Publisher: Microprose
Producer: Martin De Riso
Game Design: Tsuyoshi Kawahito
Platform: PC Win95/98
Genre: Combat Flight Sim
Test system:
P2 400 128ram
ATI Rage with STB Voodo2 12meg 3dfx board on a 19in monitor.
SB PCI64 Sound Card
X32 cdrom
Thrustmaster F22 with TQS and CH ProPedals
Minimum Specs
133MHz Pentium with a 3D graphics accelerator
166MHz Pentium without a 3D graphic accelerator
CD-ROM drive
SVGA
DirectX 6.0 (comes with game)
To use the game’s 3dfx Glide support you must have working Glide API
version 2.43 or higher
After a very long dry spell in WW2 combat flight sims, the end of 1998
has been a windfall for WW2 fans. The heavy weights of Microsoft, Janes
and Microprose have all gone head to head to put out the number one WW2
flight sim of the 98 holiday season. Microprose’s European Air War (EAW)
is putting up a very strong argument for being the best of the lot.
EAW takes place in 3 distinct eras of the WW2 European conflict. Included
are the Battle of Britain in 1940, European Air War in 1943 and the European
Air War in 1944. One can play Quick Start, Single Missions, Pilot Career
(dynamic campaign) or you can even indulge yourself in some Multi-player
missions. Interested? Read on!
EAW boasts a very nice selection of aircraft to fly (see below). You’ll
also be flying with and against several other non-flyable aircraft such
as the He111H2, Ju 87B2, Ju88A4 & C6, Me410A1, B17F, B24D and Mosquito
IV. As an added bonus you can even try your hand at chasing down German
V1 Buzz bombs on their way to London!
In addition to the vast variety of aircraft, I was very impressed by
the shier quantity of aircraft found in any given mission. For example
I was flying an intercept mission in the Battle of Britain campaign with
11 other Spitfire 1a’s when we came upon 18 Ju88 bombers that were escorted
by 12 109s. Tracers, contrails, smoke plumes, flak and 40 plus aircraft
flashing before your eyes makes for a very impressive spectacle indeed.
Some may be disappointed with the max resolution of 640 x 480, but the
planes look very impressive inside and out. The cockpits are very nicely
done even in padlock and virtual cockpit views.
If you don’t have much time, the Quick Start allows you to get right
into the action, no muss no fuss. You start out in the air near the bad
guys which is great for those "Honey, dinner will be ready in a minute"
moments. A nice aspect of Quick Start is you are automatically put into
the last plane you selected in Single Player or Pilot Career. This lets
you continue to get the feel of the aircraft you’ve been flying in the
more serious Single Mission and Pilot Career endeavors.
Single Missions are customizable in several ways. Under Mission Parameters
you can select the year (which influences which aircraft are available),
Time of Day, Weather, Mission Type, Target, Number of Aircraft, and Cruise
Altitude. You also chose the friendly and enemy aircraft type, quantity
and skill level along with the amount of AAA you will encounter. One
feature that might be missed is you are not allowed to set up specific
1 Vs 1 or 1 Vs 2 type scenarios, but despite that one shortcoming, Single
Missions allow for a countless number of variables resulting in a high
level of replayability. The mission types include Fighter Sweeps, Escort,
Intercept, Bombing and Interdiction (search and destroy). Interdiction
missions are particularly fun. You can come across enemy planes, ships,
trains, AAA (heavy and light), Hangers, Towers, Barracks and more. Heck
if you really want to get nasty, you can even knock out the O’Club. Some
say they swear that AAA gets more accurate if you hit the O’Club, but
this is unconfirmed. ;o)
On one such mission I flew lead in a flight
of four Me109 tasked with hitting a convoy of trucks leaving a British
airfield in the early morning. I was just leaving the English Channel
going "feet dry" when my quiet fight was interrupted with info coming
in over the radio in German (thankfully, there are subtitles) vectoring
me to my target area. Flying down on the deck I enjoyed the terrain with
its generous amount of trees, houses, farms and small towns then I spotted
the airfield the trucks were leaving from. I decided to wake up the neighborhood
with a quick strafing of the Barracks and was rewarded with a nice burning
building with several men running away. I kept my speed up keeping the
Light AAA effect to a minimum. Soon we came upon the truck convoy and
we let em have it. Burning trucks, little men running for cover and the
few trucks that remained tried to hide under the trees. Sounds easy?
It was! Well at least until a flight of Spitfires dropped down on us
that is. What followed was a long and bitter air to air battle. After
losing a wingman and running low on ammo and fuel we bugged out for the
comforts of Paris with a few air to air kills under our belts. Great
fun!
The air to air fighting is very well done. EAW gives you a very wide
selection of viewing systems including a virtual cockpit, padlock, snap
views, AirWarrior/Warbirds style viewing system and the usual list of
traditional static and outside views found in most sims. Included are
a few optional cheat views such as no cockpit (this also helps frame
rate) and a no obstruction rear view. You can target both Friendly and
Enemy aircraft along with ground targets as well. There are several options
to help you with your targeting. If you like you can show the target
ID, range and even enemy flight info. For many all this would be a cheat,
but with the max resolution being only 640 x 480 it can be argued that
at least a target box is needed to make out the enemy at medium distances.
Thankfully, the enemy AI (Artificial Intelligence) seems to have the
same limitations that you are under (unless you play with cheats on).
The bad guys don’t seem to have any unbelievable turn rates and they
even appear to lose sight of you when appropriate. I’ve crept up behind
the bad guys without them noticing and this helps give the feel of a
real person in the plane in front of you. Sometimes the attacking enemy
fighters going for the bombers do have a bit of target fixation, but
generally the enemy AI is pretty good especially when on the defensive.
The friendly AI is also well done and it comes with a nice assortment
of wingmen commands. The commands include Engage Bandits, Cover Me, Attack
Ground Targets, Attack my Target, Disengage, Loosen formation, Drop tanks,
Loiter here and more. You can give your wingman (or wingmen) an order
anytime. When and if you get promoted (or if you picked a higher rank
to begin with) you can also give orders to your flight, other individual
flights in your squadron or your squadron as a whole. You can request
info from ground control to help find the enemy or to just help keep
up with navigation. An in- flight map is also available, but unfortunately
there isn’t a way to zoom in making it cumbersome at best.
The flight model feels believable with accurate speed and dive limitations
to all of the aircraft. Stalls, spins, engine overheat, structural limits,
wind, turbulence, blackouts, redouts and engine torque have been included
and can be turned off for those of you just learning to fly the virtual
skies. Your guns can jam if used in a high-speed turn, although the Me262
jet guns jam a bit too easy. The only big disappointment in flight modeling
is landing. For some reason you are not given any sound cues to let you
know when you finally touch down and it seems a bit too easy as well.
The damage model is one of EAW’s strongest areas. Possible damage areas
to your aircraft are not listed in the manual, but after several hours
of play I can report the following. Engine(s), hydraulics, right or left
ailerons, tail section (elevators & rudder), oil loss, holes in your
windshield and loss of one or both wings are all included in the damage
model. If you keep your engine at 100% for an extended period of time
you’ll overheat your engine(s) and you’ll start losing pistons (and the
power they generate) which eventually leads to your whole engine blowing.
It is also possible to be killed in flight, which will send you to an
outside view of your plane going down with a blood-splattered windshield.
As good as the damage model is, the bailing out sequence is modeled somewhat
poorly. When you do finally hit the silk you are instantaneously taken
out of your aircraft and floating down to safety. This means it is possible
to bail out and survive at any altitude as well as at very high speeds
and in violent spins.
The Pilot Career is clearly the heart of EAW. Pick one of the 3 dynamic
campaigns and any of the listed aircraft associated with that period
of the war and you are on your way. Before starting you also can pick
a higher rank so you can control other flights right from the first mission
(otherwise you must earn promotions to have commands for anything more
than your wingman). The Pilot Career is the only dynamic campaign featured
by any of the top recent 3 WW2 simulators out there.
The Multi-Player option includes some cooperative multi-player for single
missions, the usual assortment of head to head and some team play scenarios.
In coop multi-play IP to IP on the net is said to get somewhat choppy
when more than a few other aircraft are on the screen. LAN squads, on
the other hand have had better luck. The only complaint seems to be that
once the mission parameters have been completed the mission abruptly
ends. Don’t miss understand though, over LAN all the multi-player options
work well and are a lot of fun. EAW is not without a few glitches. Running
under 3Dfx Glide on Voodoo 2 boards, you have to limit the texture memory
to 2MB, but this is not a showstopper. MircroProse is working on a patch
to fix this and a few other little problems, but don’t let it detract
anyone from getting this excellent WW2 simulation.
The comprehensive
selection of wingmen commands combined with the endless replay value
of the dynamic campaign puts EAW as the front runner of the 1998 WW2
flight simulator blitz. Yes, there are a few little problems like the
landing and bailing out sequence, but these are like grains of sand on
a beach full of outstanding game play. So go grab your scarf and leather
flight jacket and get ready for a wild ride into dangerous skies over
Europe in WW2!
