Release date delays are not uncommon in the computer gaming business, yet few titles can lay claim to nearly two years of setbacks. Nevertheless, such is the case with Ubisoft's air combat simulator Lock On: Modern Air Combat. Originally planned for late 2001, Lock On will finally ship on November 18 of 2003. And that's not a moment too soon for hardcore pilots.

Weapons aside, an ejection seat can be a pilot's best friend.

Clearly, Lock On is an ambitious project. Ubisoft and Russian-based developer Eagle Dynamics have taken on a wide variety of issues with the game, not the least of which is the purported death of the genre. The cost of producing a quality air combat sim, it has been said, is too steep given its limited appeal. Furthermore, there is a question as to whether Eagle can successfully merge the best elements of a "survey" and "study" sim in one neat package. Can a game that offers six unique aircraft really do an authoritative and authentic job of each? And lastly, can a game that promises ultrarealism also deliver on its guarantee of scalability? Will a bright-eyed rookie feel just as comfortable as a studied veteran?

For the definitive answers to these and other questions, we'll all have to wait patiently until Lock On goes gold in November. In the meantime, we had a chance to take a late prerelease version for a few test flights. While it wasn't finalized and felt a bit rough around the edges, the version we played suggests that Lock On may well be just the kick start this genre needs, delivering on most of the above conditions and providing a highly authentic, highly tweakable air combat experience inside one of the prettiest environments to ever grace any combat or civilian flight sim.

When you first launch the game, you'll see that Eagle has constructed a clinical menu system that's more dapper than it is electrifying. It's also extremely efficient. Selections are made via Windows-type buttons and drop-down menus. There are no slick animations to waste your time or slow the proceedings. If you want to hit the skies for a quick jaunt, you'll merely click the "Fly" button beneath your chosen aircraft. No further input is required. If you want some degree of control over what you'll encounter on a quick flight, choose the "fast battle planner" and be whisked away to another set of screens where you can select your airborne and nonairborne adversaries, choose your flight paths, and decide upon options such as weather, terrain, altitude, fuel load, and so on. There are numerous other game modes and options as well, which we'll get into a bit later.

Like the renowned Flanker series that gave rise to it, Lock On focuses on late-model jets embroiled in air-to-air, air-to-ground, and air-to-sea conflicts over the southern Ukraine and northern Black Sea region. The game will sport an incredible number of physical items, including nearly 200,000 buildings, 21 cities, 1,700 towns and villages (certainly nothing approaching a real city), 500 bridges, 18 airfields, eight naval bases, and a startling half-billion trees. Then, of course, there are the aircraft. Eagle has fashioned nearly 50 unique nonflyable jets, helicopters, and prop-driven warbirds for Lock On and another eight that are completely and fully flyable. Granted, three of these are virtually identical machines (the German MiG-29A and Russian MiG-29A and MiG-29C), yet the other five (Su-25, Su-27 Flanker B, Su-33 Flanker D, F-15C Eagle, and A-10A Thunderbolt "Warthog") are very distinctive indeed.

In Lock On, the skies can transform from silent to deadly in just a few seconds.

So distinctive, in fact, that Eagle has seen fit to offer individual tutorials. Twenty-nine tutorials will appear in the final product, divided between basic control, hyperadvanced Top Gun stuff, and specific training for each flyable aircraft and even several of their unique weapons. One of the F-15's training runs teaches you specifically about pulse Doppler radar. One of the Su-25's lessons spells out the nuances of its R-60 Aphid air-to-air missile. This is just one of several measures Eagle has taken to help familiarize newcomers and further the knowledge and abilities of pros.

As advertised, the game will indeed be scalable. Lock On will offer four generic levels of difficulty, each of which can then be fully customized. Unlimited weapons, unlimited fuel, easy flight models, immortality, enhanced (or reduced) missile effectiveness, auto lock-ons, easy radar, object labels--these are just some of the many variables.

However, no matter how much simplification you dial in or how many tutorials you take, it doesn't seem like Lock On will make it truly easy for the first-time pilot. For starters, the control set is positively stupefying, comprising six full pages of single-spaced instructions when printed on standard letter-size paper. Furthermore, certain commands apply only to one model of aircraft. Accordingly, it will take several hours for those unfamiliar with air combat sims in general to properly orient themselves.