Israeli Air Force

Rating:
Summary: Could've been a contender....
Review: With all the survey sims out there (flight sim programs that let you fly a bunch of planes rather than having to concentrate on one like "Flanker" or "Jane's F-15") somebody was bound to come out with one modeled against the legendary Israeli Air Force. (Alas, Iraqui Air Force fans will have to wait.) Unfortunately, the IAF isn't that well served by this title which improves on previous Jane's Fighters titles (like ATF and USNF) but not in ways that reflect how far sims have come since the mid 1990's. In IAF, you fly in one of seven IAF jets in air conflicts beginning with the now mythic Six Day War of 1967. The IAF Jets include the Mirage III (Israel's top fighter in '67), the Kfir C-7 (a low cost copy of the Mirage designed in Israel when the French cut off military ties), both the F-4E and its high-tech descendant, the Phantom 2000, the F-15 and F-16 (because, why not?) and the Lavi - Israel's aborted entry into the ATF game. Problems with this sim are the lackluster graphics which improve over ATF and USNF but not by that much. The terrain looks pretty realistic from high altitude but pixilates lower down where Israeli pilots probably do most of their work (whether in busting tanks or just to evade radar). Low-altitude pixilation has been a problem for sometime, and it's annoying that anybody can release a flight sim with that problem and a minumum stated hardware requirement of a 266 megahurtz. Low-level flight is handled better on Eidos' "Joint Strike Fighter", with less pixilation, consistently smooth frame-rate and more modest hardware requirements. You'll need pretty powerful hardware for this game. Most publishers understate the hardware you'll need to effectively run their games, though differing in the degree to which they understate. For Jane's titles, you'll probably want a system offering a healthy %150 over the minimum stated hardware requirements of their games. Why that much power is needed is something I stopped asking myself after playing Jane's ATF.

Another problem is the historical ground covered - as if the history of Israeli warfare began no earlier than 1967, and neglecting both the jury-rigged IAF of 1948 (with its WWII surplus planes and volunteer pilots) and the IAF of the '56 Sinai campaign, with its core pilots making their way through the transition to jets. Also underwhelming are the choice of aircraft - we have two versions of the Phantom, but not a single version of the "Skyhawk", Israel's workhorse bomber of the '73 war. While the game offers the player the chance to fly the '67 war, the only plane represented here is the Mirage III, forgetting that Mystere's and Ouragans that flew important missions in that war. You can fly MiGs in multiplayer, but only the MiG-23 and the MiG-29. The MiG-21, which was to the cold war skies what the Mustang or Spitfire were to WWII, is inexplicably absent. Also missing is the Su-7, the dedicated strike fighter of Isael's opponents. And, ofcourse, neglect of the War of Independence and the Sinai Campaign highlights the absence of the aircraft most closely identified with those conflicts (the Spitfire and Avia S-199 of the WOI and the Mustang and Mystere B2 of 1956).

In short, if IAF is at the edge of your computer's performance, and a survey sim is what you want, then stick with ATF (you can use the mission builder to recreate the Israeli air wars). If your computer is more powerful, you might want to consider the more expansive Jane's USAF.

Rating:
Summary: Could've been a contender....
Review: With all the survey sims out there (flight sim programs that let you fly a bunch of planes rather than having to concentrate on one like "Flanker" or "Jane's F-15") somebody was bound to come out with one modeled against the legendary Israeli Air Force. (Alas, Iraqui Air Force fans will have to wait.) Unfortunately, the IAF isn't that well served by this title which improves on previous Jane's Fighters titles (like ATF and USNF) but not in ways that reflect how far sims have come since the mid 1990's. In IAF, you fly in one of seven IAF jets in air conflicts beginning with the now mythic Six Day War of 1967. The IAF Jets include the Mirage III (Israel's top fighter in '67), the Kfir C-7 (a low cost copy of the Mirage designed in Israel when the French cut off military ties), both the F-4E and its high-tech descendant, the Phantom 2000, the F-15 and F-16 (because, why not?) and the Lavi - Israel's aborted entry into the ATF game. Problems with this sim are the lackluster graphics which improve over ATF and USNF but not by that much. The terrain looks pretty realistic from high altitude but pixilates lower down where Israeli pilots probably do most of their work (whether in busting tanks or just to evade radar). Low-altitude pixilation has been a problem for sometime, and it's annoying that anybody can release a flight sim with that problem and a minumum stated hardware requirement of a 266 megahurtz. Low-level flight is handled better on Eidos' "Joint Strike Fighter", with less pixilation, consistently smooth frame-rate and more modest hardware requirements. You'll need pretty powerful hardware for this game. Most publishers understate the hardware you'll need to effectively run their games, though differing in the degree to which they understate. For Jane's titles, you'll probably want a system offering a healthy %150 over the minimum stated hardware requirements of their games. Why that much power is needed is something I stopped asking myself after playing Jane's ATF.

Another problem is the historical ground covered - as if the history of Israeli warfare began no earlier than 1967, and neglecting both the jury-rigged IAF of 1948 (with its WWII surplus planes and volunteer pilots) and the IAF of the '56 Sinai campaign, with its core pilots making their way through the transition to jets. Also underwhelming are the choice of aircraft - we have two versions of the Phantom, but not a single version of the "Skyhawk", Israel's workhorse bomber of the '73 war. While the game offers the player the chance to fly the '67 war, the only plane represented here is the Mirage III, forgetting that Mystere's and Ouragans that flew important missions in that war. You can fly MiGs in multiplayer, but only the MiG-23 and the MiG-29. The MiG-21, which was to the cold war skies what the Mustang or Spitfire were to WWII, is inexplicably absent. Also missing is the Su-7, the dedicated strike fighter of Isael's opponents. And, ofcourse, neglect of the War of Independence and the Sinai Campaign highlights the absence of the aircraft most closely identified with those conflicts (the Spitfire and Avia S-199 of the WOI and the Mustang and Mystere B2 of 1956).

In short, if IAF is at the edge of your computer's performance, and a survey sim is what you want, then stick with ATF (you can use the mission builder to recreate the Israeli air wars). If your computer is more powerful, you might want to consider the more expansive Jane's USAF.