Jane's World War II Fighters

Description

Although graphics aren't the most important part of a simulation, they're definitely the standout feature of Jane's WWII Fighters. The cockpits are exacting, 3D recreations of the real things, including not only a full suite of working instruments, but even warning placards on the instrument panel. Aircraft exteriors are similarly detailed, down to the rivet lines on the skin. And when combat starts, things get even more impressive. Planes explode with pyrotechnics that would make Hollywood proud. As a fighter gets damaged, you'll see wing spars, fuselage structures, and engines exposed under the bullet-riddled skin. And if your PC has plenty of processor and 3D card horsepower, these combats can take place in the midst of realistically rendered 3D clouds. OpenGL, Direct3D, and 3Dfx Glide are all supported, as are high resolutions, so you can push any graphics card to its limits. But WWII Fighters isn't all flash and dazzle. The flight modeling is very well done, with each plane having appropriate performance variations. The only real gripe here is that the sim is a bit too forgiving about stalls, and I've never entered an unintentional spin; this lets you take planes a little closer to the performance edge than you might risk in real life. When it comes to combat, the computer pilot AI is among the most challenging I've ever met. Computer-flown aces will push their planes' performance to the limit, and will be hard-pressed to get a kill in one-on-one combat with the difficulty levels cranked up. Out of combat, though, the AI can go stupid. Aircraft have a very bad habit of colliding with each other, especially when landing. While combat AI is the most important, it's really annoying to do some real hurt to the Luftwaffe only to lose five P-38s on the way home due to collisions in the landing pattern. The first patch addresses this somewhat by offering an option to disable "friendly" collisions, but that's nothing but a kludge. Hopefully Jane's will fix the formation AI in the second patch, due in January. Missions are set in the Ardennes region of Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge. The combat arena is a mixed bag. While the hilly terrain can make for interesting low-level combats, the repeating texture-mapped forests and odd city tiles don't come close to matching the quality standards set by the aircraft. Ground objects look pretty good and include lots of nice touches, such as individual soldiers who scatter from damaged vehicles and even animated deer bounding across the landscape. (Could the folks at Jane's be planning to sell a version of this game in Wal-Mart, repackaged as Jane's P-47 Deer Hunting?) There's no shortage of things to do in the sim. The instant action icon throws you straight into combat - you don't even see the game's interface. The trademark Jane's quick mission mode lets you easily set up air battles with up to four flights of four aircraft types on each side as well as optional ground targets. Single missions include a number of interactive training flights as well as combat sorties. Finally, there's a campaign mode that can be played from the side of the Allies or Axis. The mission structure here is branching, so players who don't cheat and always refly missions until success will find variety here. The missions are well designed and interesting, but have a scripted feel that's particularly obvious if you've played dynamic campaigns in sims like Falcon 4.0 or European Air War. You'll miss random encounters with planes on unrelated missions, for instance. Still, the missions here are historical in nature and well designed. If you think you could do better yourself, Jane's gives you the chance. The game features a very detailed mission editor, which lets you create forces, waypoints, targets, and even triggers that can make missions play differently depending on how the action turns out. WWII Fighters multiplayer is support is top-notch. You can fly campaign, single, user-created, or quick missions on LAN or over the Internet. It's particularly exciting to fly a cooperative mission with friends, where one side may be tasked with escorting a group of B-26s while another tries to take them down. Free matchmaking is available at Jane's Combat.Net. The downsides? Perhaps the biggest is the lack of wingman commands. You do get running battle commentary from other pilots, but there's no way to give them orders, even when you're flight lead. At least a "Help me!" would be nice. Jane's has hinted that the January patch may address this limitation. Also, while the game includes some wonderful in-game reference material - not only plane specs, but also video interviews with a number of World War II aces - the two included manuals don't feature the depth we've come to expect from Jane's. And while it's not a problem per se, a warning is due: WWII Fighters really stresses a system, and you'll want at least a Pentium 233 with a good 3D card to get decent performance. Jane's has already released an initial patch to address some joystick problems and fix some other minor quirks, and the developers seem committed to addressing issues such as wingman commands and collisions in another upcoming patch. But even with those quirks, this is a standout game- and one that any fan of World War II air combat will want to play. --Denny Atkin -- Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. -- GameSpot Review First light of Christmas day shimmers on the wings of your P-51 Mustang. Then you see shadows moving across the snow. "Jerries! 12 o'clock level!" crackles across the radio. A box of Heinkels, escorted by some 109s. Coming straight at you. Drop your tanks, jam the throttle, and haul back on the stick. Zig-zag over a German fighter and blast him with a spray of machine-gun fire. The Messerschmitt's tail section breaks off from the stress of the dive. You lose sight of it in the cloud cover until you see the flames. Another Bandit down... Review: This Program will not operate in Windows10 platform. - I did not like the fact that after reading several reviews on this product stating that it would operate in Windows10 and would not. further there were no minimum requirements provided. I had to purchase and install the product to find out it's compatibility. Certainly a colossal waste of time. Review: Won't Be Surpassed Until X-Plane Gets Combat Damage - This sim kicks much bum. Use the stock flight models on Veteran (3) for maximum realism attainable on this title. Only use Wicked (4) setting if your brain can't suspend disbelief without roll-spins. Don't listen to what people say about EAW or IL2's flight models. The real aircraft are for the most part inherently stable in flight and usually will not stall or spin out to the point of killing you unless they've been damaged or you do something really stupid. They will give you high AoA buffeting and that bounce effect from attempting to turn harder than the airframe wants to, but it all comes naturally out of the flight experience. Stall-type effects do not spontaneously and severely occur at once, as so many other sims do it. As such, it's much easier to regain control, just as in real life. You hear nonpilots constantly going on and on about how it's not real enough, and then you have those who've been up in the real birds complaining that none of these aircraft are that insanely unstable. This one gets it very close. If you need convincing, fly X-Plane's P-51's and then compare it to WWIIF. There are vets who sware by this product, at least to the effect that it's the best of its kind out there. 32bit color looks fab, but slows things down a bit. I have z-buffering on performance. It also seems to like 16X/4X in the graphics settings for my ATI card. I love watching the battle unfold around me on the ground. Sometimes it's a little sparse, but when you find a hot spot it's intense. I think maybe only Longbow 2 (which hardly ever works right for me) and this one are the only flight sims I've come across with downright scary land battles taking place around me. Tanks taking on tanks as they meet after coming over a hill. Amazing stuff. And what I do really seems to make a difference as to whether those units survive, or not. Tanks that have already been damaged are subsequently easier to kill, for me or another allied unit. The campaign's not dynamic, but I suspect the mission scripting is largely responsible for how well thought out the battles are. Dynamic, extended campaigns tend to feel less realistic to me. The branching system that Janes used in a lot of their titles, or even the strict linear ones, seem more convincing. There's something kind of unstructured and pointless about Total Air War's otherwise spectacular campaign system. I can't say I miss it here. As for the problems with limited wingman commands, that was fixed with the final official patch. There's a second CD with a bunch of interviews and historical content on it. The manual doesn't need to go into much detail as far as commands and aircraft systems, but does serve as an excellent overview of flying and fighting with the planes. I should also mention that there's a sizable community of modders, including an at-cost CD you can purchase online with most of the good ones. Highly recommended. OS: Win98SE