Lock On: Modern Air Combat Preview

The mighty air combat simulation, once one of PC gaming's trendsetting genres, went into a nosedive a few years back. Changes in the game market have made it tough for highly skilled fans who demand the highest levels of realism to find any new modern combat flight sims on the store shelves, let alone those with modern combat aircraft. However, there are a few developers keeping this marvelously intricate discipline alive, most notably Moscow-based Eagle Dynamics. Debuting in 1995 with Flanker, the Russian studio has continued to advance the series through 1999's superb (and superbly difficult) Flanker 2 and last year's worthy upgrade, Flanker 2.5. Later this year, Eagle will add one more game to this impressive list: Lock On: Modern Air Combat.

In taking a prerelease version of Lock On for a spin, it's readily apparent that, despite the new name, this is not a wholly original game. Like the many Flankers before it, Lock On focuses on late-model jets contesting a region in and around the southern Ukraine where it borders upon the Black Sea--including the Crimean Peninsula, the locale of choice for all three prior efforts. In addition to its similar geography, Lock On has many of the same aircraft, much of the same control layout, and the same general feel of its predecessors. The Flanker series ranks right up there with the best the genre has ever had to offer, and Lock On adds to this legacy in important ways.

Yet even veteran Flanker pilots will find plenty that's new in Lock On. For starters, the game presents a total of eight flyable aircraft, three of which deviate from Flanker's traditional recipe of Russian-only planes and instead fly under the NATO banner. While three of the eight are virtually identical machines (the German MiG-29A, Russian MiG-29A, and MiG-29C), Eagle has also included the Su-25, Su-27 Flanker B, and Su-33 Flanker D. There are also two brand-new arrivals, the sleek and highly maneuverable F-15C Eagle and the not-so-fast A-10A Thunderbolt. Perhaps the most interesting and satisfying inclusion is the Thunderbolt, known affectionately as the "Warthog" for its rather unusual appearance and relatively sluggish performance. The attack jet rose to prominence in the first Gulf War, where it destroyed more than its share of Iraqi armor, and it can be used to similarly destructive effect in the game.

In our test sessions, we found that Lock On's aircraft delivered as expected. Flashy fighters zipped and darted authentically, durable planes withstood heavier attacks, and less-agile planes were just that. At the same time, exploiting the distinct strengths of each craft takes a very long time indeed, which should please serious jet jocks. The computer-controlled pilots mostly seemed to behave in a believable fashion, dodging and attacking when the moment was right, releasing chaff and flares just when they should. Still, we did notice some odd tendencies--such as AI wingmen that mirror your movements too flawlessly and AI enemies who occasionally neglect to finish things off when they're in a good position--but Ubi Soft assures us that more polish will go into the game's AI before release.

It should be noted that although Lock On will feature plenty of scalable options for rookie flyers, at its most difficult settings it's an extremely demanding affair that requires hours and days of exposure and study to even partially comprehend. With well over 200 unique commands, viewing options, and weapon and navigational operations, the game seems quite challenging at the higher realism settings. With all rookie aids removed, you'll have to rely only on the authentically cryptic instruments and displays and your flight experience. At this level, you'll find no cheats whatsoever--even some of the user-friendly external perspectives you'll find in the lower levels are eliminated.

Of course, realistically modeled flyable aircraft would be of little use without lots of targets, lots of incidental scenery, and a believable environment. And Lock On will have an abundance of each. The game will model a total of 50 individual AI-controlled warplanes (each with unique behaviors and payloads), 140 unique forms of aircraft-deliverable ordnance, and 50 varieties of ground vehicles and artillery.

Great Balls of Fire

In the limited action we could observe in the current preview version of the game, Lock On looks amazing. Certainly we found a wide variety of enemy and friendly installations and elements scattered across the landscape, ranging from individual soldiers carrying rocket launchers to Patriot missile batteries to encampments and full-blown airfields.

One of the most interesting aspects of the game will undoubtedly be its painstaking attention to visual detail. Forests, for example, are portrayed as far more than bumpy swatches of green. Eagle has instead modeled each tree and plopped them down where it sees fit--and there are tens of thousands of them. Villages, settlements, and armed forces installations feature individually crafted buildings, structures, gun positions, associated roadways, and little of the occasional emptiness of prior Eagle games. Oceans and bodies of water sport faux-reflective surfaces, undulating movement, and lapping shoreline waves. There are lots of little visual effects at any given moment, from thick gray smoke trails to glowing flames and several stunning heat effects.

Moreover, Lock On doesn't confine its beauty to the ground. Of particular interest to anyone who wants to experience the true aesthetic sensations of flight are the game's superb depictions of weather. Flying through a clear sky is impressive enough, with its darkening hues of blue and lovely sun effects. But in cloudy and especially stormy conditions, the designers' artistry really takes shape. It's tough to put in words really just what a pilot will feel as he blasts through a monsoon, pelted by streaking rain droplets and covered in various shades of translucent and opaque grayness, only to reach the top of the cloud line and emerge into glorious sunshine. Even glancing down at the fluffy billowing cloud mass below you is a treat. In situations such as this, especially if you're engaged in combat, you'll most definitely want to take advantage of the scores of fixed and manually modifiable cameras at your disposal. The natural-head-movement first-person cam is especially immersive.

As for the game's audio, although the cockpit noises seem a bit underwhelming, when you jump outside you're treated to a barrage of location-specific noises and reverberations. Cannon discharges are especially satisfying, materializing as big metallic shudders rather than the more common rat-a-tat we've all heard before. Missile launches feature a variety of believable and often startling swishes and whooshes. Thunder rolled across the speakers, and the slowly increasing roar and final blast accompanying a broken sound barrier is particularly memorable.

Other elements of Lock On's presentation are equally slick, including the menu system. Each interface is designed in the image of a high-end browser, with a command menu and forward and backward buttons at the top and lots of intuitive buttons and switches below. From the main menu screen you can select an immediate, one-click flight in the aircraft of your choice, enter the fast battle planner where you decide on virtually all the parameters of a quickie mission, and access modes that weren't available in our version, including the campaign missions, single missions, multiplayer exercises, and training. You can also design your foray to be as difficult or as easy as you like, with the one prerequisite that it'll never be as easy as an arcade air combat game.

Not everybody will want to peg the flight modeling at the most realistic settings, but fortunately Lock On's visual detail is easy to appreciate. Look for Eagle's newest game to take off later this year.