paul@abekrd.co.uk (Paul Cameron) (03/08/91)
With reference to a recent request for comments on Ocean's F29 Retaliator game for the Amiga, here are a few thoughts from a humble user. I got a copy of F29 R. with my Amiga 500 last summer as part of the bundled software. At first I was very impressed with the shear size of the game. There are 4 senarios, the Arizona desert for training, the Pacific ocean, the Middle East, and Europe. Each senario has a group of missions. The missions in the Arizona desert are good `starters'. There are 10 of them and they range from hitting canvas targets and retired trucks to destroying a mock enemy command centre and a few drone aircraft. The Pacific ocean senario has 15 missions divided into 4 groups. You have to achieve the missions in the first group before you can got on to the later ones, which are obviously more and more difficult. The missions range from shooting down aircraft, sinking battleships, blowing up buildings and providing a little air support for friendly forces. The Middle East senario has 27 missions in 6 groups much like the Pacific senario. They range from hitting tanks, bridges and buildings with the odd enemy aircraft thrown in for good measure. The Europe senario has 40 missions in 6 groups much like the Middle East senario. The scenery is well presented with typical Arizona rock formations, buildings, bridges, etc. but the update rate is very eratic. Lakes and islands remain invisible until the last moment and then suddenly appear as you fly over them. You cannot fly too close to rocks or buildings. Even though you might see that you are well clear the software doesn't take alot to say you arn't. The total flying area is also far too small. Unlike something like Interceptor you can easily fly right off the map and get lost altogether with only simple help messages to get you back. Although there is an aircraft carrier in the Pacific senario it is not intended as a take off or landing point. (Pity) There is a choise of either the F29 or the F22, each one handling slightly differently. You can view the aircraft from lots of different (and pointless) angles. and the different view are as good as one would expect from a modern Amiga flight simulator. There are LOTS of weapons to choose from. Cannon, Firebolt, 120A, Sidewinder, AIM132, Backwinder, Cruise Missiles, ASALM, the now famous Maverick and a CSW. You can obtain an unlimited supply of weapons as a rooky pilot but your options are restricted to something more realistic if you opt for any of the 4 higher pilot grades. There are lots of things one can set up in the cockpit. There are 3 TV screens and each one has 3 options of display ranging from radar maps to weapons overview and even a view from a TV guided missile if you fire one ! From the Amiga system point of view the original software was a disaster !!! Some of the missions did not work properly with the map not corresponding to the landscape and some missions not running as they should. But worst of all it appeared that as the score table grew with more tried missions, it started to corrupt of game software itself. (Don't take this as gospel, it's just what it looked like.) Eventually the game would not boot from Disc 1, later it started to crash altogether. Although the manual said you could view the flight of lots of the missiles on the TV screen, only Maverick worked. Other annoying bugs promted me to return the whole package to Ocean. Two months has passed and I have just received a replacement F29 R.. The manual for the new one is MUCH nicer. An optional game-save has been added to prevent your present completed missions from being saved to disc. After my experiences on the old software I don't have the guts to save anything I have been successful on. The problem now is that the damn plane has to be set up at the beginning of EVERY mission I do, rather than the previous setup being retained for the next mission on the old software. The software STILL has faults and indeed it crashed the other day on me. Clouds have been added to the Pacific senario, and the view out of the back window that showed the copilot asleep (or dead !) now shows him wide awake ! Overall F29 R. appears to be more of an out-and-out game than a pretend flight simulator. There's lots to do but not much space to do it in, and if you can live with the peculiarities/bugs still present on the new release then it's probably worth it. Above all avoid the old version software !!!!!! Personally I still like Interceptor more !!!!