I know this wasn’t a brilliant “showcase” mission. One bomb, no air-to-air kills, not a lot of flash and bang, but it does represent a realistic portrayal of how F4 missions can sometimes play out. Often a one pass mission is all you will be lucky enough to accomplish. F4 isn’t “Air Quake” so there shouldn’t be an expectation that you will either survive a mission or survive a mission with 10 kills and 30 ground targets destroyed.
This first FF3 mission for me was a great opportunity to see many of the advances that have been made since I installed SP3, FF2 and BMS.99. While one mission certainly doesn’t tell the whole story I feel it gives good insight into what a typical user might encounter. The great thing about F4 these days is the opportunity to fly multiple types of aircraft, with very good representative cockpits, into a very well done campaign environment that really makes you feel part of something massive. I think FF3 is a definite winner and as soon as my current campaign is over I will migrate to a FF3 install.
While the included cockpits are very well done (and free!), I do still prefer my 1600 x 1200 Aeyes 2D and 3D cockpits. Aeyes Pits seem a bit more realistic in that they seem less “computer generated”. The included FF3 cockpits however, are very, very good and I think they are a great addition to the package for folks not wanting to spend money on a payware cockpit.
The terrain in the standard install, while adequate, doesn’t match the high resolution tiles of Thomas Waelti’s tiles. Tom’s tiles are much higher resolution, and look less “muddy” and really add to the experience.
The FF3 install is simply brilliant. It really can bring into the fold many pilots who feared “the dance” as being the biggest obstacle to getting into F4.
Many thanks to all the authors, 3D modelers, FM modders, skin and cockpit artists, and everyone else who has helped put together such an awesome user created package for F4. It is truly a job well done.
Note – All images in this report were re-sized from 1600 x 1200 .bmp to .jpg format to reduce file dimensions. Irfanview was used to convert them from .bmp to .jpg so the images are slightly reduced in quality. Your on-screen results should be even better!
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