|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
3/5 |
Sad facts of the modern games industry...
(January 11, 2006) |
|
Firstly -I want to love this game and all the developers have tried to do. Flying Legends' original specification was for a battlefield simulation involving dynamic campaigns and a whole host of aircraft. However - due to the fact that flight simulators dont make much money compared to other releases and the huge development time needed - the publisher simply told Flying Legends to release what they had. This is painfully obvious when you view the F-16 and F-18 models and see that they are much more detailed than other AI planes and were intended to be player flyable. The end result is a handful of interesting planes (F-15,A-10 - MiG29,Su27,Su25) at oddly disjointed periods in time and a few simple linear campaign trees rather than the dynamic battlefield simulation that was the initial remit. At first release the game was notoriously bugged and the developer has since released a basic patch to make what is there function correctly.
Ubisoft has since dropped support entirely for this game although in Russia, (the game is developed by eastern Europeans), support has continued. Now available are add-ons 'flaming cliffs' - an advanced Su-25t avionics and flight model add in, and soon to be released is a helicopter add-in of the Ka-52.
It has been stated though -fairly clearly- that there isnt going to be a satisfactory completion of the games core elements - and you can blame Ubisoft and the console friendly games market for that.
At a glance--Pluses
-- Individual feeling and detailed flight models, weapon fits and avionics for several Russian and NATO warplanes.
-- Solid mission planner.
-- Good ground forces interaction, tanks and artillery engage each other and are semi-intelligent.
-- Lovely graphics.
-- Great weapons and combat against ground targets is particularily strong.
Negatives
-- No dynamic campaign.
-- Poor AI and no real engagement control, only 'deathmatch' style AI control (essentially all the aircraft just fly at one another firing until everybody is dead regardless of how they are setup).
-- Difficult to create an imersive enviroment, limear feel.
-- Buggy and incomplete, incongruent aircraft and strange behaviour with some avionics and weapons. |
|
|
5/5 |
The best there is...
(September 23, 2005) |
|
this game has been out for a while now. When it was first released, it was met with nothing short of widespread derision, due to the magnitude of the programming faults still remaining in the game code. The game was almost unplayable on all but the very latest, top-spec PCs, and even then it was bug-ridden until the first patch came out. Happily, things have moved on. These days I can run Lock On without a single crash or system lock-up - perhaps they finally got it sorted with the latest patch, or maybe my latest graphics card upgrade did the trick. Anyway, if you have a machine capable of running this (I have an AMD 3200+, with 256MB GForce 6800 Ultra and 1GB DDR RAM), this is a dream of a game. The graphics are incredible. The attention to detail of the cocpit interiors is incredible. The attention to detail regards the handling and use of AA and AG weapons and Radar modes is incredible. As a simulator for the F15 and A10 American planes is concerned, this is second to none. I have yet to get to grips with the handful of Russion aircraft. There is a lot to learn - but very helpful and well though out tutorials give you plenty of guidance. Expect to invest a lot of hours learning how to fly an F15 before you do eventually fly into a simulated battle zone and manage to survive for more than a few seconds, let alone hit your target. In my opinion, Lock On is the first and only fliht sim to finally topple Falcon 4.0 from the top spot in modern fighter category. |
|
|
|