IAF--VINDICATION AS A MEDIUM SIM [long]

scha...@hotmail.com

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Sep 11, 1998, 3:00:00 AM9/11/98

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Unless you're one of those snotty "total realism or nothing" d00ds, you've
probably spent a great deal of time flying one of the USNF sims. They're a
lot of fun, and you get to shoot a lot of shit down in flames. However,
there comes a time where you want a little more "meat" on the bones; e.g.
your kill totals are getting a little high (like 200, or so), you start
finding that all the planes seem to fly the same, and you start realizing
that making multiple passes in a single B-2 to eliminate every target in a
zone is ridiculous.

Well, you have a couple of choices. You might get suckered in by the F-15
crowd. Now, F-15 is a nice sim, don't get me wrong, but I've found--along
with others--that flying for an hour just to hose the mission because you
missed one step on a 60-point LGB checklist is, well, a little dull and
pendantic. You -can- dumb F-15 down, but the casual mode cripples the sim,
and while you can mix and match expert and casual controls, they co-exist
like a couple of jealous cats. You can go the DiD route. They make
excellent "medium" sims. However, EF2000 (which, IMO, is -the- most
underrated sim ever, including now) may be getting a little long in the tooth
for you. And ADF is not only flaky (even after the patch), it has -the- most
boring and distant mission structure in sim history. Plus, both DiD sims
model what are essentially UFOs (especially the F-22, which is -supposed- to
be a UFO). OK, so scratch F-15 and DiD sims. You can head out and buy Front
Line Fighters, but those sims definitely show their age. And, since you've
been following this newsgroup, you avoid iF-22 and iF-18 like the plague.
Naturally, you won't be going to Novalogic sims or JFIII, either. To use a
term from that utter fuck rordway, they are "too arcade".

Well, luckily for you, IAF just came out.

For those out there quick to make assumptions using a Demo, IAF represents a
quantum realism jump over the USNF series, placing it firmly between the Wing-
Commandish action of the USNF stuff, and the anal hyper-realism of F-15. You
actually see your functioning cockpit windows now--no pop up displays. While
you don't get the bazillion radar modes of F-15, you essentially get a
"distilled" version of modern radar system that includes the -important
concepts- of AA radar: STT, a "long range scan", TWS, and boresight. No "god"
radar here, ala USNF.
AG follows the same concept. You won't be downloading and printing out
websites you find on using LGBs in F-15, but you won't be clicking a button to
select a ground target either.
Another thing about the "other" medium sims--you get to fly one (1) aircraft.
In IAF, you get to fly some classics, each with its own handling and
capabilities. Note that they are not modelled with obsessive (rordway again)
attention to detail, but there are differences, and none of them are "Generate
Me A Shoot List, K.I.T.T.!" [Knight Rider reference for you young'uns] UFOs.

OK, the graphics.
The terrain was hyped. The terrain is awfully pretty, once you get used to
the fact it doesn't look as smooth and placid as a marble tabletop (le
Voodoo?). It -does- take a lot of horsepower to push. Framerate of the
terrain was marginally acceptable on my K6-300. Aircraft are all very
beautiful. Gratuitous eyecandy is present.

Let's see, what else?
Controls are configurable to however you desire. The shell interface is very
slick and streamlined.
You get a neat, seperate CD history of the busiest air force around.
The manual isn't that hefty, but it's still of fine quality (even though it
looks like the air combat section was cut and pasted in from JFA or F-15).

...and etc.

Basically, there's been a lot of mud slung about this sim either from people
who don't know what the fuck they're talking about (say the magical "rordway"
again) or people who really, REALLY like to push lots of buttons.

But it's not USNF, and it's not F-15. I believe this sim stands on its own
merits as a "medium" sim.

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Sep 12, 1998, 3:00:00 AM9/12/98

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Well.......that was a well written peice except for the "gratuitous"
bashing of that guy named rordway.........I guess "getting oersinal"
is just part of peoples "stream of conciousness" in this
group......but nayway, despite the hate talk, you made some fairly
good points that will probably get me to look at the finished product
of this sim. The guy from PCM&E also noted that he had been playing
with the beta and that the multiplayer stuff was pretty fun, and was
not to be overloked as well (something you didnt mention here in your
comparison to F-15, which may have beeen anal sim, but was a retrofit
jerry rig for multiplayer)

Sleepdoc

Rod White

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Sep 12, 1998, 3:00:00 AM9/12/98

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F-15 BLOWS as a multiplayer sim. It still doesn't play
well over the net, and personally I don't find it much fun
flying against each other in the same aircraft. If it had coop
that would be different.

IAF is superb over the Internet via IP address and just as much
fun on Janescombat.net. Now that it's out there; there's many
people playing it on Janescombat.net. Also I know you're
a LAN guy, and over our LAN it plays nicely too.

Over Janescombat.net I've played four-players games
VERY smoothly. The COOP campaign play truly rocks too.
Everyone there likes it and can't stand how the hard-core
crowd has beat up on it so badly here. This never was
meant to be F-15, but others forget that ATF was the title
that launched the Jane's brand, which wasn't hard-core
at all. Sure F-15 is a tough act to follow, but F-15 is
WORK, where as IAF is pure FUN. Personally I enjoy
both FUN and WORK sims, others can't, which is fine, but
I think IAF has gotten attacked too much because it's not
F-15 or Longbow 2 in terms of realism, which isn't a fair
comparison. As it stands F-15 is THE solo combat-sim which
requires WORK, but IAF is IMO THE multiplayer sim that's
FUN to play. You just can't jump into F-15 for 1-2 hours
flying around shooting down MiGs with buddies, but you can in
IAF.

--
Rod White
PC Multimedia & Entertainment Magazine
http://www.pcme.com

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