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Preview: Sky Fighters 2000 By Randall Markarian Published: 7/1/99

Bullseye Software just released a limited demo of their upcoming World War II flight simulator Sky Fighters 2000. This game is designed to have relatively low hardware requirements (180Mhz 603e, 12Meg of free RAM, and a 4Mb or more ATI 3D card) and it should be ideal for use on iMacs and B&W G3’s. SF 2000 utilizes input sprockets for all control devices, any joystick that you have that works with input sprockets will do just fine. While they are planning for a late July release for the full version, they have made a demo available for download from their web site. Since the download [hqx download link] was less than 3MB, I decided to give it a try. You may remember Bullseye Software from their previous release, Flying Circus<. That was a WW I based flight sim that was released last year. SF 2000 is based on a similar engine as Flying Circus, but the many improvements are obvious. With 3D acceleration provided by an ATI card (Rage Pro or higher) the scenery is attractive to look at, though not as detailed as say, Falcon 4. By the way, I tried to run it on a machine with a Voodoo 2 card (with Voodoo2 RAVE driver) and lets just say that it doesn’t work very well. So for a test run, I used a Beige G3 433mhz with Rage Pro and 8Mb of VRAM. On this Mac, it ran great. Although I could not get the framerate indicator to work, there was not a hint of jerkiness or any dropped frames while playing. The only scenario that is included in the demo is an Island world. It provides several landing strips to land on and 7 other aircraft in the air for target practice (if you want). The game play of this flight simulator is different than what most people would expect when compared to the current crop of flight sims. After playing Hornet-Korea or Falcon 4, SF 2000 seems sluggish and the aircraft are less maneuverable. And I think that is exactly what planes of this type would feel like compared to a modern fighter. So flying a WW II plane takes a little different approach than a flying a jet to do well in this game. Also closer to reality is that it is much much easier to get the hang of SF 2000 than Hornet or Falcon. This is probably the best feature for many gamers. Hornet and Falcon reward those with the patience to read long involved, and sometimes confusing manuals to understand flying the plane well enough so the game is enjoyable. With SF 2000, a novice to flight simulations would be able to get flying and have a good time with it without reading several hundred pages of a manual (like Falcon 4). So as far as ease of learning and play, I think this is where SF 2000 excels. After playing it for about an hour, I was impressed with the game. I think that they have done a great job with the 3D engine, and the scenery (while not terribly detailed) was attractive enough to look at. There are still a few cosmetic glitches in the game, but I doubt that most people will really notice or complain. The gameplay was entertaining and I was happy that it did not require a large manual to read to get a feel for the game. I will be interested to see what other scenarios are in the final product and get a chance to try out the dogfighting option (not implemented in the demo). My final thought would be this: if you are a hardcore flight sim buff, then pass on this game. It would be a bit too simplistic compared to other simulations. If you are looking for a more lush visual experience and a more realistic simulation of current aircraft, look elsewhere. But, if you are interested in a fun flight sim and you are too intimidated by latest ones, like Falcon, then this might be the simulator for you. Hopefully, I will do a more complete review of this game when the final version is released later in July (along with another flight simulator Fly!). For now, go ahead and get the demo and give it a try. Any questions, comments, or tips (like how to get the frame rate) let me know.Randall Screenshots (Click for larger view)

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