F-15 Strike Eagle III

Moby ID: 445
DOS Specs
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Included in Special Edition

Description official descriptions

Take the F-15 Strike Eagle and join the conflict in Iraq (Desert Storm), North Korea, and Panama, with full map authenticity. Every major landmark is included, including the Defense Ministry and Presidential Palace in downtown Baghdad (compare it with tourist maps!), major bridges over the Euphrates river, DMZ, Seoul, and Pyongyang on the Korea map, and the Canal Zone in Panama! Use the radar to paint accurate pictures of what is going on, request updates from AWAC, and unleash the full arsenal of smart weapons upon your targets. Play adversarial or co-op missions in multiplayer modes.

Spellings

  • III הנשר התוקף F-15 - Hebrew spelling

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Credits (DOS version)

60 People (52 developers, 8 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 84% (based on 7 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 10 ratings with 1 reviews)

Possibly the best multiplayer option ever!

The Good
Besides the obvious thrill of bombing with pin-point precision (well, almost) from a safe 25,000 feet, or dodging SA-Ms and MiGs while letting a barrage of clusters loose on an unsuspecting target, there existed one other important reason to own this game: multiplayer with a difference. This was at the time the only game that allowed two players to fly in the same aircraft!

You are on your own out there, avoiding SA-Ms, AA fire and MiGs while on your bombing run. Get out there, flatten your target(s), and fly home. Simple? Not this time...

I have read that real F15 missions often consisted of flying in above the range of SA-Ms (around 25,000 feet), letting your laser-guided bombs make their lazy way to their targets, and hotfoot it back home. I had other ideas. My typical mission was more like a stealth mission (probably due to my experience in F117-A Stealth Fighter). I'd fly in under the radar, pop up at the target for my bombing run, move on to the secondary, and fly home. It made for very exciting bomb runs, what with flak-dodging and MiGs suddenly appearing from the closest airbase - giving me something to do after the bomb run!

The most fun one could have in a simulation had to be while flying the same aircraft with another human pilot. I did this regularly - and we excelled. No plane, AA-gunner, or any other AI-controlled hostile could touch us. The feeling of accomplishment upon touching down after such a mission (which for me generally meant I was in the back seat) was much more than I would get after completing the same mission on my own.

Realism - as far as I was concerned when I played this game back on my 486, the flying, from take-off to landing, was real enough. Landing in particular, while not being overly difficult, led to more than a few hair-raising moments! You could also choose to have "realistic" MFDs, resulting in less information being fed to you.

The Iraqi add-on (included on the CD-ROM version) was my favourite playground - and the oceanic oil spills and perpetually burning rigs dotting the desert landscape on the ground added to the realism of the game.

The Bad
At the time this game was released, the graphics were hot, the action hotter, and I could use my Thrustmaster HOTAS/WCS combo with it. I had no problems with this game.

The Bottom Line
Building on the success of the previous 2 releases, MicroProse went all out on this one. Fantastic graphics, an immersive soundtrack and the option to fly either against a human opponent, co-operate with 2 planes, or a unique option: fly with a human co-pilot in a front seat/back seat combination.

I no longer have a copy of the game (I left it with my friend), but I often find myself thinking back and longing to pop into the back seat of the F15 "Strike Eagle". This has to be my all-time favourite combat sim.

DOS · by Stephen M (20) · 2006

Trivia

Carrier and battleship task groups

There are carrier and battleship task groups in each of the campaign maps. The Iowa battle group is near Kuwait on the Desert Storm map, as are two other carrier groups. Without the version 4108.03 patch, flying near a task group will cause the game to hang.

CD version

Because of the additional intro, the CD version was arguably worse than the floppy release: when you started the game, then a) the CD had to be in the drive and b) the intro would be played. The intro was split into several files. And why? Well, they copied the first intro file to your hard drive, played it back, deleted it, copied the next file, played it back... Not only this behaviour was totally stupid, the intro looked like crap because of the pause (yes, 1x-2x CD-ROM ruled back then) between the animation snippets.

In addition to this, in some CD:s the game crashed when trying to access the Iraq '93 campaign.

(The remedy for this bug is to copy the file \F15\FS\DS.REL from the CD to the installation directory.)

Apart from introduction, CD version also contained History and Tutorial parts. The former was a story about origin of F-15 Strike Eagles aircraft and the latter a sort of encyclopedia explaining all the functions and meaning of each and every element of the pilot's cockpit. Both parts were narrated by female voices and scanned visuals.

Iraq campaign

The version 4108.03 patch added the Iraq '93 campaign, postulating that the Coalition forces, fed up with Iraqi intransigence regarding the UN arms inspections and repeated violations of the no-fly zones, chose to resume limited bombing of specific targets, and the Strike Eagles are called back to duty...

References

If you "slew" over to Tokyo, you'll see Godzilla.

Special Edition

There's a Squadron Leader's Edition that contains a F-15 book, F-15 Squadron patch, and some limited edition F-15 photos in addition to the regular stuff in the box.

Awards

  • Power Play
    • Issue 02/1993 – #3 Best Simulation in 1992

Information also contributed by phlux

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Robert Morgan.

PC-98 added by Infernos.

Additional contributors: Kasey Chang, Crawly, Neville, Patrick Bregger, mailmanppa, Rwolf, DOS622.

Game added November 16, 1999. Last modified January 28, 2024.