Chuck Yeager's Air Combat

Moby ID: 108
DOS Specs

Description official description

Chuck Yeager's Air Combat is a flight combat simulation. Fight over 50 missions with Chuck Yeager's advice on your side. You can use the mission builder to create your own missions if the history-based missions don't offer enough challenge. Replay modes let you fast forward and rewind through a recorded battle, including a 3-D "cube" visualization that helps analyze what happened.

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Credits (DOS version)

21 People

Lead Design
Lead Programming
Programming
Graphics / Artwork
Music
Sound
Art Director
Documentation
Producer
Project Manager
Technical Director
Writing / Dialogue / Story
Playtesting
Quality Assurance
Package Design
  • Zimmerman Crowe Design
Package Illustration
Documentation Layout
Manual Color Illustrations
Additional Illustrations

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 82% (based on 12 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 35 ratings with 5 reviews)

This Game Rocked!!

The Good
This was the first flight sim I ever played. It was the thing that got me intrested in flight. I had just got my first computer a Pentium 75 8mb of ram and a SIS video card. I played that game so much the floppy i had it on broke. I got to say it was one of the best flight sims I have ever played, not because of the accuracy but because it was fun. I also liked hot it had lots of the WWII fighters you all know and love I was a little disapointed by not getting the opratunity to fly the P38 though. The missions made you feel like an air borne rambo a one man army.

The Bad
Nothing except the graphics.

The Bottom Line
I would describe it to others as a trainer for other flight sims.

DOS · by Arlo Mabary (1) · 2001

My definition of "early air combat game".

The Good
I'm a huge fan of air combat games and flight simulators - as I am training to be a pilot (hobby, not career) and I can safely say that this is a brilliant game. The main aspect of its brilliance is the sheer customizability included. You can make your own missions with a large amount of different parameters, aircraft, etc. Also the historical missions are very good and definitely make a great attempt to capture Chuck Yeager's experiences with help from the man himself; which brings me onto the fact that the game has accurate physics, due to Yeager's input on the subject.

The Bad
What I didn't like were the graphics - OK, this is a 1991 game, but still not a huge fan of the blocky textureless planes we have and I also find the sound to be quite depressing - Either internal PC speaker drones which are arguably BETTER than the sound blaster racket that you could get. Also would like there to be more planes - half of the aircraft you see in Chuck Yeager's Air Combat are not playable!

The Bottom Line
Good game for its time and this is my definition of "early air combat game" - It paved the ground for all the upcoming games based on this genre, and is still a great game to experience now, 15 years later! Get it!

DOS · by Quackbal (45) · 2006

If you can get past the plain vga graphics, this game is still a lot of fun 8 years later.

The Good
Everything. The action is fast-paced, and if you turn up the AI, the computer can really put up a good fight. Runs fine on a 286!

The Bad
Not much, looking at it now, the vga graphics and midi music are a little dull compared with what we have almost ten years later.

The Bottom Line
Great gamplay that runs on almost any machine.

DOS · by Aquaman (53) · 1999

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

Cancelled Amiga version

The planned Amiga version was never completed, although Birds of Prey (also from Electronic Arts) did many of the same things on that system the same year.

OEM version

A special edition was bundled with the Gravis UltraSound in 1993. This version featured a whole new soundtrack intended to show off the capabilities of this sound card. The music used custom samples instead of the standard MIDI instrument set.

Speech

The starts with a digitized message from Chuck saying "Welcome to Chuck Yeager's Air Combat". There are other digitized lines by him such as: "Remember, it's the man - not the machine" which are played after a mission and give feedback about the completion and success rate.

But hidden in the game are some other digitized snippets from the actual game designers, such as:

"Welcome to Brent Iverson's Air Combat"

"Welcome to Paul Grace's Air Combat"

"Welcome to Cynthia Hamilton's Air Combat"

"Hi mom!"

"Oh my." (Spoken by Chuck Yeager)

These snippets were found by decompressing the sound library and picking at it. It is unknown if here is a legitimate way to get the sounds to play, however, such as starting up the game on someone's birthday, or a holiday.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue).- #35 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list

Information also contributed by Fire Convoy, Martin Smith, Olivier Masse and PCGamer77

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  • MobyGames ID: 108
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Trixter.

Macintosh added by SiliconClassics.

Additional contributors: Patrick Bregger.

Game added May 5, 1999. Last modified March 4, 2024.