Mediocre game, warning budget version has no audio tracks.
User Rating: 6.8 | B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty 8th! PC
What is most important: The game is not a real simulation, but rather a strategy-role-playing game. Actually, you don't have to do anything in a mission except for operating the Norden bomb sight for a precise and successful bombing run. You don't need to fly the complicated B-17 at all during the whole game. Generally, a typical mission is as follows: 1. planning of the bombing, choosing targets (as squadron commander), just reading the briefing (as bomber commander - boring), 2. pushing Ctrl+B to begin the mission in the 3D-world, 3. pressing a lot the return button (to skip time) and increase time accelaration to maximum (8x), 4. shooting down some fighters (if you like to), 5. operating the Norden bomb sight, 6. flying home. In between you might have to manage some injuries or flames and can change the flight plan. That's all. A typical mission takes about 20 to 30 min. So the actual game is quite limited! Actually, flying the B-17 is not necessary and a waste of time. The graphics are even in nowadays standards (2005) quite good. The sound is okay but uses the outdated Aureal 3D standard (might cause problems with WinXP). The handling of the game is below average: For example, to plan a bomb run, you have to assign targets with preferably high priority but it is rather complicated to determine the target priority. The same holds true for crew and bomber management.
A last warning: The budget version has no audio tracks. Thus, you do not have music in the menu!
