That was easily one of my all-time favorite games. I even used to play it on my lunch breaks at work (even brought in an extra joystick to play it with).

Good read.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane...

Gawd, I'm old.

Very cool AAR! Very well written! Cheers!

Awesome write up

Reminds me of all the tense action flying the old F19 Stealth Fighter

- West Germany is a hell of a place to get into and out of. I had to always fly around all those dang radar circles and ID whether they were doppler or other types lol
- I NEVER managed to do photo recons lol! I always just blew up the primary lol
- Yea those bogey elites are like ants swarming everywher eif you get them alerted
- Yes they do come peeking and exploring if you do odd stuff in their neighbourhood
- Those missle boats are fun to blow up
- Fuel is such a bother! Have to fly sooo economically
awesome write up

reminds me again of what a great sim is all about !



About your CMOH -- I'm not sure how you did it but getting into and out of W Germany in F19 unnoticed was a largely impossible feat. You should post a screenie with all the circles showing radar ranges and types. There's actually no way thorugh the radar net without phases where you would definitely be detected by the enemy and have craf vectored to intercept you. So.. not sure how you did it but great kudos :))

There's been no game since more addicting to me than this one! I remember buying it around 1992 at a CompUSA in Atlanta, motivated by the attention the F-117 was getting from the Gulf War and video footage of "smart bombs". From there my wife and I walked to Upper Crust Pizza in the same shopping center, I didn't bring my bag to the car, reading the big blue sturdy heavy box over and over while we waited for our pizza...

http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/f-117a-nighthawk-stealth-fighter-20/cover-art/gameCoverId,1557/
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/f-117a-nighthawk-stealth-fighter-20/cover-art

I wanted so badly to open the box and glance at the manual, but I wouldn't risk it until we got home. Oh man, nothing about this game disappointed! I was young (mid-20's), knew nothing about flight sim realism (this was my first and for years, my only flight sim), everything I knew about military aircraft came from this game. As far as I was concerned it was all 100% realistic (at least with the Lockheed F-117 setting)! Ignorance really was bliss, as was not wondering about patches and the possibility of modding this and that, or what was lacking compared with other sims. Didn't know, didn't care. All I wanted to do was dim the lights and fly the next mission!

I'm still a geek (wannabe), still carry around flight sim manuals when I go out (especially since it's usually the three of us now, mother-in-law lives with us), playing AWACS missions in bed on my laptop while the dogs settle down and the Mrs reads a book, etc. Still, no flight sim has been more addicting to me than this one, probably will never happen again, especially as I get older.

My next PC should run this smoothly in DosBox. I can get past the graphics although I won't pretend it's as satifying as it once was, but still fun to play.
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Mark

One more thing, similar style nighttime bombing gameplay...
http://198.65.10.229/DID/EF2K_TIALDWN.wmv

...only without stealth (requires TAW...videos coming soon). I'd love to make F-117A videos, does anyone know of a way to do this in DOS?
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Mark

I remember being disappointed that I couldn't turn on the pretty colored sky on my 386SX-16 without killing my frame rate. I loved the purplish gradient along the horizon.

Man ... 20 years since this was released? I feel old.