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.
Hunter
Mower [unregristered]
post: #1
Email: viper
Posted: 29/5 at 11:58
IP: 207.236.122.163
