After Hours

Like most new games, Strike Commander will operate on a normally configured PC and does not require special memory settings. It does need a lot of RAM-8Mb is recommended and 4Mb is required. Your computer must have at least 586K of RAM free, so our standard 486DX33 systems running DOS 5. 0. or DOS 6. 0 will suffice. My computer coped fairly well.

Installation takes 45 minutes, but the process is very entertaining in itself. First the files are loaded, then maps are created for each of the operational areas. These maps seem to be fractal representation mathematically produced by the installation programme, and I suspect this is where the disk space goes. There are some impressive screen displays as the maps are reconstructed.

Read the magazine style instructions, as it will give you a necessary introduction to the game. This method of documentation is very much Origin’s style. One of my favourite games was Wing Commander I and the follow up version II. You had to read the detail of the game play to find out how to operate the space fighter craft. This game is scenario based and if you are to maximise your pleasure, you will need to immerse yourself in the game, as strategy and tactics intertwine to direct the progress of the play.

Training is quite good, with two modes being offered-air- to-air and air-to-ground. I found the air-to-air quite easy to master, but this type of operation is my preference anyway. Air-to-ground is much harder, and you need to spend a lot of time working though the missions before you get any degree of success.

There are technical reasons for the difficulty. The authors have chosen to represent the usual visibility limiting haze, so you only see ground targets a few miles before you overfly. I think this is a mistake. The radar also suffers from distance blindness, and you have to rely on the map and the HUD cursor to guide you to the target. Unfortunately, and the map is not “zoomable” like in other simulations and you can’t select an expanded scale when close to the target. However, with some application, you can find the target, but it tends to “jump” out of the haze.

When you try to fly the sight cues onto the target you find another problem. While computing all the scenery at low level, the frame rate drops to around one per second. This breaks up control into jerks, making it nearly impossible to fly accurately. This is a great shame as in many other respects, this game is far superior to anything else currently on the market.

There are settings to simplify the presentations and speed up the frame rate, but even with the most coarse of settings and placing the haze at the farthest distance, I could not get a satisfactory result. No game has yet to exceed Jetfighter II in smoothness of control and the contrast is stark when low frame rates are experienced.

By way of contrast, I must congratulate Origin on the pan control for vision. I have installed the Thrustmaster controls on my computer and I use the four way “top hat” switch to look around the sky. The cockpit sills are properly displayed and you can follow a target as you would in a real cockpit. This is a great advance, but the competitive advantage will be short lived. In Strike Commander, once you touch the pan control, all cockpit displays such as the HUD drop out. I have started using Strike Eagle III and this simulation has a mode with a similar pan facility, but the displays are kept alive during the pan. Competition is a great thing, well, for customers anyway.

Gameplay is well crafted. After you sign up with the Wild-cats, you go to Selim’s bar to negotiate a mission. Part of the 35Mb of disk space is some amazing graphics. These add considerably to the realism of the game. When you return, there are transport scenes as your support C-130 takes you to the wilds of Morocco for your first mission.

The “fee” here is quite low, only $3 million. I found it quite easy to complete the first two missions and fulfil the contract, but on one occasion dipped into the ground. This meant I died in a messy fireball. Usually this means going back to the start, but the authors have kindly given you the facility to save games and restart a mission when things go a bit wrong. I think this is very sensible, as you can choose to be a purist and “die”, or replay a difficult part until you find the secret of completing the objectives.

After fulfilling the contract, you find to your disappointment that the client has welshed on payment, leaving you with a large bill to pay. “This is a bit poor!”, I thought, but then play develops that in a very neat way shows how you must act in future. You suggest a daring raid, a winner take all attack on the headquarters of the defaulting Government. On the way, you encounter some stiff opposition from aged but updated MiG-21s and Mirage Fls, but you fight your way through and suppress some peripheral ground activity. Meanwhile, your Hercules lands and you capture a whole warehouse of weapons and other saleable parts.

On return to the Wildcat base in Turkey, you talk to the accountant, Virgil, who is unexpectedly pleased with the result. Virgil is a real pain, always whingeing about the state of the bank accounts and weapons stocks. You can find the state of financial viability of the Wildcats by looking at Virgil’s ledgers. This time he is pleased as the mission is “in the black” after some spare parts are sold. I suspect the weapons captured appear in the next mission, whereas if you fail, the choice will be very restricted, making success a risky proposition. While at the Wildcat base, it is worth talking to the people you find in the “Lair”. In 2011, fighter flying provides equal opportunity employment, and the gals are more deadly, if anything, than the guys. They are even more beautiful than the jocks are handsome. The authors clearly have a sense of humour. In the barracks, try clicking the mouse cursor on the posters on the wall. There is a gorgeous “babe” and a real “hunk” that appear as a full screen graphic. Far out! There are some very interesting and innovative features in Strike Commander. The structure of the game play is a model for other simulations. The weakness is the flying simulation of the game. I found Strike Commander much harder to fly than most other simulations, because of technical weaknesses like slow frame rates. While the pan control is brilliant, other shortcomings limit your ability to orient yourself with regard to targets and airfields. One of the paradoxes of the game is that it is set in 2011, but the cockpit displays are all 70s technology.

Now for some scores.

In summary, this game has great strengths in graphics and game play structure, but is weak in the flight simulation, particularly the slow frame rates which make it hard to fly. If there is to be a “Strike Commander II”, I would recommend to the authors to remove all the non functional graphics from the cockpit and replace them with year 2000 technology that reduces the workload on the pilot and keeps you informed of the tactical situation. F-117A and Comanche Maximum Overkill are good examples.

Origin have always been leaders in the structure of gameplay and if they can lift the flight simulation to the same level, they will have a “competition killer” simulation on the market.