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A-10 TANK KILLER VERSION 1.5 IBM NOTES By now, as RED BARON has proven, Dynamix has moved into the realm of serious flight simulation with a vengeance. Future simulations from them should continue to meet or exceed the standards set by this hugely successful design. A-10 TANK KILLER is technology from the days when the company was still treating the flight simulator genre as a kind of glorified arcade game. Even with the significant improvements, the new version falls far short of the work done in the realm of air combat; both flight control and weapons delivery lack certain elements that give the player a sense of realism during play. Joystick input response is still inadequately fluid and detailed; climbing, diving, and banking all remain more abrupt than they should be for such a heavy plane. Weapons delivery is still restricted, to prevent the player from launching inappropriate armaments at a target. And nothing in the way of a "kick" or sound effect occurs upon release of weaponry (except for the 30mm cannon, which, on a Roland at least, sounds quite credible). Finally, though work has been done to improve the mouse driver interface, problems remain for many players, especially those with the most recent version of Microsoft's MOUSE.SYS. Dynamix is apparently working on the mouse problem. These are relatively minor shortcomings in a fabulously playable design, however. What has been improved is well worth the price of an upgrade. Most importantly, the animation design is now sophisticated enough to handle a wide range of CPU speeds. Version 1.5 still needs at least 12MHz to run well, but can now function on the fastest machines without losing appropriate pacing during play. The graphics seem pretty much the same as in the original version, but more detailed; the outside views of the A-10 contain more surfaces for the plane, which are now light-sourced as well. Ground objects are generally more complex and realistic-looking. The terrain remains a blast; no-one else has yet provided as much in the way of hills and valleys in 3-D topographic design. Flying an A-10 below high riverbanks, or popping it up over a ridge which has hidden the plane until the last few moments of approach to target, more than compensates for the lack of realism in other areas. The terrain is especially exciting in this type of simulation, as the A-10's close air support requires that it remain only hundreds of feet in the air most of the time. Intelligent use of ground features during play makes for one of the more exciting tactical aspects of the design. For players already comfortable with the controls of A-10 TANK KILLER, the "floating camera" technology integrated into Version 1.5 will prove a real treat. An option in the configuration menu turns this camera on; accessing it gives the player a chance to look all around the plane, controlling the view with the joystick. This can be a massive improvement when playing particularly dense and difficult scenarios, as with the press of a button full situational awareness can now be achieved at any time. No more scrambling for the right function key to change views. Another major improvement is in the area of sound effects. Explosions now register not only the player's own actions, but also provide feedback for events happening nearby. If the player is engaged in ground support for troops, and they are being engaged by enemy units, that engagement will be heard even if it isn't seen. This radically increases the liveliness of each scenario, and gives the player more of a sense of being in the thick of things. Most serious flight sim enthusiasts these days are insisting on dual joystick support as part of the design. Two joysticks allow the player to control ailerons with one stick, and rudder and throttle with the other, for an increase in the ability to do advanced flight maneuvers such as slips and crabbed landings. Version 1.5 goes part way to fulfill these needs, allowing access to a second joystick for rudder control. Using a second joystick instead of the < and > keys on the keyboard allows for much finer control of turns; no guessing on how long to hold down the key to provide the right amount of rudder. Throttle control is still limited to the keyboard, however. In the original design, the player had to select from a series of pre- configured weapons loads prior to starting a mission. Version 1.5 now gives the player a chance to put together their own custom configuration. Finally, A-10 TANK KILLER Version 1.5 includes twenty-one scenarios, instead of the original seven. Two scenario sets cover Central Europe, and a third set has been designed to provide examples of the A-10's use during the recent Gulf war with Iraq. Each set has different challenges; I think Central Europe #2 still remains the most difficult. The Desert Storm set provides desert-like terrain and graphics, as well as a number of well-conceived representations of actual tactical situations. Even _with_ the entire twenty-one scenarios included, however, the one weakness mentioned most frequently during the initial release of this game still remains; there's just not enough replayability. Most successful air combat simulations these days feature some sort of randomization and dynamic generation of scenarios. Though difficult to program effectively, such "scenario engines" not only offer much more variety than the hard-wired designs can, but sustain the sense of surprise and thus again, realism, necessary to keep the player's interest. I hope Dynamix has this kind of thing in the works for their next release. A-10 TANK KILLER Version 1.5 comes packaged with three 1.2MB 5.25" floppies _and_ four 720k 3.5" floppies, which should make it easy to install on almost any machine. It runs well on PCs with a CPU speed of 12MHz or faster, and supports EGA, VGA, and MCGA graphics standards. Sound support includes both AdLib/SoundBlaster and Roland. Dual joysticks, as well as mouse and keyboard, are supported. The game should be installed on a hard disk, and requires about 3MB of disk space. No copy protection has been implemented in the design. If you haven't seen A-10 TANK KILLER yet, definitely check out Version 1.5. If you already have A-10, the upgrade is easily worth the twenty bucks. A-10 remains a highly playable, challenging game, and its good points far outweigh its weaknesses. Now if only Dynamix could do for A-10 what it did for all them biplanes! A-10 TANK KILLER Version 1.5 is published by Dynamix and distributed by Sierra On-Line.