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Nations: Fighter Command by Jim "Twitch" Tittle
 

  MAY DAY!

The kills require luck since the camouflaged enemy planes are too easily lost against ground clutter, dark clouds, the lazy prop animation or the forest fire smoke boiling out of the nose guns. Once he is out of the windscreen view he will be near impossible to visually pick up again once you come around and re-acquire him in the same view screen. I kept getting the feeling that I wanted to stick my head out of the virtual cockpit and look around all this distraction.

The over all feel is one of depression. I've never experienced this dungeon-like atmosphere. The Doom feel has no place in a flight sim. I had to balance my time in Fighter Command with uplifting romps in European Air War to stay sane.

You can't lock on to one target and mark it. I feel this is essential until one becomes accustomed to a particular flight sim. Your only choice is padlock which, described earlier, gives a jerky switch back view scene.

There needs to be a feature that artificially provides contrast between the aircraft you are pursuing and the dark background. Set up a twilight or evening mission in EAW and you'll see what I mean, in EAW the planes are visible.

Multi-Player

There is a multi-player mode that, frankly, I had no desire to try given my overall impression of the single player mode. Perhaps misery loves company but I can't see many folks interested in it.

Click to continue

 

 

P47 on Ship Kill
Warhawk on a Ship Kill.

Ship Kill
Raiding the Fleet.

Fighter Command has some good things but they are overshadowed by the bad. It's as though there was no project manager to pull it all together. They did not integrate the whole package as a cohesive entertainment product. To put it in concise terms, where it is a matter of "buy" "don't buy," I'd have to say don't buy.

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Last Updated December 28th, 1999

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