Customer Reviews

Falcon 4.0 (Mac)

You're tooling along in your F-16, accompanied by as many as 3 other falcons. Meanwhile, other elements are off on their own missions (attacking ground targets, escorting bombers, doing recon), *and* the enemy is scrambling planes and coordinating its anti-aircraft units in a realistic way.

Note that this game is very deep. The default settings are forgiving and there's an "instant action" mode for those of you who just want some quick fun. If you take the time to get into the game, you will find that there is a *lot* to learn. The tutorials are quite thorough, and I recommend playing them to understand the capabilities of the plane and its systems.

One nit -- I really wish the tutorials had an audio briefing. Unfortunately, you need to consult the manual with each one to understand what you need to do. An audio briefing and audio cues during the tutorial missions would have been a very useful touch, and I'm surprised they aren't there.

You absolutely need a flight-sim style joystick to play this game well. I'm using a Thrustmaster Top-Gun with four buttons and a 4-way hat switch, and it works quite well with the game. If you want to get the most out of Falcon, get a throttle control too. There's really nothing like hunting for the ECM key on the keyboard when a radar-guided SAM is flying up your tail at Mach 3.

I gave this game a 3 out of 5 only because it is not stable. On a B/W G3 with MacOS 8.6, ATI Rage 128 OEM, and 64M of RAM, it crashes randomly during startup. I've never had it crash mid-game, but I have had it crash every time I've tried to load a campaign that I had saved. END

If you have a high-end macintosh, (and I stress high-end) this is the game you have been looking for the test out your machine.

The game offers stunning photo-realistic graphics and unbelieveable sound. The manual, heavy as it is, is written by a airforce Falcon trainer, and it is very real.

However this game has numerous bugs, and those require a steep learning curve. If you want to see a sweet game, this is the one.

Geoff

If your trusty UPS deliveryman doesn't damage his back or pull a muscle, he'll (with joy) hand you the heaviest game box around--because of the weight of a massive volume that contains your instructions. It also includes the map of your keyboard, showing the 3 functions for EVERY BUTTON. This is not a joke, or an exaggeration. So after memorizing the 150 or so button functions and reading the near-200 page instruction manual, then you might be able to fly the thing...

Ok, maybe it really IS the ultimate flight sim. Unfortunately, my Uncle the 4-star USAF General and fighter pilot is now deceased, so I was unable to show him this thing--maybe he could figure it all out, but can anyone else?

Unless you feel that your tax forms are "Too Simple" and that MIT just isn't challenging enough, trust me--save your money.