Strike Commander REVIEW (longish) 2/2
Jeremy Reimer
(continued)
GAMEPLAY
One of the most limiting aspects of all personal computer-based flight sims
is that your vision is always limited to the flat screen in front of you.
Real pilots are able to look around 360 degrees and evaluate situations
visually. Most sims offer alternate views, usually looking straight behind
and to the sides at 90 degrees. I have often found these to be of little use
as the views are extremely limited and don't allow you to "follow" enemy
planes around. Falcon 3.0 changed this with a "padlock" view that allowed a
little more freedom in looking around but Strike Commander takes this to an
entirely new level. I was suprised to find such an important innovation,
integral to flight sims in general, in a game which was supposed to be
focussing primarily on great graphics.
The padlock view in Strike Commander can be accessed by the little "coolie
hats" on the advanced joysticks, but those of us with standard joysticks get
it too. Simply hold the second button down and the joystick becomes like
your head: move it around and the view changes exactly like it would if it
was your head that was moving. The entire cockpit is scaled and rotated,
with the sides and rear of the plane as smooth shaded polygons and the
instrument panel as one huge bitmap (although you lose the HUD graphics) to
increase the sense of realism. When you release the second joystick button
control of the plane is returned to you as your "head" turns back.
On a 386/33 this is a rather slow process, but even another option is
available. You can select to use the mouse as a padlock view while you
continue to fly the plane with the joystick. Not only that, but the screen
only updates when you stop moving the mouse, so looking behind you can be as
fast as it takes to snap the mouse quickly to one side. Then, continuing to
fly the plane, you can casually move the mouse around an entire half-sphere
and view everything around you like a real F-16 pilot would. I found this
feature enormously useful and something all sims should have.
THE MISSIONS
The game starts with a fairly simple mission and gives you a chance to play
around with the intermission scenes. You click on an empty bunk or cot
(depending on which base you are staying at) to save a game and click on the
other, occupied one to load a game. When you move the mouse over the person
on the cot he or she smoothly wakes up and turns to look at you. In fact,
all of the characters in the game act this way to your mouse probings. This
makes for a nice effect. You can click on people to talk to them, but the
conversations are already scripted for you. This I found disappointing, but
you DO get far greater control over the plot later in the game.
From the main base there are several places you can go: the office, where you
can talk to the squadron's accountant (see PLOT), the barracks which I have
described in the last paragraph (nice digitized and semi-digitized pinups of
male and female models are provided in the barracks for you to gaze at...
reminiscent of Wing Commander 1 Secret Missions 2), and finally the truck to
take you to the airstrip (and your next mission) Click on the truck and it
starts up and smoothly turns and moves out; like all animations in the game
this is visually impressive.
After a brief chat you select which weapons you want to load your F-16 with.
This is very similar to F-15 III, knowledge of the manual or air weaponry in
general helps you to decide what to take along, although the default
selections work well for most missions.
Are you ready to fly? If not, go back to the main menu and fly a training
mission first. These are very configurable and allow you to go up against
all kinds of planes. The first thing I did was go up against a squadron of
five 747s. That's right, 747s. Those jumbo jets look strange in a
V-formation with their engine exhaust streaming out behind them. Fun to
shoot down though.
The real first mission is a fairly easy flight where you have to defend a
Hercules transport against some rebel fighters in Mirage 2000s, little
delta-winged planes from France. Fairly easy mission unless you have the
difficulty level set at Ace, and my wingman did most of the work for me. The
wingman AI seems to be quite a bit better than in Wing Commander, where they
could barely manage to finish off a solitary fighter that you had already
softened up. Here they not only take out nasties for you but even warn you
when someone is on your six. This is going to make for some real competition
on the kills sheet, although sooner or later you know you'll be expected to
take out an entire nation's defence force on your own. :)
On slower machines (like my 386/33) it is almost imperative to set some of
the easy options on, like smart targeting and radar. That way you can worry
more about flying and less about targeting. Find the plane, lock on and
boom! Usually he's gone in a nice explosion and a last word, and often a
parachute too. But soon you'll run out of those nice smart missiles and be
forced to put your Vulcan cannon into service. This is very hard especially
at a low frame rate, but I have managed to get to mission eight with no real
problems except for two missions (both involving ground attack) which I
failed to complete entirely. One of them I'm sure didn't affect the plot but
the other one did, but I'm well into the first third of the game and having
no problems. You can put the invincible options on but I'm not sure if they
let you pass to the next mission or not if you do. I'll have to try that out
later on.
THE PLOT
The game is set in 2011, after economic collapse and disaster in the United
States and around the world. Most of the states have declared themselves
independant and Quebec is also at war with the rest of Canada. You, as an
ex-military fighter jock, find yourself playing the role of mercenary in a
squadron called Stern's Wildcats (There's Chris Roberts and his kitty names
again) based in Istanbul.
You find out very early on that this is not an easy assignment. It is
difficult to tell your friends from your enemies and despite Stern's attempts
to take only the missions that have some sort of ethical payback (relief
efforts and such) the squadron is divided over whether morals should take
precedence over the bottom line. It's hard to imagine any military unit
paying for itself, but these mercenaries must constantly struggle against red
ink as they take huge paybacks from petty dictators around the world and
shell out large amounts of cash for weapons and plane replacement. Neither
the squadron's chief engineer or the accountant are particularly happy
people. The base itself is a run-down rathole that even has to suffer the
occasional attack.
Life is hard and many people end up being buried in shallow graves in a
foreign country, but instead of a clear objective to reach for (as in the end
of World War II or the collapse of the Kilrathi empire) it seems almost an
inexhaustable conflict, with the players changing every few weeks. Here's
where I start to get a bit depressed, especially after watching the evening
news and seeing what is going on in Bosnia and other troublespots in the
world. Maybe as the plot continues there will be some end goal to reach for
(in fact I am sure of it) but at the moment it is just more pointless
killing, and even though pointless killing is the sort of thing I LIKE to
have in a computer game, it is too realistic here to be enjoyable all of the
time. I noticed this towards the end of Wing Commander II, too. When the
CHARACTERS start getting tired of fighting, this translates rather quickly to
the player. But how can you stay away from those gorgeous graphics and
sounds...
BUT IS IT LINEAR, OR DO YOU HAVE SOME SAY IN THE MATTER?
One of the biggest draws towards Strike Commander for me was the promise of
having some control over the storyline, not sitting back like the stunt pilot
and watching your double act out your life for you. This is hard to achieve
in a computer game and I wasn't surprised to find the options quite limited
in SC. From the very beginning it is obvious that Stern is grooming you for
command, making you watch as he reprimands other pilots, for example, and
your character is very much his protege. For the first few minutes you watch
and learn, with no interactivity at all except choosing who to talk to in the
intermediate scenes.
But when you unexpectedly have to take command of the squadron yourself,
things change. Now you have TOO much to worry about. Forget equipping your
plane, you have to also replenish the base's stock of armanents and keep
track of expenses! As if I didn't have to worry about money in the real
world, now here's a chance to play with some high stakes and throw away a
million or two while watching the accountant sweat. Then you will be
expected to choose missions (usually only three are offered to you) on the
basis of payback and difficulty level, which you must determine for yourself
after a brief conversation with the shady types in Selim's bar in Istanbul.
You also get to choose who your wingman will be, which may prove useful in
the more difficult missions. I can't wait to have to decide who to chew out
and who to praise. This is very much a love/hate thing, I love the options
but hate having to worry about them all the time. However, this is what
makes for a great game and is also a step forward from the Wing Commander
series. It involves you more closely with the game and that is a good thing.
CONCLUSIONS
Aside from REALLY wanting a 486/66 (but not too happy with the $900
motherboard cost), there are quite a few things about this game to praise. I
haven't found any bugs so far, quite a difference from Wing Commander II, and
quite impressive for such a large game. I'm sure they will arise for some
people on some systems but on mine it is quite stable, although I haven't
added a disk cache yet (so used to OS/2 where it is built-in!) and that may
make things more complicated. The cache seems quite necessary, though, and I
certainly have the RAM for it.
I don't usually like flight-sims that much, prefering to get my action in
deep space where there are no stalls and no ground to crash into, but Strike
Commander is worthy of replaying. The difficuly level can be adjusted so
finely that everyone from bonehead joystick mashers (like me) to top-level
ace flight-sim nuts will have fun with it, and there is a reward (in the
terms of more points and a higher score) for flying with the difficult
options on.
What this game REALLY makes me wish for is Wing Commander III. Without a
ground horizon (I hope they make planetary forays very optional) the
framerate should be much higher, and I'll probably have a 486 by then anyway.
We know that Wing III will see the end of the Kilrathi Empire so there's
something to look forward to and not the depressing plot of Strike. And the
thought of seeing those lovely Kilrathi capital ships in their TRUE
perspective without bitmap jerking and blockiness but with mouth-watering
detail just makes me drool. And a smooth padlock view in a Morningstar Mark
II will be an incredible experience.
The future is here, courtesy of Origin. I raise my glass to them and hope
that they NEVER stop advancing the cutting edge of computer games.
--
Jeremy_Reimer@ | "Get rid of the debt, but don't raise my taxes.
mindlink.bc.ca | And don't cut the services I want. Free competition
---------------| for all, but protect our industries. We need a three-
aka THE JAGUAR!| party system but it's a crime that someone could get
---------------| elected with < 50% of the popular vote."
Vancouver, BC! | WE GET WHAT WE DESERVE.
JOHNATHAN LEWIS HARRIS
In article <23...@mindlink.bc.ca>, Jeremy...@mindlink.bc.ca (Jeremy
Reimer) writes:
>
> BUT IS IT LINEAR, OR DO YOU HAVE SOME SAY IN THE MATTER?
Well, sorta, you have to do all of the missions in the game, but what
order you take them (and once I think there is a mission you have the option of
refusing permanantly) from Selims, and yes all of a sudden, you fly a final
mission, and YOU WILL KNOW when that is because it ties up a few loose ends in
the game.
And folks, I've BEATEN this game one a 386/16 don't fuss about the speed.
Johnathan Harris
jlha...@eos.ncsu.edu