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#677912 - 09/20/01 04:07 AM F/A-18 PSF Review  
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- SimHQ.com Review: One of the more mysterious titles this year is F/A-18
Precision Strike Fighter by Graphsim/Xicat. It appeared basically out of nowhere and seemed to be based largely on the four year old sim Hornet Korea. Today, Dan "Crash" Crenshaw fires up PSF and sees what's changed, what's the same, and what simmers should make out of this interesting title.
http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/reviews/psf/


------------------
Dan "CRASH" Crenshaw
President, SimHQ.com
crash@SimHQ.com
Author of "How to Live and Die in the Virtual Sky"
http://www.flightsimcentral.com/fsc/howtolivandd.html


Dan "CRASH" Crenshaw
Author of \"How to Live and Die in the Virtual Sky\"

100th AFW Buddy Boys
"We land on the fantail and drive to the wires"
Inline advert (2nd and 3rd post)

#677913 - 09/20/01 04:22 AM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  
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Let the beancounters over at Xicat put THAT review in their pipe and smoke it.


Break left... @#!$%^&% Your OTHER left!
#677914 - 09/20/01 06:43 AM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  

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What worries me is that this is the company that has taken over the Janes name. I hope this is not an indication of things to come. it would be a great shame to see that sort of an end for Janes Sims.

#677915 - 09/20/01 11:16 AM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  

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[Watch what you post here in future. Say what you want (within reason), but don't use bad language to do it - Franny]

[This message has been edited by Franny (edited 09-20-2001).]

#677916 - 09/20/01 12:03 PM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  

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I agree 100% with SimHQ review. PSF is almost identycal to previous Hornet Korea. Xicat should be ashamed for asking 49$ for that...

#677917 - 09/20/01 12:06 PM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  

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and, IMO, that is one of the many reasons why there is so much software piracy in the world. What do you think people will do next time they have to buy a flight sim , if they spent so much money to get a game that is almost identic to the previous release and that has so many bugs and lacks !

#677918 - 09/20/01 05:51 PM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  
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OUCH! What a stinging review - I'm still smarting from that one! What a pity that it is all true!

I had hoped to get this product for the enhanced graphics as I had always enjoyed GSCs Hornet series back to my old MAC days. I would have even paid the $20 that GSC had floating around providing they modified the single engine thrust and a few other items that were known bugs from day one of the Hornet Korea release. But now - even the reduced bin price will not gain access to my wallet for this item.

One question haunts me after Varmint posted some things that Trey (GSC) said were being worked on - "Did Xicat get and market the most current build for this product"???????

[This message has been edited by Speedbrake (edited 09-21-2001).]


"Growing Old Is Mandatory - Growing Up Is Optional"
#677919 - 09/20/01 05:52 PM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  
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After reading the review, I won't buy it. Certainly not at $49.00!!! I had considered it so I could move away from VooDoo graphics cards, but not if it is just a re-issue with a few minor upgrades.


When you know as much as I do, you become a danger to yourself. - Stans, 2006
#677920 - 09/20/01 06:31 PM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  
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I'm someone who goes out and buys sims left right and centre to help support developers, but for the first time after reading such a review, I think I'll be letting this one go. I just hope that one day someone can unravel the exe and dat files and allow 3rd party developers a chance to modify this sim further.

James


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#677921 - 09/20/01 09:02 PM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  
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As far as I know there were many changes both to the flight model, net code and damage model. What happened after Xicat, I do not know.

Varm


Jon "Varmint" Blum
Vertical Reality Simulations
http://www.vrsimulations.com
#677922 - 09/20/01 09:34 PM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  
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Varm,
Flight model felt no different. I flew back to back, Hornet Korea and PSF, same missions and it was pretty much the same.

Damage model? Possibly. Duplicating damamge is not easy, could be that there are more varieties, but could not be definative on that. Would not rule it out, but could not confirm it either.

Net code? If they did, I would hate to have seen PSF without those fixes.

The easy to detect bugs, I saw no fixes on (same thing was reported in the MAC update ... Hornet Korea Gold ... in several reviews). Even had they corrected the bugs, this is just an OLD product and regardless of the pretty clothes, not worth what they are trying to sell it for in my opinion.

------------------
Dan "CRASH" Crenshaw
President, SimHQ.com
crash@SimHQ.com
Author of "How to Live and Die in the Virtual Sky"
http://www.flightsimcentral.com/fsc/howtolivandd.html


Dan "CRASH" Crenshaw
Author of \"How to Live and Die in the Virtual Sky\"

100th AFW Buddy Boys
"We land on the fantail and drive to the wires"
#677923 - 09/20/01 10:19 PM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  
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Crash, what I think Varmint is saying, and voiced by Speedbrake, is that possibly Xicat did Not release Trey Smith's (GSC founder/lead programer) latest version. Perhaps they figured the time/cost to test Trey's latest tweaks was not in their best interest and simply did a facelift of the version with [slightly] improved graphics. - all conjecture on my part.

btw: Your review was dead on. I'll bet Trey must be smarting considering his 'baby' has been so poorly handled by Xicat. When I think back on the contributions of so many in the flight sim community it's really a shame to see the sim effectively die this way.

Oh well, thankfully there's Janes F/A-18, with Speedbrakes, et al's, fine missions, and am looking forward to LOMAC.

[This message has been edited by Skyhawk (edited 09-20-2001).]

#677924 - 09/20/01 10:47 PM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  
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Canada, eh!
Interesting.

I find it mind-boggling that a company just re-released a 4 year old sim for the same price it was... 4 years ago. This in the day and age when 6-12 month old sims can be found in the bargin bin for $15 and they're in order of magnitude better than this is now.

I also find interesting that the required spec in 97 was a Pentium CPU. When I reviewed it I ran it on a P200, but I suspect a P90 would have been fine... if not a 60. Now, 4 years later, the same sim needs as a min-requirement a P2-233? Recomended P3-450?

GraphSim. Shame on you for even taking part in this fiasco. The key to survival in the sim world is inovation and evolution. Not rehashing the shame old crap. That reeks of shovelware.

Eric

#677925 - 09/20/01 11:27 PM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  

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Skyhawk-

What you are saying could well be true. The upside-down no fuel consumption bug was meant to have been fixed, and apparently has not.

If so, then PSF is even worse than we imagined.

Gavin

#677926 - 09/20/01 11:35 PM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  
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I don't even have a copy, so I can't check anything. A simple test to see if the improvements to the flight model are in fact in the game would be to do see how the single-engine performance is. If you can accelerate on one engine, it's in there, if not, I can only assume this was an older build.

As far as the net code, ya got me. I don't see how it could be worse then the previous versions, but then I can't confirm anything without a copy.

I just want to point something out here for future reference; I have not worked for GSC since the end of '97, and neither has Gabe Mares. So please don't consider me any sort of authority on what they have done, plan to do, or are doing (not that anyone has done so yet). I do speak to Trey and Jeff a couple times a year, but I'm certainly not a spokesman for GSC or, of course, Xicat.

Personally I don't know why the whole thing was handed over to Xicat, and I sure as hell don't know why they're charging $49 for it. I think it's fair enough to trash the package as a whole if you're basing your opinion solely on value as it allies to folks who have previously owned Korea, but lets try to remember that for people who have not, it still has merit and value, although I STILL wouldn't charge $49. Not everyone owns a high-end machine, or possesses the patience to run Janes F-18, and Korea was no slouch on performance and features for the mid-range crowd.

SimHQ has never done a review of Korea. The last GSC product SimHQ reviewed was Hornet 3.0. I think there may have been some fairly heavy bias in the assumption that this title was not a good value for anyone who has previously owned it. Or that is is based on an older title, and that may have (IMO, of course) spilled over into the review as a whole. The game runs at high resolutions, and is still attractive by today's standards. No features were reviewed in any depth. There have been many titles released since Korea and I can count the better titles on one hand. As a "new" title for anyone who has never owned Korea before and does not wish to burry their face in a manual for several days, I see some merit. As an option for those who already owned Korea, I think it was a very poorly thought out approach.

Once again, I can understand why there is resentment here and the point that previous owners of Korea are screwed is certainly valid. But IMO, Korea is still a good product even 4 years later for those that have never owned it.

Varm

[This message has been edited by Varmint (edited 09-20-2001).]


Jon "Varmint" Blum
Vertical Reality Simulations
http://www.vrsimulations.com
#677927 - 09/20/01 11:49 PM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  
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Canada, eh!
I suggest you look a little harder. Korea was reviewed here in 97 and linked to twice in Crash's review of this.

#677928 - 09/20/01 11:52 PM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  
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Maybe so, but I did not see the link in that review. I saw a link to:

Hornet 3.0 Review
iF/A-18E Carrier Strike Fighter Review
F/A-18 Hornet Review


---
Added:
AH! Just found it in the body of the review. I didn't not think this was a SimHQ review when I went there because it was on another site.

[This message has been edited by Varmint (edited 09-20-2001).]


Jon "Varmint" Blum
Vertical Reality Simulations
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#677930 - 09/21/01 07:32 AM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  
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Okay Varmit,
I'll bite:

I think there may have been some fairly heavy bias in the assumption that this title was not a good value for anyone who has previously owned it.

Any more so than this comment coming from a guy that actually worked on the product this was supposed to be upgrading? Sorry, credibility shot. We work pretty hard to be objective here ... this product got a fair shake and failed.

As for going into the features ... what features would you have me dig deeper into? The shallow "Tour of Duty" ... a series of missions that have no real correlation to each other? The limited selection of missions? The hacking of the manual and the glaring omissions? (Hey, lets put a ton of user made missions in here and not tell anyone about it!) Or would it be the graphics that are nothing any more spectacular than the 3dfx patch for the original Horent Korea 4 years ago? The mission editor that has not changed? The “awesome” ability to have 4 players HEAD TO HEAD ONLY? The fact that this game is no where near JF-18 (or iF-18 Super Hornet, which I really don't have much nice to say about either) and costs 4.5 times as much? Both of the others are available for $9.95. The product is nothing more than a game that is 4 years old being re-released with a new set of graphics for the price of a brand new sim. Sorry, that is ludicrous.

As for the few "good" titles released since HK, I will assume that you are referring to ANY flight sims, not just Hornet sims. If you can count the few "good ones" on one hand, you have one hell of a hand full of fingers:

Longbow2
European Air War
F-15
JF-18
Apache Havoc (EEAH)
Total Air War
USAF
FLANKER 2.0
Comanche Hokum (EECH)
Combat Flight Sim 2
(I’ll leave Falcon 4.0 out because it was the community that turned that into the jewel that it is)

I'll stop at two hands full of sims that are at least equal to HK in features and playability, there are more.

BTW, the review of Hornet Korea IS on this site, the review that the quote on the box of PSF was taken from was not. Our bad on the bottom link, it is actually a review of Hornet Korea we have labeled as 3.0.
http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/reviews/fa18korea.shtml

Sorry that I took this a bit personal, but then … you, one of the people that made HK questioned the integrity of the review. No bias here, just plain simple facts.



------------------
Dan "CRASH" Crenshaw
President, SimHQ.com
crash@SimHQ.com
Author of "How to Live and Die in the Virtual Sky"
http://www.flightsimcentral.com/fsc/howtolivandd.html


Dan "CRASH" Crenshaw
Author of \"How to Live and Die in the Virtual Sky\"

100th AFW Buddy Boys
"We land on the fantail and drive to the wires"
#677931 - 09/21/01 07:33 AM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  
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Quote:
Originally posted by Franny:
Crash

I notice that the iF/A-18E review was quite old. Is it still worth getting? They have it over here for £6, about US$9. No manual, but I assume it's on the disk.

Worth buying after all these years?

Franny




For $10 ... the carrier ops are really impressive, but that is about where it begins and ends. $10 bucks is a bit spendy for a coaster.



------------------
Dan "CRASH" Crenshaw
President, SimHQ.com
crash@SimHQ.com
Author of "How to Live and Die in the Virtual Sky"
http://www.flightsimcentral.com/fsc/howtolivandd.html


Dan "CRASH" Crenshaw
Author of \"How to Live and Die in the Virtual Sky\"

100th AFW Buddy Boys
"We land on the fantail and drive to the wires"
#677932 - 09/21/01 08:29 AM Re: F/A-18 PSF Review  
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In my opinion if18 wasn't worth 9 bucks when it was first released. This whole precision strike fighter thing kinda ticks me off. Same game, new price. I'm gonna start buying up the rights to 4 year old games and re releasing them under different names and make a mint.

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