Chuck Yeager's Air Combat
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2010) |
| Chuck Yeager's Air Combat | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Brent Iverson |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Platform(s) | MS-DOS, Apple Macintosh |
| Release | 1991 |
| Genre(s) | Flight simulator |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, often shortened as CYAC, is a 1991 combat flight simulator video game by Electronic Arts. Famed pilot Chuck Yeager was a technical consultant in the game and his digitized voice is featured in the game, giving encouragement and praise before and after missions. The game is characterized for its good balance of an action laden gameplay which focuses on classical dog fights and a simple but still realistic flight model.
The game was initially available for MS-DOS, and later ported to the Macintosh. The latter version is considered superior as its graphical display is at a much higher resolution, multi-player network play is supported, and saved movies may be exported in QuickTime format.
Gameplay
The game features three modes: Free Flight, which put the user in a selected airplane in a non-hostile environment; Create a Mission, where the user could specify which airplane to pilot against a selected number of AI-driven aircraft of varying levels of difficulty; and Historical Flight, where user could select among three wars to fly in: World War II, Korean, and Vietnam.
All missions are based upon actual missions ranging from strafing attacks of World War II, the open dogfights of modern air warfare, and the combat missions of Vietnam, which included bomber escorts. The name of the actual pilot involved and the outcome of the encounter are told to the player, as a way for the player to judge air combat prowess (though it did not affect the overall scoring). This feature separated the game from other similar games of its time, and influenced future work on later flight simulations. However, large, famous battles in the wars are not included (for example, there are no D-Day, Pearl Harbor, or Battle of Britain missions). For World War II, the missions are based solely on the European Theater of Operations.
Reception
Computer Gaming World in 1991 said that the game's graphics and flight models impressed a Vietnam War combat pilot, and predicted that it would be "popular with both flight sim veterans and newcomers".[1] A survey in the magazine that year of strategy and war games gave it four and a half stars out of five,[2] and a 1993 survey in the magazine of wargames gave the game three-plus stars.[3] In 1996, the magazine ranked it as the 35th best PC game of all time.[4]
In 1994, PC Gamer US named Air Combat the 9th best computer game ever. The editors wrote, "It may not have the most realistic flight models in the world, and the plane and ground graphics show their age, but there's no denying that Chuck Yeager's Air Combat succeeds wildly where it counts most — in creating a realistic sense of flight."[5] That same year, PC Gamer UK named it the 47th best computer game of all time, writing that it "offers the perfect hour or two of dogfighting."[6]
Legacy
The game influenced the genre of combat flight simulators, including multi-player games such as Air Warrior by Kesmai and Combat Flight Simulator by Microsoft Games. Later games by Electronic Arts used the more popular features in its jet-based games US Navy Fighters and others.
References
- ^ Sipe, Russell (July 1991). "When do Seven Gs Only Cost $59.95? When It's..." Computer Gaming World. p. 16. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
- ^ Brooks, M. Evan (November 1991). "Computer Strategy and Wargames: The 1900-1950 Epoch / Part I (A-L) of an Annotated Paiktography". Computer Gaming World. p. 138. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
- ^ Brooks, M. Evan (September 1993). "Brooks' Book of Wargames: 1900-1950, A-P". Computer Gaming World. p. 118. Retrieved 30 July 2014.
- ^ CGW 148: 150 Best Games of All Time
- ^ Staff (August 1994). "PC Gamer Top 40: The Best Games of All Time". PC Gamer US (3): 32–42.
- ^ Staff (April 1994). "The PC Gamer Top 50 PC Games of All Time". PC Gamer UK (5): 43–56.
External links
- Chuck Yeager's Air Combat at MobyGames
- Chuck Yeager's Air Combat can be played for free in the browser at the Internet Archive