Dec 7, 1991

[JediMaster 451]

It was on this date in 1991, during my first semester in college, that Spectrum Holobyte released the first of the great study sims...Falcon 3.0. It cost $65 at Electronics Boutique, and you could get it in 5.25" or 3.5" disk versions. I bought the 5.25" one, got it home, and the install failed at disk 3 every time. Took it back, swapped it out, took it home, same problem. Said "screw this", took it back, swapped for the 3.5" version...ahhhh, it installs! Look at the awesome polygonal graphics, far superior to the bitmapped 2D objects-in-3D space look of SWOTL!

 

So began an intense decade of the Golden Age of Flight Sims where no joke every month it seemed a new sim came out from someone, albeit few were good. What era did you like? It didn't matter, someone made a sim for it! Granted Korea and Vietnam got the short stick with few releases, but they did happen. Modern jets and WWII were of course the magnets with WWI well represented. Some great ones came out before F3, including F-19, SWOTL, TFH: BoB, and the original Red Baron, but they didn't start in earnest until after F3 came out. It let you fly H2H, but more importantly it had coop campaigns you could fly over modem or null modem or LAN. It was the first I owned with that feature and it became one I wanted on every sim after and since. Ironically, 15 years after the release of their first sim, Flanker, ED has yet to release a sim that lets you play a campaign in MP!

[+daddyairplanes 10,257]

never mind it was the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor!

 

i have played three sims before WOE and SF2 series, Yeager Air Combat, IAF and at my buddy's room in the barracks i would sometimes play his copy of Commanche. the difference between what used to be and now is pretty amazing, esp thinking back to Yeager!

[JediMaster 451]

CYAC was released about 6 months before F3. The graphics weren't quite as good, especially the terrain but even the planes, but it did offer multiple eras. It was the only place I flew Korea-era and Nam-era jets for years.

While it looked better than SWOTL, there's no doubt SWOTL (which came out the same time) was the better game. The strategic-level campaign and sole focus on WWII aided that. It was also easily modded and was my first experience with game mods, followed by the original DOOM.