I do so love Panthers and -4 and -5 Corsairs, so I went and downloaded the Targetware open beta. I mean hell it has Korea, WWI stuff and WWII Corsairs! What could be wrong with that?
Just about everything...
See I was predisposed to not like it because of a certain guy that replies to just about every thread on the Ubi Pacific Fighters (PF) boards that has a single slightly-negative comment about PF. Typically, he jumps in and says "Well Target Rabaul can do that! And better! and..." yadda yadda. Okay so you like Target Rabaul, good for you, but don't be a putz and keep posting rants about it everytime you see a thread about something not being up to someone's (usually excessively high) standards. See it's like the Fighter Squadron: Screamin' Demons skin guy, not only do I remember things, but I can wind up hating something by association with someone that annoys me in whatever way.
Anyhow I went out on a limb, DL'd it, patched it, downloaded the Korea, Rabaul and WWI mods for it and went to check it out.
The first thing that smacked me in the eyes when I loaded it up was the little title screens, man they are sweet looking. I was very, very impressed here. Unfortunately that never lasts as long as I'd (or the thing I'm supposed to be impressed with) would like.
The first thing I did gamewise of course was load up a training mission in a Corsair. Mmmm Corsairs. I panned around the cockpit, okay it looks a little narrow but I can live with that, instrument panel looks decent if a bit "flat" but hey I can deal with that too. So I push the E button to start my engine and...wow! It sounds like a real Pratt firing up. I'm liking this so far! This can't last said my pessimistic bastage inner child...unfortunately he was right, as usual.
So I go to take off. "Hmmm?" I thought, they really really want you to know these things have torque. I mean a Corsair needed some rudder to take off and cancel that out but this was crazy here, I was skidding all over the runway like Teddy Kennedy after a kegger. Not good. Well on my ninth--yeah you read that right--ninth attempt I got it up into the air. And immediately wished I hadn't.
One of the things I like in a sim is the feeling of flying, ground rush is a good way to judge that. At least to my mind. So I look out over the wing and go "huh?" See it looked like I was driving a Yugo if the terrain passing at speed was any indication. A Yugo with a bad carb even. This was very disappointing. What was even more disappointing was the ground graphics. Okay maybe I am an eye candy guy after all, but it looked bad. I mean European Air War v 1.0 graphics bad. Which is actually an insult to EAW. I could forgive that, ground modelling is tricky but it got worse, by a magnitude of 10.
So I blew myself up. That is another thing I like about Targetware, when you just can't take the pain anymore you can self-destruct your plane! How? Beats me, maybe every pilot is issued a flare pistol attached directly to the fuel fill pump but you can do it. I did this for two reasons. First, to stop the pain; and second, to try an airstart to see how she looked from on-high where Corsairs live and breathe...and stuff.
So I airstart and I was really saying appologies to EAW here for my earlier ground texture crack. I mean you guys remember the EAW "square of land" when you were up high in early versions? Well Targetware has this, but even worse instead of any fog filtering beyond the ohhhhh maybe 10 X 10 mile square of terrain you can see at 5,000 feet (yes you read that right, I'll never complain about seeing stars over 20,000 feet again...okay I will, but not till Tuesday at least) there is...wait for it...a big white flat white...WHITE bigger square that gradually fills in when you get closer to it. Wow, now that is just oh so very bad.
I was above the clouds and had the great fun of flying through them. They're small (smaller than my Corsair) little puffy cottonballs. Very badly drawn and what's even better is they're all flat! Yep they're just a texture glued into the sky by some magical gluegun. This is going downhill fast.
And so was I, I snapped...okay the flight model (FM) is weird like I said, there's a feeling of weight but waaaaay too much weight, like if you have Dom Delouise riding in the cockpit with you, okay now that was a creepy thought, forget I mentioned it. Anyhow I sure as hell didn't snap roll, more like a lolligag roll to do a split-S, and I mean lolligag, now the Corsair was noted for its great roll rate, this thing in this game, not so much.
Okay so I lolligag back up to try and pull up out of the dive, and I black out. Hey at least that's in there. I'm happy-ish they got that much right at least. Then of course I lost my happy thoughts because like the weight thing it's way overdone. I mean move your stick forward a quarter inch so the nose drops maybe, maaaaybe, 5 degrees down and you red out. Way out. Pull back on the stick and again at around 5-10 degrees up angle you black out! Yay! And I mean black way, way out.
Okay this is the final straw so I go over to Korea, hey a -4 Corsair! Maybe that's better I think. And it was! You know how? Well the wings actually reflect the terrain! It's so cool, when you snap--well okay, lolligag---roll it you can see the sun glint on the metal and then the ground reflecting in the wings as you roll. That is so cool! Too bad it's reflecting really, really bad terrain though. Unfortunately it's the last cool thing I can say. Same deal with the FM being very wonky to say the least, red and blackouts and as the final kicker: a -4 Corsair, the one noted for climbing like, well something that can climb really fast and apelike, can't climb worth a damn! Woohoo! Good reasearch (and/or) FM there guys!
In frustration I fire my guns...
I will never complain about the gun sounds in PF ever again. Okay I will, but not till next Monday at least. These things sounded like something a stoned guy would play on a one key Casio keyboard, you know those little ones that we got for Christmas when we were in Jr. High because the J. Geils Band was cool? No? Well I did, and that's what'd sound like if I gave it to a stoned guy who just pushed the B-flat key over and over and over and over again. These guns would sound better if they got the Casio version of Greensleeves playing as the gun sounds. It's just that bad.
Okay maybe it's just the Corsairs that are screwy, I think to myself. So I try a Jack, you know that neato looking little Japanese fighter? Well it isn't that neato in the cockpit, Red Baron (not 3D, not 2, the original here) had a better looking cockpit than this thing. And the red/blackouts were back, no cool wing reflections. On the bright side the gun sounds were up a notch, to B on the Casio one-key keyboard scale.
Sigh.
Okay let's try a jet, a Sabre has to give some impression of ground rush right? Yeah it does, it gives you the impression of the ground rushing up to suck you into its putridly tiled embrace. At least the gun sounds were up a notch...they sounded like Han Solo's blaster...if it were stuck on a half-second loop.
I tried a Zero, I tried a Wildcat, I still couldn't get them to behave anything like they should. The Wildcat was more like Sylvester the Cat and the Zero, well that's about the closeness this piece of dung has with how a real Zero should fly: 0%.
Oh well if you read all this you're sick, very sick...I mean you probably think I hate Targetware by now huh? Nope, I don't hate it.
I really love the splash/intro screens.
Other than that I'd rather chew on broken glass, swallow said broken glass, and follow it with an Ex-Lax chaser than have to fly in that thing. It's so bad it makes ramming your crotch into a parking meter pole seem like a less painful and saner thing to do. How far down are the thumbs on this one? Man I ate my thumbs!
And that's how it is. I'll never even think an unkind word about PF again.
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