Fighter Ace 3.5

Fighter Ace 3.5

Publisher: Jaleco

Entertainment

Platform: Windows PC

System requirements:

Pentium III 500MHz;

256MB RAM; 32MB 3D

accelerated video card

Retail: $19.99 (plus

$9.95/month or $49.95/6

months for online play

Website: http://fighteracejaleco.com

Highs: many flyable aircraft (96!), first-rate graphics and visuals as well as excellent tutorials and documentation; free 3-month online subscription for all new subscribers.

Lows: graphics can't quite match the best visuals in some offline sims, e.g., IL-2 Sturmovik, and there are some online lag issues. Online communities for Fighter Ace are robust but lack the depth and breadth of those available for Warbirds III and Aces High.

Bottom line: even in the crowded skies of the online WW II flight-sim market, Fighter Ace 3.5 manages to stand out in many areas. Jaleco/VR1 have kept the Fighter Ace franchise impressively competitive, especially the latest version. Ready to consider the world of online flight combat? Fighter Ace 3.5 should be at the top of your list.

This month, I look at the latest update to Fighter Ace-one of the most popular and long-lived massively multiplayer WW II aircombat sims, and I review the latest (and most impressive) product add-on from Wilco Publishing for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002.

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Originally developed by VR1 Entertainment and published by Microsoft for play on the MSN Gaming Zone, the multiplayer Fighter Ace line has gone through a host of changes over the last year or so. VR1 decided to strike out on its own and sever its relationship with Microsoft in early 2002 (as detailed in June 2002's "Virtual Pilot"), but soon thereafter it merged with Jaleco USA to form Jaleco Entertainment. Despite all of the corporate upheavals, this latest iteration of Fighter Ace emerges as a strong competitor to other online flight sims, most notably Warbirds and Aces High.

This latest version has 16 new aircraft (a grand total of a whopping 96 plane types!) and a host of other features, including new game maps, additional training missions and new film recording and playback features.

The heart of Fighter Ace is still the online multiplayer option, and this version allows players to choose from among five combatants (United States, Great Britain, Germany, the Soviet Union and Japan) and then fly in a number of simulated arenas, including several historical (and fictional) scenarios such as the Battle of Midway, the Battle of Britain and other significant WW II air battles.

Getting started in the Fighter Ace universe is now even easier with help from the Fighter Ace Volunteer Group (www.favg.org)-a community website staffed by Jaleco representatives and Fighter Ace expert players who can help new players get up to speed quickly.

The nature of the Internet makes online play for most games prone to varied "lag" or slowdown, and I experienced it while playing Fighter Ace 3.5 online. Jaleco is working hard to address these problems; check the official Fighter Ace website frequently for the latest network status.

Minor Internet slowdown problems aside, Fighter Ace 3.5 is clearly a top contender among massively multiplayer combat flight sims.

Airport 2002: Volume 1

Highs: the excellent details and a wealth of animation provide a good simulation of the ground activities at the included airports. Boeing 737-700 cockpit view is a nice bonus, and the extra sound effects and animation enhance the immersion qualities of the product.

Lows: included documentation could be more robust, and users who run Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition (Windows ME) may have some technical problems (see the Wilco Publishing website for details).

Botton line: an excellent, high-quality airport scenery package adds an impressive number of details to any Flight Simulator 2002 experience; highly recommended. A prolific publisher of add-on scenery packages for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000, Wilco Publishing has thrown its support behind Flight Simulator 2002 with Airport 2002: Volume 1.

Its main attraction is an impressive assortment of the world's busiest airports modeled in 3D with painstaking detail. Four U.S. airports are included (Atlanta Hartsfield; Chicago O'Hare; Los Angeles International and Dallas/Fort Worth International), as well as Heathrow in London, Munich International in Germany and Charles de Gaulle in Paris.

Installation is a snap, and accessing the installed airports is straightforward enough to have you on the taxi runway at any of these airports in no time at all. The details are impressive, and Wilco claims that its FS NAT (new animation technology) allows even more complexity, especially with regards to ancillary animations seen in the game world-moving ground vehicles, baggage cars, etc. Regardless of the technical details of the technology, all of this extra complexity makes the simulated flight experience more immersing and more enjoyable.