About This File
Description:
This Fleet Defender Gold theme is a set of menus and music for Strike Fighters 2 in widescreen format: 1600x900. While the basic Fleet Defender theme has been done before for the SF series, Fleet Defender Gold hasn't been represented...until now. The CD-based FD Gold had a MIDI rock theme and early 3D video introduction to the Windows 3.x/95 installation, albeit it ALWAYS skipped. Using Audacity, I was able to fix that issue following track capture. FD Gold's theme seems to have fallen by the wayside compared to the basic DOS music, and it is unfortunate, since it has a great MIDI track. Well, it's back! Fleet Defender Gold still ran the main game in DOS: it was really just a combination of the original FD and its scenario disk, but was Windows compatible for installation and featured a few extras as well: a training section, videos from Aviation Week's "Flight Deck," previews for MicroProse's upcoming games, and most interestingly, the recording of the MiG-23 shoot-downs from the Second Gulf of Sidra incident.
The Package:
The main screen attempts to recreate "Bio" Baranek's famous picture of a VF-2 F-14A in a 30-degree nose up climb, which was used as the cover photo on the game box (albeit with a 1970's era Bullet) and utilizes the Windows FD Gold intro theme. The Single Mission, Loadout, Options, Pilot Record and Roster screens use the actual FD game background music. Campaign start screen uses the FD DOS Intro music. Mission Successful/Failed/Player Killed utilize the FD Mission Successful/Failed music, and the Credits and Medals screens use the FD Mission Successful music (akin to the Top Ten and Credits of the original game). A set of 1600x900 menus have also been made.
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Installation:
NOTE: The theme was tested on an All-5 Merged install, patched to July 2013.
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CAUTION: If you didn't see in the description, these menus are in 1600x900 widescreen format! If you're using a different screen ratio, they probably won't work right. I will get around to doing a standard format in the future.
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In order to install:
1.) Copy the contents of this archive to a temporary folder.
2.) Create a new folder in your main Mod Folder (e.g. C:\Users\Name\Saved Games\ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2 Europe) called "Menu" (if it doesn't already exist).
3.) Copy the contents of your temp folder into the Menu Folder.
4.) Launch the game!
OF NOTE:
If you can't support the 1600x900 format, or if you want to keep the default or other menu screens, you can still use the Fleet Defender music by only installing the .wav files and menu .ini's. To do so, only copy the .wav and .ini files to your Mod Menu folder.
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Credits:
Menu Package (incl. Music Editing, Screens): Caesar
Original FD Gold Theme: Ronald Rizzo, MicroProse
Original FD Game Music: Michael Bross, MicroProse