Jane's Combat Simulations: WWII Fighters • Electronic Arts 1998
Вставка
- Опубліковано 25 лип 2024
- Today I present you one of the last survey flight sims produced by Paul Grace under EA/Jane's logo. He was a veteran in this genre known for producing such titles as F/A-18 Interceptor, Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Simulator / Trainer 2.0, LHX Attack Chopper, Su-25 Sturmovik, Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, 688 Attack Sub, SEAL Team, Fighters series of games (USNF, ATF, Fighters Anthology) and even Wing Commander III. Quite a resume...
This WW2 themed flight sim game focused mainly on battles fought during last phase of the war in the Low Countries. Flyable planes include 4 Allied warplanes: Spitfire MkIX, P-51D Mustang, P-47D Thunderbolt and P-38J Lighting, and 3 on the Axis side: Bf-109 G-6, FW-190 A-8 and first jet that entered service - Me-262 A. There is tons of stuff to watch and read about those planes and the ace pilots flying them.
The sim let you fly in several modes - Fly Now, Quick Mission, Single Mission, Campaing and also featured Mission Builder and Multiplayer mode.
You may notice some similarities in WWII Fighters with eariler Fighters titles - familiar windows which you can populate your screen with, this time analog gauges and familiar target view. Interestingly the cockpits were painstakingly modelled in fully 3d with all the instruments working as they should, for comparison European Air War released also in 1998 had 2d and 3d pits, though the 3d ones were less detailed than those found here.
Speaking of detail, the 3d engine was completely new this time, after reusing the older one for 4 years (USNF 1994 - FA 1998) which supported only software renderer, this time 3d accelerated graphics card was a requirement - it supported Direct 3D, Glide and OpenGL APIs. It featured nice lighting effects, proper 3d clouds and lots of detail. Just switch to outside view, squeeze the trigger and admire the stream of bullet casings ejected from the gun ports.
Along with graphics engine also flight model was greatly updated, flying felt more realistic with greatly enhanced damage model. Even interior of your plane can sustain damage, with individual instruments becoming inoperative after taking hits to the cockpit.
As a tradition in those sims I guess started with the camels in LHX and later continued in USNF with cows and other ox like animals, here we may be greated with a rare sight of a deer crossing the runway during our take off or landing. Who knows what else lurks in Ardennes forest?
Some cool links:
Making of video: • Retro Archive • Jane's...
This runs fine on Windows 10, just use dgVoodoo as a Direct3D wrapper.
0:00 Intro - it mixed pre-rendered cutscenes with in-engine footage
1:29 Main Menu - stulized as a museum
2:04 P-51D Mustang showcase - Cockpit
2:54 P-51D Mustang showcase - Basic Armament
3:49 P-51D Mustang showcase - Powerplant
4:42 P-51D Mustang showcase - Video
6:50 P-51D Mustang showcase - Jane's Information
8:10 P-51 Ace Anderson
10:30 Allied Campaign (5th mission)
12:00 Mission Start
14:28 First Waypoint - we have a mid-air collision
15:42 Bandits sighted!
17:20 First kill (stolen)
21:25 Second kill
24:05 Last kill, gone Winchester
25:03 Playing as bait
25:52 Head on mid-air collision
26:22 Heading home
29:28 Bf-109 disintegrates mid air
30:50 Bombers diverting to England
32:10 Home base in sight
34:50 Bambi on the runway!
36:46 Debriefing
#RetroFlightSims - Ігри
As always check the video description for some more hidden goodies ;)
Oh hell yes, Jane's WWII Fighters was an absolute favorite of mine when I was a kid, I still love the damage model in this game!
yeah, the damage model of this game was ahead of its time, i always have hated those simulations where your plane just exploded and made a hole in the ground no matter how you hit it.. this game was a game changer in this aspect.
this game was so ahead of its time, its still amazing to see how good the graphics are, and the playability and imersion are just great
Maybe not ahead of its time. Maybe the times just suck now for gaming. Too many good games from this time period made with way more primitive tech. Its the corporations that run the gaming world now, they suck.
Back before every 16 yr old had a PC, and Flight Sims where sims.
@@1800cc-Dead-Meat Janes had some good sim games. ITs a shame that with all the new tech nothing compares in current gen gaming.
The saddest part of this is that no other flight sim has given me the same feels as this game and Longbow 2. Here we are 22 years later, and there's still nothing that can take their place.
To be fair I find the Il-2 Battle of ... series pretty decent in that regard. You have scripted campaigns as well as dynamic (or rather random) campaigns similar to the one in Red Baron 2/3D with the newspaper (news from the front along with top aces section / kill board) , squadron (each pilot having a name and being able to die in a mission only to replaced by another one) etc. Sadly we have no modern times flight that simulates that (besides perhaps BMS which is modded to death at this point). DCS World could impement some of this "being a pilot in a war" feeling but right now it feels rather sterile in that regard.
@@damsonn Yep Il-2 Battle of ... is definitely my new jam! sometimes when i finish a fight I hear the victory music of "Jane's Combat...."
There was an A-10 game around this time that was Awesome. This janes ww2 sim brings back memories! I need to play this agin
It goes further back for me: Digital Integration Tornado, Fleet Defender… I feel you mate.
Everything else got so sterile and too much sandbox like. There is no real experience unlike in those mentioned sims, Falcon BMS and flying by some serious ground wars with a few battles happen on the horizon… tanks firing at each other etc.
Even ~10MB Tornado delivers this feeling.
Look at this (and more of this epic channel here) and check the comments for time stamps ua-cam.com/video/F6fVlHQjZBc/v-deo.html
@@Tertius_Oculus Clicked on that link and POW! It was 1995 again.
I go back to "Birds of Prey" -- so yeah.
when i was a kid i seriously probably played over 1000 hours. loved seeing the roughest landing i could do on 3 pixels
I would not have thought that Colonel Anderson is still alive in 2022. Went to WW2, was a P51 Ace, flew Thunderchiefs in 'Nam as well as commanding that air wing, test pilot for McDonnell Douglas, good friends with Brig. General Yeager, outlived both Prince Phillip and Queen Elizabeth the 2nd, and still going after the shittiest couple of years we have had in a while.
Damn, you're right, he's still alive and well. A true legend - triple ace and highest scoring living American fighter pilot.
One of my favorite games when I was little. Even though I'm playing Warthnder and DCS now, I still can't forget it, the initiation of my flying games.
Mine was Sierra/Dynamix Red Baron, then Aces of the Pacific followed by USNF97, TG then I got a rom in the mail for WB...bought WWII Fighters then F/A18 Hornet Korea, found Fighter Ace online then Pacific Fighters filled the void FA left when online servers went down. Hurricane Harvey took out my rig (TM ERCS, SFS F15 H.O.T.A.S.) now I'm flying Fighter Wing 3.1 it's a new WWI Multiplayer air combat simulator app maybe your up for a lil 1v1 sometime? Cheers!!
My late grandad had the original discs, I must have played couple of hundred hours playing! I got to the point when I realised I could pretend like I was a super heavy bomber and would drop 2000lbs bombs and then respawn and instantly drop bombs again and repeat and watch them on the bomb cam.
Also loved to set up missions with large amounts of fighters going towards each other at the same altitude for complete carnage. One of my favourite games ever
Played with that game when I was deployed in the Golan heights with the Canadian Armed forces in 1999-2000, it was a very hot WW2 flight sim at the time, thx for the trip down in memory lane.
Oh yes ! i have this one and several important Jane's games in big boxes with huge manuals, bought them at their time : F15, F/A 18, longbow gold, longbow 2, 688i hunter killer, WWII fighters, IDF, Fleet Command,, USAF. Taht was marvelous times with Jane's simulators.
The narrator in the museum is Edward Herrmann. He was narrator for many History Channel documentaries in the 90s and 00s. He's also an actor you'll recognize in a lot of popular movies.
I loved this game, still nothing like it to this day. The reviews were middling, which was strange given how people loved the dog fighting.
Such an iconic voice
This game changed everything. Absolute classic!! 😎
My love for planes and aviation started with this game
Watched this video and brought so many memories of playing this when I was 28 years old in 98 lol! I actually just found this on moddB and downloaded it and played it for the first time in many many years!
Same!!! So much nostalgia! I was like 9 playing this on my parents old PC back in 2001 lol. Dang thing would crash their PC all too often while playing but I still played the hell out of it. Just ordered a copy with a flight stick to experience it again after all these years!
Oh man. The nostalgia seen Jane's WWII Fighters. Every time I've played it always let me 1940s music of the menu play
THAT game blew my mind then,,,,,so ahead of its time....and the music is a great touch,...i miss that kind of games...today you must attend a flight school for 3 months to play a sim...
I picked this up for $10 off the shelf at WalMart in maybe 2002 and it was a move I did not regret. It's cool to see it played by someone who knows what they're doing.
This game would lock my parents computer up every time I played. To much awesome for the PC's back then. Lol
😂😂😂 same! Would crash the hell out of my parents old windows 98 PC ha
I still have this game on the windows 98 computer i used to play on
Ah WWII fighters. The damage model was ahead of its time as it wasn't until il2 (if it was any earlier idk what game was) where you could see your plane take visual/phisical damage.
You gotta love the main menu being based on aircraft museums like the AMC museum in dover
I grew up playing this and Janes F15. Nowadays we have Warthunder or DCS! But I love this stuff. Classic
We had a blast working on this game. I remember trying to create true 36-plane B-17 box formations in the (internal) 3D mission editor but the AI would always cause the planes to run into each other. 🤣
Such an amazing game. Takes me back to 90s. That theaterical music really adds a beautiful feel to the flight.
This was the first game i ever purchased. Still got it. The box, the presentation, the manuals, something that's hugely missing today.
Wish I still had this. Been a long time since I played. Nice video..
I remember playing this game in 1999. Brings back great memories. I loved this game
This was hell to run smooth on the PCs of the day! I still have the original CD and manual.
Man this game was epic
Such a classic ... the hangar !! Zwei hundert meter!!
Aaaaah... Memories! Good ones too... ♥️
Remember having the demo of this and even that was brilliant!
Brings back great memories.
I remember playing this back in the day. It was the first sim I'd ever played with a 3D cockpit, and it totally blew me away. I especially loved the mission where you could steal the Me-262 and fly it to your home base.
Used to play this online on dial up. Think I wasted whole spring break in 9th grade.
One of my most beloved childhood games along with Super Mario Sunshine
That feeling when you realize that this game was published by EA. They really had some good stuff back then...
Simulation era games. Good old days
Thank you very much for this perfect video
Brilliant! thanks for making this!
This with the old Sidewinder Force feedback Pro, yes please, actually just ordered one for this and Mechwarrior 3
I recently bought and restored a win98 era pc so I could play old gems like this again! Was my favorite WW2 flight sim until IL-2 1946, but still great to play today. All the Janes published flight sims like Fighters Anthology, USAF, F-15, F/A-18, Longbow 2 and on were the best at the time. I know DCS world is the new king of simming, but you can't beat the beautiful big-boxes, with the spiral bound manuals and reference cards that we used to get...
I was in the 8th grade when this came out set the bar real high for a good ww2 flight simulator game
i remember this great game and awesome music! big thx!
Awe man. This is my childhood
This was so realistic back in 98 played with a joystick.
OH MY GOD I was looking ofr this game for so long! Thank you!
For me it's kinda funny. I have incredible memories of this game, but not exactly for the flight.
As a kid I would sit in the menu for hours taking in the scenery of the museum and listening to the songs they picked for the soundtrack. (Hell, one of my fave all-time songs is because of this game. "Take the A Train" by Duke Ellington)
I feel like good creative menu design is underrated and underappreciated as hell, and this is by far one of the highest marks for me.
Fantastic overview!
Man I should have bought this game when I had the chance. I heard it was really good.
You can download it for free at mod dB
I like how you added the commentary/text to this video.
Man, I remember trying to play this sim on my PC that struggled to even play this intro. Still spent hours trying though.
For 1998 it was ahead of time. More like year 2000.
that was awesome. thanks
This is where my War Thunder addiction started.
EA when it actually did cool shit.
Dad bought a joystick specifically for this game and it was bonkers haha
Great sim and great video! 13:06 The latest patch, 1.08f, did add wingman commands which are listed in the Readme file, even if they are quite rudimentary.
Thanks for the tip, I will have to check it out.
@@damsonn Speaking of patches. You can actually run this game at widescreen resolution with some hacks.
I remember this barely ran on my Dell 450mhz desktop
그리운 20대 시절ᆢ
19:16 i didn't know Doomguy was pilot in Jane's WWII Fighters
I like to see the full campaing (Both Allies & Axis) uploaded on youtube
How does this look better than when Warthunder came out?!
Great vid - I just downloaded it including dgvoodoo and everything, but the game crashes any time I try to fly. I can get to the museum screen just fine and interact with that, but entering a missio nor using the "Fly Now" button on the launcher just crashes back to desktop. Any ideas on fixing that? Running on WIndows 10, downloaded the game off of Moddb
35:25 oh deer
I still have this game both blue and red discs just no way to play them since I don’t have a cd drive computer anymore 😭
haha now THAT was eventful indeed ^^
Wish they'd remake this or make it available for xbox series x. All time favorite
How many of those awesome classic sims do you own in complete form - box and manual etc? Half the fun is the manual, isn't it?
Where can I download this game? it looks great!
Will there be more of this?
I still have I&II.. Windows 98'.. It be cool if it played in Window10 or better too
how can i play this again on a modern computer?
Anyone know the controls to go to and Back from the external view? And any good websites or photos that have the a list of all the controls? Just downloaded it from moddb and got a massive rush of nostalgia.
archive.org/details/Janes_WWII_Fighters_Pilots_Guide/page/n15/mode/2up
@@damsonn Thank you so much! I can finally play this classic!
Landing was unnecessarily hard in this game
"Jane's"....? I was around back then, teenager but never understood that silly name.
How do you get this to run on Windows 10?
With dgVoodoo2 Direct3D wrapper
@@damsonn Do you download the game first or this voodoo programm?
did Mike Shapiro did the narration?!
Can someone help me? I want to reinstall this game on Windows 10. Also, how do I get the game? There is no way I can download this digitally, right?
You can't get this digitally anywhere. You might look for it on abandoware sites or hunt down retail copy on auction site. After installing the game just copy/paste 4 dll files from dgVoodoo2 (from dgVoodoo2\MS\x86\ folder) into the game folder and run the game. It should work fine.
@@damsonn Thanks for the quick response. I'll make sure to follow the steps.
14:42 Ooof
25:55 F
The flight model and objective triggers really sucked, but it was a game ahead of its time. I used to love making massive ground battles. All the tanks would just cluster together until everybody died in a huge pile 🤣
Someone add VR to this like vtolvr PLEASEEE
from film to music to game
it was quality over quantiy back in the days
it was about passion and artistic expression
but now everything became mass produced shit
they all do the art for the money
its oaky to do that and somehow it's inevitable in the world of capitalism but the problem is that's all they care from begiinging to end
ex:films like once upon a time in america , cinema paradisco - now: eveyhing is about marvel super heroes LOL
musics like oasis,the smiths,david bowie - now:strippers think they are musicians
games like early toral war series ,crisis1 -now:better looking graphic but that's all
even the good documentary channels like history channel or discovery channel became shittier
....
but the funny thing is they have more resource and more audienece and better technology compare to back in the days
idk WTF is this world about anymore
AI crashing and stealing kills, that should have been got rid of in testing. I got the demo from PC Gamer and it felt really janky so I wasn't inspired to buy it.
Could've happened in real life. Also I wasn't looking for any patches for this, maybe there are some fixes to this problems?
In the making of video I linked in the description Anderson talks about 2 friendlies colliding with each other , albeit in bad weather.
Maybe it could happen. But when mission five becomes 50% harder through no fault of the player that's bad gameplay in my opinion.
@@Daimo83 Actually there were more escort fighters, not only my flight of 4. I wonder if this is common occurence, it was first time it happened and I already flew several missions in campaign and few single missions.
the worst air combat game ever made, totally out of the question, without any physics, it looks like the planes were floating
Just found my copy of this game. I spent hours playing this. I'm gonna slap the disc case with my sack