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That Jane's lot certainly know a thing or two about fighter planes! This latest offering gives you the chance to fly eight of the greatest USAF jets, from the F-105 Thunderchief (Korea/Vietnam era) right up to the F-22 Raptor. And you really feel as though you are there thanks to the stunning graphics and realistically 'active' airbases. One early training mission sees you taxi out of the hangar, follow signs to the assigned runway and take off. Sounds easy? Not when you have to keep an eye out for other traffic. It really is superb, and makes you feel like a part of a crack team of pilots. There are loads of missions available, from basic training and 'Red Flag' combat simulations, to full-blown campaigns over Vietnam, Iraq and Germany. The Quick Mission Editor is lovely touch and simple to use, allowing instant action with a seemingly unlimited number of permutations. We have only found one bug thus far, unfortunately it's a bit of a biggie - when you're close to the ground some of the textures occasionally blur, or even disappear altogether. This is particularly harrowing during landings. Hopefully EA will address this soon with a patch, making Jane's USAF the finest military flight sim money can buy.
Microsoft have been cashing in on man's desire to fly for 17 years now. Armchair aviators have gone out every year or so to buy the latest version of Flight Simulator, only to have it render their beloved PCs obsolete. Could it be that Microsoft are in cahoots with a major hardware manufacturer? This year's offering only serves to strengthen that particular conspiracy theory. We've been using a 500MHz Pentium III with 128Mb of RAM and a Voodoo3 3000 graphics card, and the 'action' is incredibly slow. Initial loading times average around five minutes and you'll be waiting another two or three minutes every time you change aircraft or load a different airport. So what's on offer to those of you with an unlimited PC budget? Well, you get a few more aircraft, including the beautiful-yet-bastard-to-fly Concorde, slightly improved graphics over Flight Sim 98 and the airport count is now a staggering 21,015. An extra £20 gets you the Professional Edition, which features another couple of aircraft, a few more 'detailed' cities and an aircraft editor. What exactly have Microsoft been doing for the past two years?
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