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Thursday 6 March, 2008
Summary:
Falcon 4.0: Allied Force is a combat flight simulator that sticks you in the cockpit of an F-16. The game is unique in that it simulates both air combat as well as running a full scale war in the background. Players chose from a variety of combat missions that are generated on the fly by the dynamic game engine, leading to a fresh and unique experience each flight. The 700+ Page game manual and accurately modeled avionics systems won't appeal to most gamers, unfortunately, and the steep learning curve will drive away all but the most dedicated flight sim enthusiasts.
Gameplay:
For me, however, just knowing that I may never actually master this game, especially with all of the realism and difficulty settings set to maximum, makes the game that much more appealing. Since there is no real story line in this game, the wealth of content along with assurance that there will always be some aspect of the gameplay left to uncover and master are what keep the game fresh and exciting.
There are two main theaters of operations that the game can be played in: Korea and the Balkans. Within each theater are three playable campaigns with different victory conditions for each one. In the Korean theater, the adversary is a fictional and somewhat well equipped North Korea who has broken peace and attacked South Korea. You fly for the United States, which has stepped into the theater to help South Korea repel the invasion.
The real hallmark of this game is it's dynamic campaign engine. Essentially, the game generates a campaign and coordinates the movements of hundreds or thousands of units within a scale model of the Korean peninsula or the Balkans in real time. Just to give a glimpse of the depth of what the game engine is doing, there are nearly 200 different airbases in the game amongst friendlies and foes, each of which is home to at least one squadron. Each individual squadron will have a number of aircraft, for example 24 F-16s, that can be dispatched to fly missions. At the onset of the campaign, my F-16 squadron is given a list of missions with different take off times, priority levels, destinations, and targets. In this instance I chose a SEAD mission. My objective is to suppress enemy air defenses around Pyongyang so that friendly aircraft can fly missions over enemy territory with less risk of getting shot down. The mission calls for a flight of 4 F-16s from my squadron. So I load my aircraft with the appropriate armament of anti-radar missiles needed to successfully complete the mission, and take off, making sure to have proper clearance from air traffic control so that I don't get court martialed.
Half way into my mission, and still over 100 nautical miles away from my destination, my flight of 4 F-16's is joined by a flight of 4 F-15s from a Fighter Squadron stationed in Seoul. We are in fact all part of a larger package of aircraft. Since I am the only human player in this campaign, the other aircraft in the package, including the ones in my flight, are flown by complex A.I. who will follow your flight patterns and commands. My flight's objective is to clear enemy air defenses while the F-15s are tasked with escorting me to the target and fending off enemy fighters. An additional element in the package is a flight of 2 F-16s, tasked with photographing the bomb damage to see how well my SEAD mission went. If my mission were to fail and the recon element of the package reported that the target was still in tact, the game engine might generate followup SEAD missions.
The outcome of all missions are taken into account by the game engine which it uses to form an understanding of how the campaign is progressing so that it can generate appropriate additional missions. Now imagine that at any given time during the peak of the campaign there could be 50 or 100 such packages being flown by both friend and foe, with missions ranging from airlifting troops and supplies across Korea to escorting a tanker plane as it loiters on the battlefield waiting to refuel other planes. Did I mention all of this is happening in real time?
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