Let's hope he's right.Ĭomparatively speaking, it's going to be difficult to rate EAW considering the number of other WWII flight sims that are about to hit the shelves (see Everybody's Doin' It panel on opposite page), so we're going to score it on its own merits and leave all the comparable stuff to a future Supertest. Everything we've done is basically geared towards making EAW better and faster than ever, says Whittaker. Fans of Pacific Air War at least should not be disappointed. The sheer number of planes you can fly, the dynamic game world, the varied mission types and the fact that EAW has been in production for so long indicate that it should stand up well against the wave of rival WWII flight sims that are about to be released. In real terms, this means that once you've played through one campaign, you can start a new career with a different unit, and the game will be different second time around. Historically based sims that follow a potentially limited linear campaign structure, the unit you choose and the missions you fly determine how your career and the game progress. You can't actually change the course of history, but it means that, unlike other
How you fare in the cockpit actually affects which missions you're given and how the campaign as a whole progresses. The first runs from July 10 to Septemand encompasses the Battle of Britain the second tour is based on US Army Air Corps activity between April I 1943 and April 25 1945. What this means is that you can actually choose one of two career paths, which has a direct bearing on what missions and aircraft you fly. You can fly more than 20 different aircraft, all with their own flight models, and you can actually take part in the Battle of Britain, flying for either the Germans or Allies.Īnd what else? Well, EAW is one of the first games to sport MicroProse's new dynamic game world. Such as? Well, we've now got total 3D hardware support, including Voodoo2. Our game has a number of unique features that set it apart from the sims from Electronic Arts, Microsoft and Activision. We're confident that our product will stand up against the competition, maintains programmer Tom Whittaker. Aren't the programming team a bit miffed that, just when they're about to release their labour of love, almost every other publisher and his dog are putting out a World War II combat flight simulator?
After what seems like years, a massive code overhaul and months of testing, European Air War is ajmost ready for release. At the time, everybody was getting excited about 3D accelerator cards, and the team were desperately trying to incorporate 3Dfx and PowerVR support before the game shipped.īut that was then, and this is now. Even then the game looked impressive - and that was without hardware support. We first saw European Air War, the much-hyped sequel to Pacific Air War, around two years ago on a trip to MicroProse's US headquarters in Baltimore.