iF22 has come a long way since its August release. There's a new campaign disk and theatre of operations, for one. And iMagic Labs has been cranking out a continuous stream of patches containing performance improvements, fixes and tweaks to this popular jet sim. Here's a look at the latest campaign disc, and some of the features that can be found in recent patches.

Test System:

• 266MHz PentiumII
• 64 meg of SDRAM
• Quantum Fireball 4.3gig UDMA hard disk
• Matrox Mystique (2Mb)
• Diamond Monster 3d (Voodoo)
• SoundBlaster-16
• Thrustmaster WCS, RCS, & Frankenstick (FCS handle on a CH Flightstick base)

Scenario:

The year is 2002. On the third of June, an explosion rocks Ba'ath Party headquarters in Baghdad, killing Saddam Hussein and several members of his cabinet. With the deaths of so many of the ruling clique and no clear successor, the Iraqi government falls into disarray.

As the smoke clears, it is learned that Shi'ite separatists planned and executed the attack under the leadership of Ahmad Saadi, a former Iraqi, currently in exile in Iran. His intention was to use the ensuing chaos to form an independent Shi'ite state of Southern Iraq, and in doing so, 'liberate' the predominantly Shi'ite city of Basra.

Two weeks later, for the first time since 1988, Iran and Iraq find themselves at war. The undisciplined Iraqi army crumbles beneath the coordinated air, artillery and armor attacks brought forth by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, fighting on behalf of Ahmad Saadi. Within four days, Iran clearly controlled the Shatt-al-Arab waterway (Iraq's only outlet to the Persian Gulf) and the city of Basra. With the Iraqi's inability to mount an effective counter-attack, the 'Islamic Republic of Basra' (IRB) was born.

In spite of protests from the US, UN, and even several Gulf states, neither Iran nor Iraq were willing to cease hostilities. In addition, border incidents between Kuwait and the 'Islamic Revolutionary Militia' were on the rise.

On July 9th, in a final act of defiance, Iran launched a massive ground offensive against Kuwait, occupying the capital and most of the country in a single day. Unwilling to ignore this most blatant act of agression and in honor of existing mutual support treaties, American, Saudi and Gulf Cooperation Council enter combat with Iranian forces.

Ok, so where do I fit in?

Your F22 squadron is part of the multinational force protecting the remaining Kuwaiti territory and Saudi Arabia. Allied forces are flying round-the-clock sorties against targets in Kuwait, Southern Iraq and Southern Iran. Unfortunately, as iF22 simulates day flights only, you personlly will never see a night mission in this campaign.

Allied objectives are as follows:

• 1. Protect friendly airbases in the region.
• 2. Establish air superiority over the battlefield.
• 3. Protect the Saudi oilfields.
• 4. Liberate Kuwait.
• 5. Push Iranian forces back across the Shatt-al-Arab.

Who's gonna stop me?

Iran utilizes Russian hardware. According to the manual, the MiG-23 and Su-25 are the most common aircraft in the Iranian inventory, but I've seen my share of Backfires and Flankers. The entire array of opposing forces deployed in the region is listed below. Any one of them could ruin your whole day:

Installation:

Installation of the Persian Gulf Theatre add-on requires two steps. First, you must upgrade your iF22 installation to version 3.2 or later. The autorun program on the cd will allow the user to upgrade to version 3.2, but I strongly suggest downloading the 3.3 patch from the Interactive Magic website. The 3.3 patch contains 25 additional fixes and tweaks that will make your gameplay more enjoyable. Some of the features discussed in this review are only available in version 3.3.

Part two of the installation is accomplished in the Theatre Setup screen after starting the game. As with the original theatres, you have the option to copy the 275 megabytes of terrain data from the cd to your hard disk. If you can spare the disk space, it pays for itself in faster load times and reduced in-flight pauses.

Documentation:

Printed documentation is pretty sparse. A 21 page cd insert gives historical information about the scenario along with a list of friendly and enemy forces you may encounter in the region. Page 12 of the insert contains a 3"x3" map of the entire Persian Gulf. Note that those are inch markers on the map dimensions, not feet. This came as a bit of a disappointment after receiving a full ONC with the original theatres.

Online documentation though, is excellent. Both the Flight Manual and the Dash 34 operations manual are available on the cd in .PDF format, along with an installable Acrobat Reader.

Mission Planning:

Many fixes have been applied to the mission planning portion of the game. For one, aircraft will no longer have overweight default loadouts. Another significant change is that the fuel planning calculations were revised and reduced. In practice though, the new fuel calculations are based on the loadout "as fragged", and are not dynamically updated as you add or remove ordinance. This has gotten me into trouble once or twice when I decided to pack along a foursome of AGM-88's in case the air defenses over my CAP area became bothersome. It's a litte disconcerting to hear bitchin' betty call 'Bingo' several miles short of your target area. I suggest adding a few thousand pounds of extra fuel prior to each mission. You won't regret it...

Appearance:

Much of the campaign takes place along the shores of the Persian Gulf, so there is a lot more water than one would expect for a desert scenario. The relatively shallow waters near the shore and the light sandy bottom of the Persian Gulf make for a spectacular view from the air. The desert has character as well, but don't expect the mountainous terrain of Bosnia or the Ukraine. The desert is quite flat. Nonetheless, I believe this is my favorite terrain to date, in part due to its beauty, and in part because current events so often center on this region of the world.

Objects in the 3d world retain the same look as in the other two campaigns. Smoke still "oozes" from its source, which is particularly annoying when you're on the bogey's six in a knife fight. Fire a few rounds up his tailpipe and you lose sight the target completely behind an undulating grey blob of "smoke". If you didn't kill him with the first burst, you may as well use a missile. Why waste your remaining lead on a target you can't see? And who has the time or the fuel to set up a high angle deflection shot?

On a clear day the sky is still heavily "banded". When it's overcast, the cloud layer still looks like a piece of grey wallpaper stuck to a very flat sky. The clouds still have an abrupt "edge" where they meet the haze on the horizon. None of this is new, but it's still surprising that with photorealistic detail on the ground, the folks at iMagic didn't spend a little time updating the appearance of the sky. The two together just don't fit. There's no excuse for banding when you're using 16 bit color and 3d hardware. As for the clouds? I still just turn 'em off.

AI:

Wingman in particular seem much more intelligent. If while enroute to the target your wingmen detect an incoming missile, they break formation, using chaff, flares or advanced maneuvers as required in an effort to spoof the missile. When the danger has passed, they quickly rejoin on your wing.

In combat, your wingmen will make better weapons selections and make more realistic bombing runs than before, including second passes when necessary. Wingmen will now attack their last assigned target, even if they are already tracking a previously assigned target. They respond to your orders more quickly, and take care to not all speak at the same time. Last, but not least, AI planes now have the decency to create a proper fireball when they hit the ground, rather than simply punching a hole in the earth.

Ordinance:

You'll have all your old favorite A/A and A/G weaponry to play with in this new scenario, but some weapons behavior has changed since the initial release of iF22. The AAMRAAM missile is now much more maneuverable, the maximum range of the HARM missile has been corrected, and cannon fire is now oriented with the nose of the plane.

One thing I've noticed only recently, but perhaps it's been this way all along: when releasing a non-powered weapon such as the GBU-31a from an external hardpoint, no audio cue is given. One has to keep a careful eye on the ordinance count in the HUD to determine if your weapon released or not. It seems that if you drop a 1980 lb object from your leftmost hardpoint, an audible sound should be in order, as well as a momentary dip of the right wing when the weapon is released. Maybe in the next patch.

Avionics:

For those who found the original HUD colors distasteful, several new colors are available from which to choose. The amount of thrust being generated by your left and right engines is now displayed on the HUD above the indicated airspeed. Additionally, the full forward view (F2) now includes a full HUD display, including "Shoot" cues and the enhancements listed above.

All enemy radar sources used to appear on your MFD's in red, making it difficult to evaluate the threat posed by any given emitter. In version 3.3, radar sources that are not an immediate threat to your aircraft, such as control towers and EWR's, are now displayed in yellow. Also, when flying ground attack missions, your mission goals appear on the MFD's at all times, not just when you're close.

iMagic has added the option to use a more realistic, reduced, Radar Cross Section for your aircraft. Choosing this option makes you very hard to spot, and certainly takes away some of the challenge, but this is supposed to be a stealthy plane afterall. If it makes you feel better, crank up the enemy skill level when using this option.

Another bit of added realism is the autopilot. If your engines are damaged or out of fuel, the autopilot ceases to function. Flying an multi-engined aircraft with unbalanced thrust, or deadstick, is no easy task. If you're in hostile airspace, it's all the more exciting. If you're unfortunate enough to find yourself in this situation, try the improved "Request steers to home" option on the UHF, followed by a "Cover me" command to your wingmen. They do a decent job of keeping the bad guys at bay.

Summary:

If you liked the original game but are due for a change of scenery, you'll love the Persian Gulf. The terrain is unlike anything you've seen in either previous campaign, and US involvement in this region is somehow more believable than it was in the others. But if you were hoping for major new features, you won't find anything here that you can't find in the latest patches. Perhaps someday iMagic will add fog, turbulence or night flight to a future version of their F22 sim. Then again, perhaps not. In the meantime, they've breathed new life into their creation with this new campaign disk - enough to keep us entertained while we wait...

Warren Rice still has a copy of the first sim he ever flew: SubLogic's Flight Simulator, which he purchased in 1980. The sim was wire-frame, fit on an SSSD 5.25" floppy, and ran on a 1MHz Apple //e. It's successor, Flight Simulator II, was eventually ported to the IBM PC, and evolved into Microsoft Flight Simulator as we know it today. Four years ago, he realized his lifelong dream and became a private pilot. He's lived happily ever since.