Falcon 4.0 (Jewel Case)

by Atari

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005Y4QC
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: August 16, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,645 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Falcon 4.0 is a multiplayer air combat simulation set in the Korean peninsula with a real-time war in which you take the role of a single pilot in an F-16 jet fighter. Falcon 4.0's photo-realistic, texture-mapped graphics and detailed models of the F-16 provide one of the most realistic combat flight simulations available.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars King of Flight Sims, May 2, 2007

By 

Rottenberg's rotten book review (nyc) - See all my reviews

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Falcon 4.0 (Jewel Case) (CD-ROM)

This extremely comprehensive and demanding flight-sim appeared back in about 2000 and, after release looked like it was in trouble, dogged by both huge (then) system requirements and numerous bugs. Based on the F-16 (and following a string of hardcore sims going back to the original Falcon of 1987!), "F4" had been awaited breathlessly by fans, and arrived with numerous bugs. MPS, F4's publisher suddenly announced that they were dropping the sim, paving the way for F4's nearest competitor, "Jane's F/A-18" to become the top game for fans of highly detailed and demanding ("hardcore") flight-sims. By 2002, with the stream of flight-sims having stagnated, any good 3-year old sim still has much to offer - but the sim to beat isn't necessarily "F/A-18" (a great sim to be sure) but F4, rescued and brought to beautiful useability by a legion of on-line sim-fanatics. Having gained access to F4's source-code, these fans have crafted their own software called "Service Packs" which partly patch but mostly expand the original game. I'll keep this review confined to the original, though. In short - F4 still has much to offer.

F4 is focused on the F-16, the USAF's premiere multi-role fighter. Though F-16 sims have come and gone in hordes, F4 never lets you forget that the proof is in the execution. The flight model is demanding: slippery along each of the major directional axes and, for a light fighter, can lose energy and get heavy really quick. The avionics are also comprehensive - think that "multi-mode radar" means "air-to-air" and "air-to-ground"? Here, you'll be fiddling with modes even in "pure" situations (in which you'll be either primed for counter-air or ground-strike missions) learning the nuances of "range-while-search" or "track-while-search" modes while hunting MiGs. The range of weapons is wider than on older games - echoing the F-16's maturation from a small jet that could only fight with iron-dumb bombs and short range missiles like the Sidewinder to a more complex machine geared for "smart" bombs, anti-radiation missiles and AMRAAM in night or adverse weather. The enemies aren't slouches either (although that may have much to do with my low-grade skills).

F4's campaign is set in a futuristic North Korea (making it more topical than "Jane's F/A-18" which has you flying off Russia's arctic frontier). An elaborate setup menu allows you to tailor realism and controllability. My Thrustmater WCS/FCS setup was recognized here as quickly as on "Jane's F/A-18" (unsurprising since they both have to run through Windows's control panel - but thank heaven for small miracles nonetheless) though F4's key-mapping editor seems more stubborn than that of the other game. While the game ran well normally using my GeForce3 card, the menu appears to offer support only for 3DFx cards and not OpenGL, the API for that GeForce graphics-acceleration. Unfortunately, F4 was one of those great games that appeared immediately before the end of 3dFx's reign as the king of graphics acceleration. Sound was also an issue - with the sim modeling a great range of sounds (from the screams and roars of your engine down to the distinctive howls, clicks and whistles of each type's fire-control radar), but also suffering a lot of stuttering. Attention to detail is magnificent. Control surfaces and engine nozzles are convincingly animated and the F-16's trademark shoulder vortices appear in high-speed climbs. You can even customize the skins on both your airplane and those of your enemies. I gave mine the Israeli-style camo paint job that appeared in the "Iron Eagle" movies (now there's an idea for a sim, certainly one that can't be more unrealistic than the flick it was based on). The beauty is that, while F4 remains cutting edge by virtue of how far ahead of its time it was (and how few new sims have come to the market since then), the faster computers that can run F4 more comfortably are cheaper and more widely available.

SYSTEM ISSUES: I "flew" my F4 on a Pentium4 running at 4Ghz. XP accepted this sim out of the box (something else that "Jane's F/A-18" couldn't quite claim). Performance was largely smooth but became noticeably choppy at times even on simple "instant action" flights. In more elaborate game play - especially during dynamic campaigns - F4 reveals itself an incredible hog for just about every resource your computer has: the CPU, main memory, graphics memory etc. Worse, F4 suffers an acute "memory leakage" problem: as you'd expect, it takes a lot of RAM to "create" each of those enemy tanks and soldiers and endow them with AI (but not so much that they don't just turn north and run for cover), but the program doesn't de-allocate or give that RAM back as quickly as it takes it away, which means that your campaigns will bog down really quickly.

In short - if you want a truly hardcore sim, one that will make you forget your machine's obsolescence, consider what your system offers but also remain informed about what each sim's fan-base offers. With tech support becoming less supportive for such games, F4 and its competitors from 1999 will always rely on the perseverance of fans to adress their flaws. For either Jane's or F4 you'll need a machine with an even 1Ghz of processing muscle. OpenGL owners should consider F/A-18 (again - no slouch), but those owning late-generation graphics cards based on 3DFx's "Voodoo" technology should get F4.