Customer Reviews

Lock On Gold

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Lock On (referred to as 'LOMAC' throughout this review) is a simulator (don't even think about calling it a game - you'll regret it) where you get to fly several modern jet aircraft in the Black Sea region, centralized on the Crimea peninsula. The game's aircraft consist of the A-10A, F-15C, MiG-29A, MiG-29K, Su-25, Su-25T, Su-27, and Su-33. If that has you a little confused, let me explain:

The A-10A doesn't really need any explaining - the Warthog is iconic in it's own right. You attack ground targets with it, preferrably with the massive gun. You also get a variety of dumb bombs and rockets, plus the ubiquitous AGM-65 Maverick missile. It's probably one of the biggest reasons to get the simulator, as it's one of the few to feature a Warthog.

The F-15C is the Eagle. It's an air superiority fighter. Find enemy fighters and destroy them - rinse and repeat. There's not much else to say about this aircraft other than it's probably one of the better dogfighters availible in the simulator.

The MiG-29s come in two versions: MiG-29A and MiG-29S. The MiG-29 is a basic front line fighter, short ranged and designed to cover friendly ground from enemy aircraft. The differences between the MiG-29A and MiG-29S is primarily in weapons - the MiG-29S has the capability to use fire-and-forget (that means you don't have to track the target for the duration of the missile's flight) R-77 missiles. The MiG-29 can also use some basic unguided ground attack weapons at the expense of air-to-air weapons.

The Su-25 is availible in two versions: Su-25 and Su-25T. The Su-25 is a very simple aircraft - in it's cockpit you won't find anything more than a HUD and some analog gauges. It's basically a simple 'bomb truck' where the primary munitions it deploys are dumb bombs and rockets. It can employ a few guided missiles, but these are difficult to use without practice. The Su-25T comes with the Flaming Cliffs expansion pack (part of LockOn Gold) and is a upgraded version of the Su-25. It features a TV display in the cockpit and some more guided weapons, plus an advanced flight model not availible to other aircraft.

Lastly, the Su-27 and the Su-33 are almost the same aircraft. The Su-27 Flanker is a advanced fighter designed to counter the so-called 'teen' series of US fighters. It's basically a mirror of the F-15C (to a degree) with strong offensive capabilities and a more straightforward design. It can carry a short range missile, R-73 'Archer', and the long range R-27 'Alamo'. There are several different variants of the latter availible to the Su-27, and the difference is usually range and guidance system. Overall, the Su-27 basically does the same thing as the F-15C. The Su-33 on the other hand, is a Russian carrier based version of the Su-27. You can take off from the Admiral Kuzenetsov (Russian aircraft carrier) and can carry some limited ground attack weaponry. It's otherwise the same as the Su-27 in terms of what it does. It can carry a massive anti-ship missile, but it's designed for air superiority.

Now that I've explained the aircraft, it's time to explain the game. There's no plot or underlying story involved in LOMAC - the rather dull campaigns have different backgrounds, and do not sufficiently describe the detail of a campaign. Instead, LOMAC prides itself on attention to detail, lots of eye candy, and enough buttons to press to make you wish you had an extra arm or two. LOMAC is not a straightforward game that you can jump into, but one that you have to learn in order to be proficient at it. Unfortunately, once you've learned a few of the aircraft, your options become limited. The campaigns might be able to hold you over for a bit, but there's so much missing from them that the replay value just isn't there. I was bored after the 2nd mission of the A-10 campaign, and the 3rd for the F-15 campaign. Even the Su-27 campaign failed to appeal me after the 2nd mission. I believe the lack of background and atmosphere really hurts LOMAC in this respect. If more detail was provided in the campaigns other than a basic breifing (political situation, causes of conflict, etc.) they might be better, but there's little to go on.

Fortunately, LOMAC comes with a mission editor, so you can keep yourself entertained for a while with this handy little tool. Eventually though, you'll find yourself looking for more, and there's no other place to go than Multiplayer. Multiplayer gives you the option of playing a cooperative game or head to head modes. Cooperative games are pretty much the same as single player missions, but with the added bonus of some real teamwork thrown in. If LOMAC were based purely on the cooperative capability, it would really shine. Unfortunately, I ask for a little bit more. Head to head is pretty straightforward, either dogfights or objective based missions. I haven't had much luck finding many head to head games, so my experience with that part is limited, but cooperative is so much better, you have to ask yourself what the point of dogfighting is other than to have a little fun.

Also, beware! The simulator has very high system requirements. You can run it on a low end system, but I definately wouldn't advise anything less than a 2Ghz processor, a video card made within the past 2 years, and at least a gigabyte of RAM. I ran it on the minimums and came to regret it.

LOMAC is a good simulator, but only a moderate game. If you took the realism out of it, you'd lose everything the game has to offer. For those of you looking for a more 'run and gun' kind of flight game, I would shy away from LOMAC. For the rest of you who enjoy the complexity, I can recommend LOMAC - but make sure you plan to play it in multiplayer more than anything, otherwise you will be disappointed with the single player game.

If you want an accurate depiction of an A-10, I suggest you try the demo out. That's one of the main reasons I bought this simulator, and while I have been pleased with it, I don't advise it to anyone looking for a quick thrill. I can't stress this strongly enough: you WILL get bitten if you approach this simulator as a game.

Otherwise, if you're looking for nice eye candy and an accurate depiction of what it feels like to fly a modern jet fighter, look no further than Lock On.

If you're expecting simple action dogfights, look elsewhere - you won't find them in Lock On.

The original Lock On with version 1.02 is awesome. However when you load the second CD with Flaming Cliffs the performance goes down. The flaming Cliffs software (CD2) only still has some bugs and glitches so I am waiting for a patch. FYI, I own a "state of the art" Custom Built Gaming PC with Nvidia 8800 GTS, AMD Athelon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ Processor with 2 GB Ram so it's not the PC and its configured right. It's just that the original Lock On CD 1 of this package works great and Flaming Cliffs CD2 software does not (thanks Ubisoft). It is still by far the best Flight Simulator out there that's why its gets 5 Stars. I am a 7000 hour Corporate Jet Pilot so this is a really good simulator ( I have flown many multi million dollar sims) even if you buy it just for the Original Lock-On 1.02 version. I run Version 1.02 with all video settings set to max and it runs flawless. Have fun!

If you want one of the most realistic jet combat sims available, Lock-On Gold just may be it. Flight modeling and attention to detail are incredible. This is a game that takes some time to master. The options and number of command imputs are almost overwhelming, but the plus is that it's highly customizable. You will need a VERY high-end system to get decent framerates, especially at higher resolutions. In fact, it is probably just now (Nov '06) that there is hardware available that can run it maxed out. I was previously running a dual-core Pentium at 4GHz, 2GB of RAM, and a highly overclocked 7900GT, and couldn't even come close. The selection of aircraft is a bit slim in my opinion. The campaigns are also a bit repetitive. But if you view it as a simulation, and not a game, then it's not too bad.

I'm a big fan of flight sims and expected that I would love this game as I have loved the Il-2 series. They both use the same base engine and some people were on both programming staff.

Unfortunately, the LOMAC team left out one major feature that is in Il-2, scaleable difficulty. There is no learning curve, there is a cliff.

A note to any game designers, making a game so in depth that trained professionals barely notice the differences is great, don't make it so that only people with years of training (be it professionally or self taught) can PLAY the game.

I knew the game was, at it's top end of it's realism settings, the most advanced flight sim yet devised. Even so, as I have been playing flight sims since I was 8, I expected that I would be able to jump in at roughly the midlevel point without problem. Even after taking into account that this would be my first jet flight sim since "Chuck Yeager's Air Combat" and therefore my most complex. Then I would be able to learn the basic controls and slowly move up the complexity as I have done with Il-2. Unfortunately, this isn't possible. You need to bassicaly teach yourself how to fly a modern jet combat aircraft, just using the game designers control scheme instead of the aircraft manufacturer's. Thankfully they did provide some very good tutorials to help you, but they aren't enough. The manual is a must, and that's a seperate purchase if you can't spend the time scrolling through the included PDF.

One major problem I found with the training materials is that they only reference the default keys, which doesn't help you if you've had to remap the keys. Since the game uses keys my keyboard doesn't have (the Right WIndows Key) and the Left Windows Key pops you to desktop in XP instead of excecuting the game's command, most people are looking at having to rebind the controls. THAT.. is quite the endevour.

While I can see the great potential of the game by watching the various movies inculded or other players have made, I (and I expect many other players) would be looking at having to devote a couple months of time to get to the point where I can actually try play the game. Quite simply, that's asking too much given the alternatives on the market.

If only reviewing Disc 1, I would have given 5/5 stars.

The Good:

1) Very realistic simulator. An understanding of basic flight mechanics is helpful.

2) Excellent choices in aircraft. With air superiority fighters and some air-to-ground specialists.

The Bad:

1) Disc 2 has Starforce (Flaming Cliffs). On my Windows 7 x64 system after installation of Disc 2 I cannot even get into the game when Starforce "decides" it doesn't want me to play. I also don't like having the Starforce software (malware) on my computer. There have been countless problems with them (just do a quick Google search).

2) No mouse selection of controls when viewing the instrument panel. It all has to be done through keyboard and joystick hotkeys.

This Game/Simulator was fun for the short time I had it working.

The next restart had me formatting and reinstalling my OS.

After learning about Starforce copy protection (Google "Boycott Starforce" for the details)
and that it was only on disc two with the "Flaming Cliffs" install;
I installed the first disc only and had a bit of trouble getting it to work on my widescreen.
The Eagle Dynamics company forum was no help at all; save one person who responded but had no answers.

After a couple of days,
I finally found a solution in adding my resolution to the config .ini file.

It worked well for the evening I played it but, the next day when I started my computer;
I had lost my DVDRom completely and my DVDR was showing as a CDRom.

Now, I have no proof that the disc 1 did this but strongly suspect that Starfoce was behind the problem.
Many have posted similar problems after installing games with that copy protection on them.

I have since stopped buying any games from companies that uses Starforce copy protection.

It does nothing to the Pirates who will, do and have gotten around it
and causes trouble for the end users who actually pay for the product.

Lots of folks play LOMAC and maybe I need to find a copy of it alone for trouble free play.

This and another game have taught me to read the reviews closely
before paying good money for something you can't or don't want to use.

CAVEAT EMPTOR!

Like posted in my discussion.

If you are looking for an arcade game, get Ace Combat.

If you want some real engaging fun, this game rocks.

If you want the most from this game, get a HOTAS and pedals. Even TrackIR.

I like this sim, the graphics are great if you have the card to drive them and you will need a hefty card if your still in AGP mode like I am.
I currently am using a HIS RADEON 1650GT and can not max out the water visuals but I am close, but this game came out in 05 and the 1650GT is a recently released card,bad coding I guess.
This sim flies well and if you can plug it to a wide screen HDTV with a decent graphics card you will have a blast flying and shooting after some practice. I do recomend this sim.

This is a incredible game (it's not even a game really). The radar is very realistic (able to beam and notch the pulse doppler effect, you are able to change the pulse repitetion frequency, and much more). The flight charactoristics are awesome in the Su 25 and 25t. The US missiles leave much to be desired, but oh well. If you get this game, you MUST get teamspeak and hyperlobby and a headset and play online.
This game rocks, however, you will be spending more money on a joystick. :)

Best combat simulator ever! Nothing left to say, but I hope they will go on with that. The programming is a bit waste of performance. Looks amazing for the age of the game, but there are graphicprogramming-techniques today which could give even more quallity with more performance!! Please eagledynamics, build another great version of this fantastic Simulator!

For all new players...use hyperlobby for multiplaying, u dont have to tell the hobbies of your parents there like u have to do at ubisoft regestration :-)