Description
You're flying the F-16 "Fighting Falcon", a U.S. Air Force fighter, over the skies of Korea. The learning curve is VERY steep and will take time to learn, let alone master. There is a way to "jump in and fly" so the game can be enjoyed by anyone, regardless of experience. The simulated plane is an F-16C Block 50/52 version.
Falcon 4.0 comes with a dynamic campaign, which is full blown strategy game within the simulator itself. As the virtual war developes, the campaign engine moves ground, naval and airborne troops around the battlefield and generates missions for the player.
Alternate Titles
- "猎鹰4.0" -- Chinese title (simplified)
Part of the Following Groups
User Reviews
The Press Says
| PC Gamer |
Mar, 1999 |
95 out of 100 |
95 |
| GameStar (Germany) |
Dec, 1998 |
92 out of 100 |
92 |
| Gamezilla |
May 10, 1999 |
91 out of 100 |
91 |
| PC Player (Germany) |
Jan, 1999 |
90 out of 100 |
90 |
| WomenGamers.com |
Aug 25, 2000 |
9 out of 10 |
90 |
| GamersMark |
Nov 30, 1999 |
9 out of 10 |
90 |
| Svenska PC Gamer |
Feb, 1999 |
84 out of 100 |
84 |
| Gamekult |
Sep 25, 2000 |
8 out of 10 |
80 |
| PC Gameplay (Benelux) |
Feb, 1999 |
76 out of 100 |
76 |
| Computer Gaming World (CGW) |
Apr, 1999 |
   |
70 |
Forums
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Trivia
Development and post-release
Falcon 4.0 was first announced as being in development on September 1994. The game faced multiple development delays and revisions courtesy of the 3D cards revolution, corporate problems and Windows 95, so that it never entered true beta stage until early 1998. The major delays for the game, however, came when
Leon Rosenshein was brought in on late 1995 as lead designer. Leon, who had worked for the U.S. government, basically took the project back to the drawing board with lots of ambitious design decisions, effectively scrapping all the early works. After the acquisition of Microprose by Hasbro, the new management team set the deadline to December 1998.
Gilman Louie and some other developers of
Falcon 3.0 were hired to assist and the game was eventually released, riddled with bugs. Several patches were released but on the 7th of December, 1999, Hasbro laid off the
Falcon 4.0 team.
In April 2000, the game's source code leaked to the public, and a project called
EFalcon started. Another team, Ibeta, was making realism patches for the game using hex editing. These two weren't compatible until they were combined in a project called
SuperPAK.
In May 2001, G2 Interactive purchased the rights for the
Falcon series and developed
Falcon 4.0: Allied Force, which was released in June 2005 and is a further refinement of
Falcon 4.0's engine, which - as with
Operation Flashpoint - was developed over a period of several years with an eye to further expansion down the line. Along with the
Quake engine, which apparently still has some tendrils hidden away in
Half-Life 2, this must make the
Falcon 4.0 engine one of the longest-lived game engines of all time.
Leader's Edition
There was a
Squadron Leader's Edition released at the same time. It uses a 3-ring loose-leaf cover instead of a box.
Awards
- Computer Gaming World
- November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #11 Top Vaporware Title in Computer Game History
- PC Player (Germany)
- Issue 01/2000 - Best Flight Simulation in 1999
- PC Powerplay (Germany)
- Issue 07/2006 - #4 Best Packaging (together with Falcon 3.0)
Information also contributed by
Ashley Pomeroy,
Toni Oinas and
Zovni.
