I picked up the Strike Fighters sim last week (11-8-02) after waiting years for its development.
The scope of the sim is kind of limited at this point. It has a single fictional desert terrain that borders on an ocean. There are no carriers despite having several Navy squadrons represented. There are only four flyble types (A-4, F-104G, F-100D, F-4) but there are several subvariants of the A-4(B,C,E) and F-4(B,C,D,E). There are single, stand alone missions (CAP, Escort, Ground attack, Anti-ship, SEAD) plus several campaigns where you can fly for the Navy, Air Force or Marines. You can also fly a campaign as a mercernary to gain points for better aircraft, fuel, bombs, and missiles instead of gaining rank as a military pilot.
There is no ground to air missiles or anti-aircraft fire yet implemented. There are no bomb explosions or craters. Guess its just one of those things they didn't complete on time. Napalm works great! Really nice effect. Ground units do battle with each other and its a hoot to see and hear the shells from tanks as they're fired and/or hit their targets.
For air-to-air, several aircraft have radar but rarely will you get a chance for a BVR kill. This is a mostly visual sim. You still have to maneuver your airplane into a firing position to employ the (very) short range sidewinders and guns. Damage effects are great!
Landings are too easy even at the hard setting. The airplane will tumble over and over will little damage. Flying, however is a different ballgame. The feel of flight is there. The aircraft are super responsive to control but don't seem to have superpowers. There are even some nasty control characteristics from the real airplanes modelled into this sim ex. The F-100D very poor high alpha (angle of attack) flight problems at slow speeds, especially behind the power curve. If you're not careful in low fights or on landing, you too can perform the dreaded "Sabre Dance" - Nose high, full afterburner, clawing for altitude while yawing and stalling. Sweet!
Its a little buggy but for me, the highlight are the visual effects of the sun, shadows, contrails, wingtip vapor, missile explosions, airplane damage - oh! and I did I mention the afterburners lighting up the runway at night?? very cool.
MiG
