Macintosh

Falcon 4.0

Simply put, Falcon 4.0 is a best of breed. You simply have to like this breed of games or be willing to take the time to learn how to play. If you do take the time, you'll find that Falcon 4.0 will offer you hundreds of hours of compelling game play.

Falcon 4.0 is a flawed product. There is no escaping that. A brilliant F-16 fighter simulation that looks stunning and brings flight simulators to a whole new level of complexity and realism, Falcon 4.0 is ahead of its time in ways both good and bad.

This game was either released too early or Microprose has serious quality assurance problems and a very disturbing attitude towards their customers. A program in a state like that should not have been released. Perhaps the PC side of the game universe is used to this kind of sloppy product management. For lack of better experience these people are perhaps willing to accept it. I will not.

So if you're big into flight sims, Falcon 4.0 should keep you busy for longer than your boss/spouse/children would like, I'm sure. It's gorgeous to look at, and the action is certainly intense (of course, it's during these intense moments when the frame rates drop, but it's too late to get into that now). If you're just looking for an afternoon of light entertainment, however, I think you'll want to pass this one up and give "Fly!" a try instead. After all it's much easier to learn to fly a plane when you don't have an unseen enemy trying to kill you...but I've found that's pretty much true of everything in life. Haven't you?