Top Secret Magazine iF/A-18 Carrier Strike fighter

I-Magic tries yet again to bring us a quality flight simulator. Though they seem to be, ever so slowly, turning the tables. iF/A-18 is a big improvment over their previous titles. Like its predecessors, iF/A-18 attempts to mold together a game for both hard core flight simulator fans, and for the newbie's to the fight simulator genre.

Now, before I get started, let me first say that this game had a lot of potential. Its the first flight simulator aimed to simulate the new version of the F/A-18 Hornet, which was designed and manufactured by McDonnell Douglas and their associates. For a little background info, the F/A-18 is a carrier based strike fighter (Hence the name :). Its mission is be be able to fight its way into enemy territory, deliver its payload to its target, and then fight its way back out. The F/A-18 is one of the Navy's most popular aircraft, due to its sleek looks, awesome performance, and wide range of capabilities. Also, for reference, the Blue Angles (The Navy's flight demonstration squadron), fly the F/A-18 Hornet..... Now back to the game.

So, starting off with the out-of-game play, such as the start screen and menus and such. The menus are very well done, both graphically and for ease of use. There are many features and options that can be selected to be enabled or disabled, and every control in the game can be remapped for costom configurations. The background sounds are also great in the menu screens, including appropriate carrier radio chatter in the background, when your on the aircraft carrier and so on.

There are different modes of flight to choose from, to satisfy anyone from a newbie, to a real live fighter jock.

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Though the flight model doesn't quite 'feel' right. The aileron and rudder controls are great, but the elevator controls feel too sluggish at all speeds and altitudes. Realism settings can also be adjusted as well, for different difficulty settings when flying combat missions. The controls are average, and can be configured easily to accommodate costom settings and preferences. Also, to improve ease of use, iF/A-18 uses a feature that's getting more and more popular among flight simulators, its called an active cockpit. What this means is nearly every switch, button and dial in the cockpit can be clicked on, using the mouse to activate a function. This is much easier to learn than to try and memorize all of the keyboard controls.

Graphically, iF/A-18 is slightly below average. The graphics are pixilated and the graphics engine is pretty slow. Even using a 3DFX accelerator card, the graphics are still only about as good as most are in software rendering mode. Though 3dfx mode uses a few features such as transparent smoke and such, that software mode normally doesn't include. Also, I noticed, quite often, the ground textures seem to move with your aircraft, then suddenly correct itself. This is very distracting and happens too often to be overlooked. Speaking of the ground textures... From far away, the ground seems to be totally flat. Not until you reach only a few miles away, do you see how high the terrain is. This causes terrain to seemingly pop out of nowhere gradually, which can distract the player from whatever it is he/she might be doing at time.

Overall, a good flight simulator with a fair graphics engine. If your into F/A-18 Hornet and\or F/A-18 Korea, but looking for something a little different... Then this would be a good place to start looking.

Company:
I-Magic
www.imagicgames.com

Category:
Flight Sim

NOTES:

Interest: 69%
Maniability : 65%
Graphics: 68%
Sound : 65%
Originality : 79%

TOTAL : 69%

Requirements:

Operating System:
Windows 95/98

Processor:
Pentium 166MHz or better

Memory:
24 MB of RAM

Hard Drive:
NOT LISTED

Sound Card:
Windows compatible sound card

Video:
1024x768 resolution video card and monitor with DirectX 5.2

Joshua Westhoven

DEMO