Strike Fighters: Project 1 - Gameplay

Gameplay

The game has been designed so it is as easy to learn and understand. This is an example of a 'light simulation'. This is opposed to other 'study simulations', such as Falcon 4.0, where the learning curve is much steeper.

The game has a useful 'Single Mission' option that allows the user to choose their mission, aircraft type, weapons and look at a map of where they are flying to. A set of names are generated to be included on the squadron rotor and they are allocated varying skill levels, which is useful to know when they are flying as your wingmen. The Single Mission mode is a good chance to practise for the Campaign mode because it gives all the mission types that the user will face in any campaign.

Mission types include:

• Intercept: Scramble to intercept incoming enemy bombers before they reach the target.
• Combat Air Patrol: Patrol vital defence areas and engage any aircraft in the area.
• Fighter Sweep: Fly into enemy airspace and engage any aircraft encountered.
• Close Air support: Support advancing friendly tanks by taking out enemy armour.
• Air Defence suppression: Also known as Iron Hand or Wild Weasel - Destroy AAA and SAM sites in the target area.
• Anti-Ship: Destroy assigned shipping
• Armed Reconnaissance: Look out and destroy enemy ground units
• Reconnaissance: Fly to and observe an assigned target.

Flying over the desert can be long and lonely, and just like the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, there are never that many enemy planes up in the air. A time acceleration feature is built into the game as well as a feature to let you warp to the target, although this later feature can place the player in the middle of trouble.

Bombing targets is difficult and the user has to practise dive and low level bombing to complete missions. The default jets are purely 1960s technology and have no useful bombing aids.

The planes have simplified radars that are easy to operate, and try to simulate radars of that era; they have a delayed scan, do not always find and lock targets and are subject to ground clutter.

Dogfighting is almost always necessary thanks to the simulated unreliability of the early AIM-9 Sidewinder, AIM-7 Sparrow, and AIM-4 Falcon – which adds an element of realism. The user will then find themselves in no position to out-turn the enemy MiGs due to the manoeuvrability of the featured US jets, so new tactics must be learnt.

Flying over populated enemy areas the user will be subjected to many types of Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA), or the SA-2 soviet Surface to Air Missile (SAM).