Strike Fighters: Project 1 was supposed to be in beta still and this was supposed to be a preview. In a surprise move, however, Strategy First began shipping the title today (to even the developer's surprise) so this article may, in fact, be a review. At any rate, our Aaron "Spectre" Watson shows us the very latest in this very cool Vietnam-era jet simulation.

When will they learn to not snatch beta code away from developers and ship it? I haven't had a chance to fiddle with a build of this one, so I can't really make any predictions - but I can't really be too optimistic either for that same reason. I'd like to believe that they'll "finish the game" in patch form, but still, the policy (which I consider correct) of most magazines of reviewing what came out of the box and not waiting for a messianic patch effort will probably make things look a lot worse than the final result will be - say, in a month or two from now.

The statement that the developers were surprised that their publisher shipped it has transformed my opinion of "OOH, I gotta get this thing on release day!" to "Hrm... I'll hang onto my wallet and see what everybody else says."

It's funny - I was tough on WWII Online for being a mess when it came out. Strategy First bitched at me for being mean. Then they go and do this...ok, whatever.

From what I have been told, and I don't think it is a secret, multiplayer is not included in the retail version of Strike Fighters. Instead, Strategy First has plans for a multiplayer patch that they expect to release a couple weeks after the game ships.

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And, concerning the multiplayer, it is currently not at all operational. That, and a
few other things, are not in gold condition, as eluded to in the article.