rsilvers@hawk.ulowell.edu (Amigas Dominate) (03/12/88)
Review of SubLogic Jet.
Jet has been a much awaited program that was released about two weeks ago
by SubLogic. I have had it since Monday, march 7th.
The graphics are incredibly smooth, and very detailed. It is much faster
than Flight Simulator-2 and provides more realistic scenery. If you have
neither, buy Jet first. One thing that you will notice if you already have
Flight Simulator-2 is that most of the keyboard controls are the same. This
is very useful, and if you can already fly Flight-Simulator, you can learn Jet
in under 10 minutes. One thing that you may notice is that there are no pull
down menus at all. Do not interpret this as meaning that it is a port from
the PC. It is unmistakably Amiga. If any program pushes the Amiga to it's
limits, this is it.
There are a few interesting features in Jet. One of them is the missiles-eye view. After you fire a missile at your enemy, you can hit 'a' and you will
see what the missile sees right up until it destroys your target. This view
reminds me of some on the displays in the tv. show Air Wolf. (Did they have a
beta release? ;-) Another neat feature is being able to save views for later
use. Lets say that you have the front view set on a wide-angle display, have
the radar screen in the upper right, and a second view of your plane in the
lower left. Just hit SHIFT-[1..0] (any number key) and it will save the view.
Later, just hit that number and it will all pop back up.
For weapons, you have a choice of AIM-9 SideWinder missiles (heat-seeking,
5 mile range), AIM-7 Sparrow missiles (radar guided, 25 mile range), and 500
rounds of 20mm cannons. For ground strikes you can also choose air-surface
missiles with a 14 mile range, or optically-quided smart bombs. The missile
can be locked onto the targets with the heads-up display, and will usually hit
the Soviet Migs. There is also a multi-player dog-fight mode in which you can
connect with another Amiga via a modem or null-cable. This is a blast. Human
targets are much harder than the computer-generated ones, plus, the satisfaction
of shooting down your best friend is very gratifying. When you hit him, he has
a few seconds to eject. A guy actually comes out with a parashoot, and floats
to the ground. He will later get a purple heart for being shot down. (At the
end, you get medals for your victories.)
When you fly against the computer, you have a choice of a land-based f-16,
or a carrier based f-18. Other options include dogfighting, or combined air-
land strikes. The game is scenery disk compatible with Flight-Simulator. I
had a lot of fun buzzing the Statue of Liberty in New York. Can't shoot it
though. (bummer)
In multi-player mode, I sometimes had a problem with missiles not locking
on. I originally thought this is bug, but when I cut the baud rate down from
some 57,000 to 19200, it seemed to decrease in occurence. We were using about
a 30 foot cable.
To sum it up, this is, if not the best game for the Amiga, at least in the
top five. I would call it a "must have" to play and to show others what the
Amiga can do. The PC version pales by comparison. This is one program that
should definatly be bought, not pirated. Programmers this good deserve to get
paid for their effort.
--Rob.
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|Robert Silvers. |
|University of Lowell. ______ |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) (03/12/88)
rsilvers@hawk.ulowell.edu (Robert Silvers) wrote: >This is one program that should definatly be bought, not pirated. >Programmers this good deserve to get paid for their effort. You mean there are programs that should be pirated? ..Bob -- Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept. page@swan.ulowell.edu ulowell!page "Why? It's the heat." -- Laurie Anderson
cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (03/15/88)
In article <5400@swan.ulowell.edu> (Robert Silvers) writes: > Review of SubLogic Jet. > In multi-player mode, I sometimes had a problem with missiles > not locking on. I originally thought this is bug, but when I > cut the baud rate down from some 57,000 to 19200, it seemed to > decrease in occurence. We were using about a 30 foot cable. Well, I believe you have misinterpreted that cause and effect here. My personal feeling is that your missles could not lock on because the other player was not flying straight. You see in real life the only time a radar guided missle can lock on is when you have pointed at the target for >5 seconds. During that time it acquires the targets "signature" and can home in on that. If the opponent keeps moving then the signature keeps varying and the missle can't lock on. Unfortunately with the low resolution of the display a lot of this movement is undetectable to you. I was playing at one of the local Amiga stores and my opponent claimed that the system was broken because he couldn't 'lock on' to me. After several reboots and restarts (I could lock on just fine) we switched machines and what do you know? The problem switched machines as well! Leading me to believe it was cockpit error rather than software error. The other thing we were wondering but never figured out, was the effect of one person playing at level 9 while the other person played at level 1. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
ross@swan.ulowell.edu (Ross Miller) (03/15/88)
I often find that I will not purchase a program until I see multiple good reviews of it. Well here it is, buy Jet. If you like a game that can be played long and hard, lots of difficulty levels, including no difficulty (no enemy fire), then this is it. Strategy, don't pull up to high or you are spotted on radar. Can you keep your velocity straight up with a magnitude high enough to out run the missle? I have waited since I saw the beta for this in Nov. 85. I bought it as soon as it came out. I normally do not like games, but this one is worth the time. Very well done. The programmers of this game deserve a lot of credit. It is one of the best game interfaces that I have dealt with. Anything annoying? Yes, the world is small. I would like for the enemies to start off a little easier. The book does not document all the weapons to the level I would like. No weather. The pitch of the engine, which will shake your house with suitable stereo, does not match the thrust indicator. It works fine, the pitch just changes at a rate different from the guage. It doesn't save high scores. I cannot seem to get it to work from a cli, I have to cold boot. I do have 1.5Mb of memory. If you have only .5Mb of memory you do need to cold boot, but that is documented. Ross -- csnet: ross@swan.ulowell.edu uucp: ross@swan.ulowell.edu || ...harvard!ulowell!ross Trust the computer. The computer is your friend.
cs178abu@sdcc8.ucsd.EDU (John Schultz) (03/16/88)
In article <45378@sun.uucp> cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) writes: >In article <5400@swan.ulowell.edu> (Robert Silvers) writes: >> Review of SubLogic Jet. >> In multi-player mode, I sometimes had a problem with missiles >> not locking on. I originally thought this is bug, but when I >> cut the baud rate down from some 57,000 to 19200, it seemed to >> decrease in occurence. We were using about a 30 foot cable. > >Well, I believe you have misinterpreted that cause and effect here. >My personal feeling is that your missles could not lock on because the No, there really is a major bug here. We've got a 1000 & 2000 hooked up at 57000 and experience the same problem, alternating on either side. This bug never occurs on the first battle, but as soon as one player loses all of his jets or hits escape, problems begin to pop up. It would appear that this problem is caused by starting and stopping communications over the serial port. Also, the enemy sometimes does not appear on the opponents screen, nor on radar (not just radar lock). If you really want to shake up your opponent, just let him think you are playing level 1, (as he will be), but actually play level 0: you will be invicible! I've seen this happen with two players, and it's not a pretty sight when the other player figures out what is going on! John
henderso@psu-cs.UUCP (Randall Henderson) (03/25/88)
In article <5400@swan.ulowell.edu> (Robert Silvers) writes: > The graphics are incredibly smooth, and very detailed. It is much > faster than Flight Simulator-2 and provides more realistic scenery. > If you have neither, buy Jet first. One thing that you will notice... and in article <5462@swan.ulowell.edu> (Ross Miller) writes: >> ...for the enemies to start off a little easier. The book does not >> document all the weapons to the level I would like. No weather. ^^^^^^^^^ I won't argue that Jet is a fantastic program, I haven't even tried it yet, but I feel the need to point out to people who may not know it that it is not correct to compare Flight Simulator 2 with a game like Jet. When I was training for my private pilot's license I bought Flight Simulator 2 to help me learn the principles and procedures of flying. Now that I have my Private license, I am using it to train for my instrument rating, and I can dial in any level of overcast or turbulence and fly by instruments alone. FS2 is a wonderful instruction tool for pilots and would-be pilots since it was written to conform as closely as possible to real-life flying. As a result, it is also much harder than most games (and not as much fun for some - a Cessna 182 doesn't usually come with weapons). Granted, the scenery isn't that great and it's a little jerky, but you don't need great scenery to learn the principles of flight. My point is that you can use FS2 as a game but only people who are serious about flying can get the full benifit from it. So if you want to learn how to fly planes, buy FS2. If you want a game, buy Jet. PS: I posted an article earlier concerning control yokes for these games/simulators but I got no response so I'll try again. Is there anyone out there who has one of those? How good are they? The one I've seen is called "Maxx" but they only have it for IBMs and Apples.