Hmm.. Well, it certainly is a complex question. On one hand, a dynamic campaign offers the attractiveness of relatively unlimited gameplay potential. I always enjoyed the Falcon 4 campaign, but truth be known, I actually preferred the one in Enemy Engaged a little more because I felt it had a more heavily weighted player component to it. You could sort of "go rogue" in EECH and really help the campaign along wheras in Falcon 4, you really do feel more like a small fish in a big pond (not necessarily a bad thing..but I enjoy feeling heroic in my computer flying..<g>). The drawback, of course, is a bit of repetition and not a lot of tailor made, exceptional missions. By that I mean some of the scripted missions in sims like JF-18 and Longbow 2, and the DCS series are truly phenomenal because they can be very complex (with things like triggers) and can feature special events that you wouldn't see in a generic dynamic campaign. Also, the briefings and things for a hand crafted mission are only constrained by the author's imagination. So from that side, I really do enjoy non-dynamic, or semi dynamic branching campaigns.

In my "perfect world" we'd see a whole different side of the DCS programming team devote themselves to DLC (downloadable content) that would keep their titles fresh and ever expanding. User created missions and campaigns are one thing, but how cool would it be to have $5 or $10 mission packs or theaters that had their own story? To tell you the truth, I wouldn't care if DCS feature froze their A-10 right now and didn't update the core engine for 5 years if they would just keep pushing out new modules that kept telling different stories.

And of course, in a second perfect world, DCS would eventually take the bull by the horns and create a dynamic world, but I gather that is a huge job.

Those are my abridge thoughts anyway..and I appreciate that others have a different opinion..

Regards...
BeachAV8R

Thank you for doing this review. It got my attention and I'm finally flying F4 again because of it. I own Allied Force and the Original F4.0. I am glad I didn't get rid of the original. The install worked like a champ just by having it look for my original F4 rom. Anyhow, I'm stuck with a maximum graphics quality of "3" (as opposed to your card's maximized "7", but I can't complain. I am running an ATI Radeon HD 5770 so I'm a tiny bit surprised it is capped like this, but again, can't complain. This BMS overall is extremely nice. I was getting artifacts in 3d with this card on Allied Force, but now with F4 + BMS 4.32, looks absolutely stunning throughout. Any idea what caps the graphics quality setting? (anyone?) I'm cool with where it's at, but it's nothing like Beach's shots inside the cockpit. Anyhow, nice review, and thanks for getting me back into Falcon again. It's been a while. - Peter, a.k.a. Murdock

Any guidance as to the "order of precedence" as far as the supplied manuals go? For example, if I want to operate the HARM missle, which manual should I go to first, then which of the additionally provided manuals should I refer to, in order towards final precedence. I must be missing something in the middle, as I've reviewed the original F4 manual, then looked at the BMS 4.32 supplied manual, but something isn't kosher. Instead of telling me how, I'd rather know which manuals to go to in which order; as they supply a bunch of them with the BMS 4.32 install.

I've moved my question and expanded upon it to the more appropriate forum -

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3419667.html#Post3419667

Wow, C3PO! This update has me crossing paths with all sorts names I haven't heard in years. You should be proud of the stability and playability of AF, especially the tie-in with Hyperlobby. BMS looks and plays awesome. If it works as well in MP I can see that DCS will be collecting some virtual dust on my rig. BTW, C3PO, you won't remember me but I made a nuisance of myself complaining about the "feel" of the Viper in AF. Having never flown an F16 I can't say that BMS is better but it certainly feels much better. Anyway, I'm glad you are still around.

The review was a good overview of the new BMS release. The video is a "must-see" showcase of the upgrades. Enjoyed it very much.
There remains some of the old bugs that have plagued Falcon4 from the beginning, including the dancing Viper when exiting the a/c in MP.
I have a 3 year old computer now, that has a E6600 quad2core with a nVidia 8800GT running Vista and Im getting decent frames at quality level 3.
Beyond that, the frame rates suffer too much for my system.

Another nice feature of BMS is that it has its own built in avionics extractor code that can be turned on with the configuration GUI. This allows many of the primary flight instruments and MFDs to be ported to another monitor. The only problem I had with this feature, is that I use USB LCD monitors along with the TM MFD OSB bezels; and the code does not display the MFDs via DisplayLinked USB LCDs. THe MFDs do extract to another VGA monitor quite nicely though. The cost of running the built in extractor in BMS is that the executable has to be run in a windowed mode, which further reduces the frame rate significantly on my older PC. There is an effort to patch BMS in the future so that it will work for USB LCDs (soon I hope). Programming the TM MFDs was pretty easy using the control key function mapping GUI.



Flying BMS online is a joy now. After being spoiled with the smoothness and stability of: IL2, ROF-ICE, LOMAC and A10c online coding, FalconAF didn't quite do the job for close up flying and had micro-warps and jitters. BMS is very smooth and stable. Another advancement apart from the stability is the connectivity enhancements. According to Nutty of Foxy fame, BMS now supports the connect mode where the host can both host and join on the same or different computer behind the router on LAN, and the clients can join outside the router via WAN IP (just not dynamic IP naming services, has to be an ip addy). No longer does the host need two WAN IP addys.



The Refueling works well in COOP Multiplayer, very smooth. We were able cycle through two human player even when we the lead up gave up and let the wingman go next; then the lead successfully refueled after the wingman was finished. No more worries about keeping a pecking order and breaking the cycle.



Thanks for the review and am looking forward to the part2.

Really nice follow up information there AV8R. You hit on a lot of the points that I did not have the time or opportunity to test. Thanks for taking the time to post your impressions..



BeachAV8R

No worries BeachAV8R (nice callsign BTW)

If there were one feature enhancement Id like to see in the series that would make it a jewel crown in its already classic status; that would be if they would add the ability to share the 2-seater F16B/D model Viper in multiplayer. A shared cockpit as do a lot of other sims (LB2, Battlefield, etc.). Think not only of the ability to share the bombing workload, but the training value alone. Then of course the fun and pucker factor. It would also open up possibilities for the Naval AV8Rs crowd who love the F14 Tomcat. Im sure it could be done with today's bandwidth and computers.

Great write up as usual. Any possibility to share in pdf format?

Keep up the great work.

What a great review especially the video - Now i've got to try to get this old brain around F4 once more- after a few years break!