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- A hyper-realistic simulation of the Block 50/52 F-16 Fighting Falcon combat jet set against a conflict in Korea. An excellent dynamic campaign system takes player.
Falcon 4.0 Hasbro Interactive, Inc. You're flying the F-16 'Fighting Falcon', a U.S. Air Force fighter, over the skies of Korea. The learning curve is VERY steep and will take time to learn, let alone master. There is a way to 'jump in and fly' so the game can be enjoyed by anyone, regardless of experience.
Overview
It's a bird. It's a plane. It's a game. It's a sim. Microprose has packed quite a lot into its comprehensive simulation of the F16 Falcon. Indeed, they should have. After 3+ years of intense development, Microprose rushed the sequel to its Falcon 3.0 classic into stores just before the 1998 holiday season. Discussions continue to evoke both joy and frustration throughout a cautiously hopeful sim community, as the can't-live-with-it, can't-live-without-it theme becomes more and more apparent.
Gameplay, Controls, Interface
In no way can Falcon 4.0 be compared to an arcade flight game. There are no exaggerated explosions, no futuristic weapons and no corny AI voices (well, maybe a few). There is nothing theoretical about Falcon 4.0's weapons, avionics or flight model. Every component of Falcon 4.0 attempts to emulate the real aircraft -- and at a fraction of the cost, I might add! By tweaking a few interface knobs, the game can be dumbed down to an easier level of play depending on the pilot's flying abilities and social life.
Falcon 4.0 lacks no feature. A few of the big ones that come to mind are dynamic campaign, mission builder, cooperative multiplay, active cockpit, excellent graphics and an accurate flight model. Falcon 4.0 is the first sim to tout all these features in one package. One has to applaud the aggressive development team at Microprose.
What's the problem, then? The features are many, but not all are in perfect working order. The bugs are too minute and too numerous to mention. Besides, the bugs are rapidly crawling into Microprose programmers' pesticide. It is true that Falcon 4.0 is getting better all the time, but the casual simmer may want to wait until all the fixes are in. Patch 1.07 is expected in June 1999.
Falcon 4.0 sports Instant Action, Dogfight, Tactical Engagement and Campaign over the entire nation of Korea. The terrain is vast, the weapons are many, the battle is now. In Campaign mode, the pilot interacts in an AI-controlled, real-time air/ground war. In addition to gaining air superiority, pilots must stop advancing enemy ground units by cutting off their supplies, blowing bridges, crippling infrastructure, etc. The outcome of the campaign is affected by player performance.
Graphics
You won't see very many sims flying circles around Falcon 4.0's graphics. Pilots can expect to see a similar look as European Air War, but with much more detail, especially in the terrain and cockpit. The same brown palette tints the screen of both Microprose titles. The widespread interest in Falcon 4.0 so far has yielded several custom cockpits and other user replacement art downloadable via the Internet.
Audio
There are a variety of quality sounds in Falcon 4.0. Taking a peek into the game's sounds directory reveals 11 individual impact sound files, 11 bomb sounds, and tons of cockpit and other sounds. The diverseness is refreshing after flying so many sims with a single sound representing gunfire or bombs or engine noise. The effort to mimic real-life sounds is a big plus.
System Requirements
Minimum: Pentium 166 Mhz, Windows 95/98 with DirectX 5, 32 MB RAM, high color graphics 800x600x16-bit high color, 4X CD-ROM drive, 175 MB free hard drive space, joystick, DirectX-compatible 16-bit sound card
Recommended: Pentium II 266 Mhz, Windows 95/98 with DirectX 5, 64 MB RAM, 3D graphics accelerator (Direct 3D or Glide), 8X CD-ROM drive, 400 MB free hard drive space, joystick with throttle, DirectX-compatible 16-bit sound card
Multiplayer: null-modem serial cable, Windows compatible 28.8kbps modem or faster, or local area network with TCP/IP protocol
Documentation
I don't normally get too excited about documentation, but the 600-page manual may be the most thorough in gaming history. Get ready to stay up late at night with a highlighter.
Bottom Line
Falcon 4.0 is a powerful PC simulation with boundless potential, but no matter how good it looks on paper, one hesitates to let his guard down and plunge into a sim that isn't quite ready. Virtual pilots will have to wing it until the final fixes are in. I feel sure that Microprose will not rest until its bird of prey flies high. When the wings of Falcon 4.0 are completely mended, watch out!
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Falcon 1 4 2 Download Free Online
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'This is a great day for SpaceX and the culmination of an enormous amount of work by a great team,' said Elon Musk, CEO and CTO of SpaceX. 'The data shows we achieved a super precise orbit insertion—middle of the bull's-eye — and then went on to coast and restart the second stage, which was icing on the cake.'
Falcon 1, designed from the ground up by SpaceX, lifted off at 4:15 p.m. (PDT) / 23:15 (UTC) from the Reagan Test Site (RTS) on Omelek Island at the U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll (USAKA) in the Central Pacific, about 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii.
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Preliminary data indicates that Falcon 1 achieved an elliptical orbit of 500 km by 700 km, 9.2 degrees inclination—exactly as targeted.
Falcon 1 carried into orbit a payload mass simulator of approximately 165 kg (364 lbs), designed and built by SpaceX, specifically for this mission. Consisting of a hexagonal aluminum alloy chamber 1.5 meters (5 feet) tall, the payload remains attached to the second stage as it orbits Earth.
This was the fourth launch of the Falcon 1 launch vehicle and second flight for the new SpaceX-developed Merlin 1C regeneratively-cooled engine. A 'hold before liftoff' system was used to enhance reliability by permitting all launch systems to be verified as functioning nominally before launch was initiated. A single SpaceX-developed Kestrel engine powered the Falcon 1 second stage.
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For more information about the Falcon family of vehicles, and to watch the archived video of the Falcon 1, Flight 4 launch, visit the SpaceX website at www.spacex.com.
