On Sept. 28th the game hit the shelves and thousands of simulation game enthusiasts ran to their local software stores and paid perhaps as much as $60 a copy for the product. They rushed home, installed it and couldn't wait to get into the cockpit. In moments they discovered several things about this game that were not quite right. Lack of joystick support may have been the first thing they noticed that was wrong especially if they were using a CH F-16 Combat joystick from CH Products. (A patch was later released by Nova Logic at their web site that does include support for the CH F-16 Combat joystick however the use or misuse of the 4 way controls and certain other buttons causes this update patch to be little if any help to the game player using this joystick.)

Lack of proper aircraft aerodynamics causes this simulation game product to become little more than a fancy Terrain viewer. With simulation games we must depend on our visual senses to give us some feeling of how a real aircraft should respond. A good flight simulation game will place a great deal of emphasis on this factor in an attempt to convey this feeling to the user of the product. In normal aircraft you can generally bank an aircraft and it will turn in the direction of the bank but in this game simulation it doesn't. Many times the airplane appears to be sliding sideways even in level flight and you may bank the airplane to correct what appears to be a turn and then discover the aircraft will not turn in the direction of the bank unless you pull or push on the joystick or use the rudder commands to effect a turn. This leaves the game player without a good or correct sense of real flight.

There is a strong lack of response to this flight simulation even in up and down movements, which is more noticeable when close to the ground. Even people using a joystick with a throttle will experience a limited range of thrust control in this simulation ranging from off, on is 60% through 100%, and after-burners. There are virtually no player options what so ever. There are no cheat codes, there is no way to link the joystick to the rudder for those of us who have no rudder pedals. They use the del. and page down keys for the rudder pedals, which may be very awkward for most of us. I know it is for me.

Wingman commands are somewhat limited and he never lands even if you do. Your wingman in this game is very robotic and unrealistic.

We were told this game would have a “mission builder” but it does not. What it has is a quick mission generator that creates a mission for you according to your selection of targets and opposition. If you select the same thing every time you get the same thing every time. The quick mission generator is very limited as to what it can do and after trying it only a few times it becomes very boring.

Mission maps/landscapes all look the same, only the color changes if you select different landscapes, etc. The game has many other problems as you may see if you check the Nova Logic web site. You will see a list of things Nova Logic has been working to correct in this game.

Before you buy this simulation game product I recommend you see it first hand and try it for yourself. Find someone else who has it and ask them. In fact you may find someone who bought it who would like to recoup at least some of their money on the game who would make you a good deal on a slightly used copy of it.

This game has many other short-comings that I could not list here. While I have been in communication with the people at Nova Logic trying to get them to correct certain problems with this game I am receiving a very strong impression from them that they have no intentions of correcting all the problems this game actually has. In fact one of my last messages from Nova Logic indicated they are moving on to complete their new Comanche 3. This tells me that F-22 Lightning II is going to sit on the back burner for awhile. I hope I am wrong, but only time will tell.

Update: Nova Logic is continuing to produce update patches for this game but as yet have not corrected anything but the most major bugs in the program. They have not corrected the use of the joystick buttons, or the incorrect aerodynamics in the game. I still doubt they will correct these problems or add any real player options to the game. Like I said, I hope I am wrong.

Review By: Bryon Smith

UPDATE 11/19/96: Everyone has their own opinion and while one game review company/ reviewer may not give a game a very good review there will always be someone else who will, no mater how bad it is. Computer Games Mag. has a review in it for this game, their reviewer "Steve Wartofsky" gave this game 4 1/2 stars (out of a 5 star limit). Although he did give it a good review when reading the review I can't help but wonder what was on his mind as he made many statements that sounded more like double talk, or like he was trying to tell us the truth about the game while not getting himself fired at the same time. He made statements which anyone having even a small ability to read between the lines can figure out that he didn't mean what he was saying, or he meant something else in another way. Statements like the following...

"...Landings strike just the right balance between being so easy and outside realistic parameters they feel plain wrong, and so difficult and realistic they become the main object of each mission."

This is what I call double talk. To me he is saying the landings "..feel plain wrong" and after flying the thing and landing it they do feel plain wrong because of the incorrect aerodynamics.

"...you need a fast Pentium or better yet, Pentium Pro..you should see this thing fly on a P6/200."

What he is saying to me is that if you don't have a Pentium Pro 200 you are not going to get the full benefit of the features of this game. The graphics and other things just will not hold up. Well who of us has a Pentium 200 Pro computer ? Most of the people buying games these days will be lucky to have a Pentium 100 let alone a Pentium 200 or Pentium Pro. I have seen this game on a 150 6x86 Cyrix and the graphics animation was not really very good.

"...so if you have the graphics turned down anywhere below the highest level, you'll see weird, triangular effects at the horizon, which for some will be not only annoying but disorienting."

So he finally comes right out and tells it like it is and yet he still gave this game 4 1/2 stars.

"...Simply put if you have the horsepower to run the thing at the max, you'll have as realistic a flying experience as you can find on a PC here, at least visually."

Again he indicates the need for power and speed in order to use the game and then once again refers to the "thing" as a "thing" rather than a flight simulation game. He then adds the key to the statement by saying "at least visually". This tells me once again that he likes the graphics but that's about it. So he closes with the following...

"...Some air combat sim veterans looking for a more comprehensively technical and complete design will, of course, be put off by the focus of this thing; but most of us, newcomers and vets alike, will drop the hardcore routine and just dig into one of the most enjoyable air combat sims ever to have been released."

Here he clearly tells us that he is new to the flight simulation scene, which makes me wonder if he is even qualified to do flight simulation reviews. That he is aware that it is not going to be a game that everyone is going to enjoy (which goes without being said), and again refers to the flight sim. as a "thing". He makes it obvious that hard core flight simulation's are not his thing and that if you are into hard core realistic flight simulations you may not like this one.

The same game reviewer rated ATF/NATO as only being a 4 star flight simulation game. True the graphics are not as impressive with ATF/NATO but the game play and the features smokes Nova Logic's F-22 Lightning II hands down, no contest. He never made any mention about all the bugs and problems the game comes with right out of the box and how anyone who wants to really play it may very well need to get updates before they can even get started.

If you are looking to buy this game and you have read this review just remember if you don't like it you were warned. :-) I got stuck with the thing, they have not yet fixed it and I don't think they will and can't get my money back. :-(

'nuf said.