F-22 Lightning 3 Review (no fat)

Game Description

F-22 Lightning 2 was one of everyone's favorite flight simulators. It wasn't necessarily an excellent flight simulator from a die-hard fan's point of view. In fact, it was rather an arcade-esque attempt at producing something that flies. This is probably what made the Lightning series so interesting. Sure, there may be some wannabe pilots among gamers, but most of them just want to fly on their computer. Novalogic decided it's time to up the ante and provide fresh challenges to gamers.

F-22 Lightning 3 Gameplay: Cockpit for Windows

The first thing you'll see when coming in contact with F-22 Lightning 3 is the intro video. The intro is completely in tune with the game itself. It's somewhat reminiscent of Top Gun, if anyone is into that kind of Hollywood movies.

Before you actually jump into the cockpit, you'll have some customization to do. First of all, you'll have to deal with the joystick, if you're lucky enough to have one, which is more than recommended. You can play this without one but it's a little painful, . not in the "impossible" sense of the word, but it makes playing the game somewhat like driving a car using your feet (No, you're not Fred Flintstone). There are additional options that you can tweak, but the only significant ones are referring to performance options. The game is not too demanding as far as hardware resources are concerned.

After that, a seriously simplified plane will be introduced to you. Most of you will be a little bit amused when seeing the manual. Those of you who remember Flight Simulator's tomes will laugh at a 38-page manual, out of which almost half aren't related to flying itself. The manual covers some tactical instructions, the mandatory flight instructions and a few details about the Voice-Over-Net technology. 30 minutes of practice will usually be enough to get the thing to fly and do some neat tricks with it, which is approximately the time required to learn the take-off procedure in a "serious" flight simulator.

This simplification of the details can be felt at every level of the game. Flying feels fun and natural, as if you're maneuvering a kite, not a high-tech, top of the line plane. The flight itself is not the most realistic you'll encounter either. Some things are there (for example, you will notice how the planes handles differently when it's completely loaded, compared to how it handles after you used all the rockets and bombs), but some aren't. Suicidal minds will probably be rather disappointed by the fact that, no matter how hard you try, you won't be able to enter a stall. Although the F-22 has vector thrust, you won't really notice it. Not that it would make too much of a difference: those who want a complete simulation should pick Falcon 4 and leave those who are just having fun, alone.

See the world, they said

There are 22 single-player missions available, 6 of which are training missions. The others cover all the mission types around; escort, bombing, dogfight and so on. In addition to this, there are four campaigns, in Africa, Russia, Middle East and the Philippines, all with several missions. The missions themselves are connected by something that resembles a plot, but otherwise quite shallow.

In fact, the shallowness of this plot becomes a little bit too much in missions that involve the B-61 nuclear bomb. Dropping a nuclear bomb is not something for the faint-hearted. After all, a B-61 is enough to destroy a city, and B-61 bombs aren't exactly thrown every day. The plot does nothing to speculate this. Sure, you'll notice you've dropped one because it makes a fair amount of noise and sparks, but there's no thrill in it. If you've always wondered how the pilots who bombed Hiroshima felt and you think you'll find out here, there are some bad news coming your way if you take it too seriously.

Gather 'round

Up to 128 players can join a multiplayer game in F-22 Lightning 3. How do these games feel? Wonderful, to say the least. A decent broadband connection is required if there are a lot of players, but otherwise everything goes smoothly.

A much highlighted feature in this area is the Voice-Over-Net technology. Die-hard Sim fans have been known to do a lot of curious thing so that they don't get killed while typing a message for their teammates. Walkie-talkies and telephones are a good solution, unless your teammate lives four time zones from you. Voice-Over-Net tries to solve this in a neat manner, and mostly manages to. Everything is easy to set up (plug the microphones, check some settings and that's all) and very efficient. The only missing feature is the ability to talk to several players at once, although thinking about the size of a possible multiplayer game, that seems excusable.

F-22 Lightning 3 Graphics and Sound

The world of The F-22 Lightning 3 is rendered nicely. The textures aren't necessarily the best you've ever seen, but you won't be disturbed either. You won't notice the polygons when flying at 10,000 feet, and when you're closer to them, the speed sensation is good enough. There are some fairly good weather effects, too. The rain feels especially interesting, and there are some lightning effects too, which are quite thrilling.

The voices are decent and they fit well in the game’s context. The same applies to sound effects. There's not much to say about how the engines sound (few of us actually got the chance of flying that thing, and as long as the sound don't make our ears bleed, it's good enough), but the other sounds effects, like explosions, do their job well.

F-22 Lightning 3 Verdict

A blast from the past, F-22 Lightning 3 is a game many flight simulation fans won't forget in a hurry. Especially those who are into multiplayer dogfights.

F-22 Lightning 3 Cost

The game retails at 19.99$ US.