unfolded it .
A keyboard cover...BUT WHAT A COVER! Multi colored buttons which represented the keyboard panel from Falcon . Every hot key from the panel was laid out and labeled with each function which makes it a heckuva lot easier to manage than having the keyboard layout sitting in front of you.
Imagine you're in a knife fight and you just know that you're around a SAM site. Instead of hunting for the correct keys on the layout panel or pausing to look for it, or hitting the wrong button and you change from the 2d to the virtual cockpits and you loose your orientation for a moment and you get that AA-8 up the tail pipe.
WIth this panel, it's all laid out on your keyboard ,no mistakes. It's easy to learn and it really adds to the realism of the game. It requires no set up or configuration, leaves your desk space untouched and uncluttered.
This cover is molded and will fit most key boards. It won't fit the Microsoft Ergonomic (split) keyboards or if you have a HP Pavillion keyboard, you'll have to cut it into to seperate parts. If you have a Microsoft Internet keyboard, you'll have to take the wrist rest off in order for proper fit.
Having used it for the past 4 months, I can't see flying F4 without it. I've improved my kills and control of my plane by 100%. Where I used to get confused in the middle of a very hot dogfight and lost track of where I was and my opponent now I can keep my attention focused on the screen. I still get blasted, but I manage to survive alot longer than I used to.
As far as looks go, when I have the cover on and my SFS/F-15Talon controls out, it FEELS like I'm in the plane. And sometimes, this gives you a edge that otherwise isn't there.
I recommend this cover highly. As a matter of fact I've ordered several more for a couple of other sims like Mechwarrior3 and EAW. They are resonable, the F4 cover going for around $15.00
They can be ordered from Control Zone by going to their site:
www.controlzoneinteractive...com
Well, that's all for today. Next article, I will be discussing the MiG-31 and some of the unique features of this plane.
Untill then Semper Fi.
Hunter
random screenshot
random irc quote: <Paul1212> ok... that means Saghen's friends are: Pain.... and processed cheese
