ACES OVER EUROPE: A Game Review by Victor Durrell Aces over Europe (AOE) continues the tradition of computer flight simulator games from Dynamix like Aces of the Pacific and Red Baron for the flying enthusiasts. All show a common ancestry, design philosophy and interface for the user (I wonder why they didn't create an open interface like Microsoft's Flight Simulator and create a third party market for add-ons?) Anyway - back to the game at point! AOE covers Western Europe from early 1944 to the end of the war giving you the usual alternatives of one-off "games" or a series of sub-scenarios or "campaigns". These cover such events as Operations Crossbow, Overlord and Bodenplatte, as well as covering the "career" of a player as they progress through the ranks and the war whilst flying operations with various squadrons. As a player becomes more experienced, achieves more kills and survives more campaigns, they are promoted and awarded decorations. In fact it is possible to achieve decorations without being promoted and vice a versa as well. What is interesting for this style of game is that the player does not fly alone. They are actually part of a flight which in turn is usually part of a larger squadron. Until a player is promoted, or becomes more experienced and decorated, they are limited in the flight to being a wingman. This means that they have limited control over how their aircraft is configured for a particular mission and where it is placed within a formation. In addition, once one has been promoted to being a flight leader, you then must also control the other members of the flight, in a general sort of way (they actually fly their own aircraft) and give them orders as to what and when they are to attack. More importantly you can also summon them to aid you when you have a bogey on your tail. There are several aircraft for each country covered - US (P51D, P47D, B26, B17G, B24), UK (Spitfire IX/XIV, Typhoon, Tempest, Mosquito, and Mitchell) and German (Me 109G/K, 262A, FW190A/G/D, Ju88A, Ar234B) with varying degrees of combat and flying difficulty. The two extreme combinations give an armchair ride or can frighten you off learning to fly - forever! The more realism that a player chooses to be applied to a particular operation, the more points the player achieves at the end of the operation and therefore at the end of the campaign. These various levels of realism cover such things as making the Sun a blind spot, allowing blackouts or gun jams as well as engine burnouts and so on. At its most realistic point, the game becomes extremely difficult to play, whilst at its easiest levels its hard to be killed. Controls are a combination of keyboard, mouse and/or joystick(s). The game supports keyboard/mouse/joystick combinations to control the aircraft being flown. The ultimate combination being the ThrustMaster Flight Control and Weapon System (which includes actual rudder pedals!). However at over $267.00 (at the latest quote) this is obviously only a serious option only for those who really want to fly properly. I normally fly using the mouse and keyboard and find it quite adequate. I have used a joystick as well and found that it works well. The keyboard is used to control various events such as the throttle, bomb/fuel tank dropping, flaps, landing gear and gun firing and unjamming. The mouse/joystick is used for the actual flight controls such as the elevators, the ailerons and the rudder. It takes some hand-eye co-ordination in order to smoothly use all the controls but that is quickly learnt as the players literally learns to fly his/her aircraft. On screen the player is presented with the pretty much standard view of the cockpit and its controls. All aircraft have individualised cockpits which appear to at least to be superficially based upon the real one's set- up. Each has an altimeter, an airspeed indicator, a vertical speed indicator, a bank indicator, a compass, a tachometer (strangely calibrated in percentages of engine power rather than RPM), an engine temperature warning light, an oil pressure warning light, a stall warning light, ammunition counters (for primary and secondary armament), a fuel gauge, flap indicator and finally a land gear position indicator and a rudder gauge. Where they all differ is how they are set out on the instrument panel. The player can display different views from the cockpit by using either the function keys or the right hand mouse button. What is interesting in this game is that the player can also place themselves outside the aircraft and look around it, using either the mouse or the joystick. This has important advantages as it can show more of the surrounding airspace than the normal views from the cockpits. It can also be done quickly and using the moue/joystick in this mode doesn't automatically upset how the aircraft flies either (it continues the manoeuvre which the player has begun). In addition, scenery of a general sort is displayed on the screen for the player to fly over and also presents targets for them to attack, such as bridges and so on. However, in order to make this scenery more visible the designers have decided to distort it to some extent in the vertical plane to provide a visually more stunning effect. While looking good initially, having bridge towers several hundred feet high gets a bit wearying after a while. Overall, for those that are into this genre of role playing, air fighting, rough-tough-shoot 'em up-style game (and I am) it is a good competent game but now for the annoying bits and omissions....... For a game which devotes over two thirds of its manual to an historical overview there are several very annoying features and historical omissions. Annoying features include the use of incorrect terms (if in the RAF you are fighting in HER Majesty's Forces, rather than the King's), bits in background (all Allied air bases fly the Stars and Stripes to indicate where their HQ is on the base), the performance quoted for aircraft bears little resemblance to their actual (real life) abilities (figures for the Mosquito seem to equate to the NF30 version (speed), B.IV (load), F.B.VI (range), etc.) - if I tried to use their weight tables in real life the aircraft would probably burst its tyres resting on the ground! Who knows why they included the Mosquito F.B.XVIII Tse-tse when less than 18 were built! This is a common problem across all of the aircraft with such things as the FW190A8/R1 being stated by the game to be carrying not only its external, underwing 4 x 20mm cannon, but also its 4 internal, wing mounted 20mm cannon of the standard A8 model, giving a total of 8 x 20mm cannon! I wonder where they carried all the ammunition for this staggering piece of flying artillery? It seems that the designers assumed that these sorts of weapons were carried in addition to the weapons which the aircraft was normally equipped rather than instead of. Another serious problem is in what the aircraft are equipped for depending upon the mission to be flown. You are usually presented with a choice, in the pre-flight options menu, of such things as: Fighter Long Range Fighter Strike Long Range Strike Attack Long Range Attack; and so on, for determining what ordnance will be carried by the aircraft. This results in the aircraft not necessarily being tooled up with the most appropriate weapons for the mission but rather the maximum number of weapons that it can carry in that mission profile. This means that while you as a player might like, when flying your Mosquito only 60lb 6 inch rockets (which for some reason they call 5 inch rockets), you are also forced to carry bombs as well! Surely a system similar to the game F-16 Fighting Falcon's, where the player is allowed to choose what weapons will be carried (and allowed only certain combinations by the game) would have been better? As for the omissions - all UK night operations are ignored (no Lancaster, Halifax, etc.), much of their types of day aircraft are also omitted (Beaufighters for instance) and as for the Germans the characteristics of the different models of Me109 included in the game are virtually ignored (the Me109G6 and the Me109K4 are included yet both fly essentially the same despite the later version being something of a brute according to William Greene's Warplanes of the Third Reich)! The Ar234B Blitz is considered to be unarmed, except for bombs, when in fact it could carry two rearwards facing 20mm cannon for self-defence [Editor's note - not all did as they were often removed to increase speed and range as Greene notes]. The game also ignores the various weapons which were developed by the combatants for specific missions. The Germans dedicated a great deal of effort to finding the solution to the problem of tank busting before hitting upon the Panzerblitz 2 (a ground-to-air version of the R4M air-to-air rocket) which was carried by FW190G8's, yet all the Germans have are either bombs or the Werfer Granate 21, an air-to-air rocket, pressed into air-to-ground use in emergency (it was also only carried by FW190A4's,A5,A6 or A7's, rather than the G8 variant included in the game). Finally, what ever happened to the poor old rear-view mirror? Nearly every WWII fighter I know of had a rear- view mirror fitted in or outside the cockpit canopy, so the pilot didn't have to strain his neck looking directly behind him. This game, like all other's covering the subject which I've seen, seems to have neglected this very important piece of equipment. No where in its cockpit display is it possible to see directly behind the aircraft, unless you use the rearward display. The result is that you, the player has to suddenly stop what ever manoeuvre you are doing, in order to look behind you to see if you are being tailed! Surely it would have been possible to program in a small rearview mirror display? Indeed for a game which likes to pride itself upon its historical accuracy such things seem rather bizarre. In particular is that in their select bibliography they fail to mention more than a few technical books on the subject of WWII aircraft. Nearly all those included are rather histories of the campaigns. It is surprising that Captain Eric "Winkle" Brown's superb book Wings of the Luftwaffe is not mentioned as it is the only book I know of written by a pilot whom flew most of the major German aircraft and could compare them to their Allied counterparts, which he had also extensively tested as well. Nor is even something as basic as Jane's All the World's Aircraft. One is forced to wonder how they derived the various characteristics that they did as there are only three technical books mentioned in their bibliography, and one of those is in fact a large coffee table format picture book. So apart from a few annoyances like these, as well as others, such as aircraft being able to carry both drop tanks and bombs on their single centre rack, the game is quite enjoyable. Well I have had my piece - enjoy it if you like flying but don't expect 100% accuracy !!! COMPUTER SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS CPU: IBM PC or Compatible with 80386 or better Memory: 2 MB+ of RAM Operating System:- MS DOS ver 5.0 or later Hard Disk:- 7 MB of disk space Graphics Display:- VGA or better P.S. Never take on a fighter with a fully loaded fighter-bomber - if they don't get you in the first pass you'll never stay ahead of them.