Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding Solo play
Review: An outstanding flight sim that is easy to learn, but difficult to master. Dogfights are epic and the dynamic campaign outstanding. Ground attack is as good as it gets. Flight models outstanding. Damage model outstanding. Comms is poorly laid out, but the AI helps some of this short coming. Multiplayer is only good for Head to Head and team play. Still, this one is excellent and I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent fighter sim
Review: As a trainee fighter pilot I think this is really the most realistic game I have played. Although the game is very limited, for instance in the number of exercises that can be carried out, I have still found it very usefull. The games biggest plus is the detailed map, that when printed out allows you to fly low level tatical navs using roads ,rivers etc. No game including Falcon 4 does this as well. This game with its excellent flight model is also great for ACM. Especially as it teaches you alot about energy management ( which is essential in a low power fighter ). Once again its a great pity is it doesn't allow more options ex 2v1 & 2v2 setups. Even with all its limitations its a must for any aspiring fighter pilot.
Rating: 
Summary: The flight sim that could have...
Review: First, a caveat - when I tried this sim on my P4-winXP, it wouldn't respond to joystick inputs. Even when re-calibrating in-game (which just sends you to the WinXP control panel), and downloading the official patch failed to help. With a 3rd party patch I realized a mixed blessing - I could now fly the sim well enough to realize how good it could have been if not for some serious flaws. While I haven't determined which of these problems were endemic to the pre-patched game, they mirrored the same problems I'd found on the Empire Interactive/Rowan game "Wings of Gold", a promising WWI sim. "MiG Alley" (MA) was one of two sims that appeared in the late 1990's dedicated to the Korean air war - the co-called "forgotten war". World's apart from "Sabre Ace", MA was still bedeviled by horrible bugs, again eerily recalling WoG - graphics re-draw (in which the program will re-draw the next graphics frame w/o fully erasing the previous one - reminding you that you are in fact looking at graphics and also making for a more psychedelic experience than you'd expect in a military flight sim), numerous freezes and the all powerful CTD (crash to desktop)! Bugs aside, MA reveals an uncompromising sim from a developer with a uniquely uncanny choice in its subjects, one obviously designed for the serious aviator (WWI sims were on the decline when WoG appeared and remain eclipsed by sims based on WWII Europe; "Flight of the Intruder" remains not only of the most demanding hardcore sims of all time, but one of the few that focused completely on Vietnam. USNF '97 graciously included VN among its otherwise blandly generic missions. "Strike Fighters" included Vietnam War-era planes, but had them fighting a fictitious war in the mideast).In MA, you fly single missions or in segmented campaigns in the Korean war, a comparatively short though bloody war in which fortunes seemed in constant flux (from the North's initial overwhelming of the US-backed South, to the allied landing and break-out at Inchon, to the entry of red China). Your choice of aircraft is extensive, but also limited to USAF assets (meaning that there's still room for a sim that has you flying FJ-3, F-9 and Corsairs from aircraft carriers, ala "Bridges of Toko-Ri" and "Men of the Fighting Lady"). You'll fly the F-80, America's first true combat jet (and the winner of the first all-jet dogfight), the F-51 Mustang (the legendary prop-fighter of WWII now out of its element flying strike missions and CAS), the early F-84 (a straight-wing jet fighter later designed with swept wings, but not in time for Korea) and of course, several versions of the F-86 itself. Though you get to fly the MiG-15 (a fighter based on the Focke-Wulfe Ta-183 prototype designed by Kurt Tank for the Luftwaffe near the end of WWII), the sim makes it clear where your attentions are devoted (i.e., there are no careers for flying Yaks or Lavotchkin fighters). Each of the plane's are wonderfully distinctive: like the real thing, the game's F-84 is bedeviled by its non-stabilator tail and non-swept wings, but its stability and resilience to damage will reward the faithful; Giving Mustangs the ground-attack missions that should have been tasked to the P-47 (a Mustang contemporary of WWII that was actually an ancestor of the F-84, and possessing, for a prop-fighter, the same stable flight performance and better able to absorb damage) was probably a bad idea, but Rowan uses the inclusion of any prop-fighter to highlight the sensation of their jets - the Mustang of this game is hardly the dumb-downed jet of "Sabre Ace", but so retains the nuances of that prop-fighter that you have to remind yourself that you're not over wartime Europe; the F-80 is the perfect jet for beginners - neither so agile that it's inclined to spin, nor so stable that you'll find yourself wrestling with the controls while trying to anticipate enemy fighters; the ultimate experience of course is the F-86, which will definitely spin if given half a chance, and will likely spin if given any chance. All allied aircraft share the flaw of being outgunned by the MiG-15 (which carried a rapid firing cannon against the machine guns - inadequate by WWII standards - lofted by our planes). Combat is challenging at every level - there were no HUDs in Korea, so just finding your targets is akin to impossible (the game "allows" a semi-3d scanner reminiscent of the one in the X-Wing Fighter games; echoing the "Air Warrior" series, the game also features dots alongside the edges of your screen hinting at the location of fighters both friendly and otherwise). Realistically, aircraft appear as fast-moving specks on the horizon, then as blazing stars (likely the sun bouncing off that aluminum) and only into fully realized airplanes once they're practically sitting on your hood. Apart from the combat, flight is also a challenge, but a rewarding one (not even downing MiGs is as empowering as saving your plane from a spin - just remember to ram the nose down, lateral neutral, and use full rudder opposite direction of the spin). The campaign mode is also interesting - allowing you to choose how deeply you want to control its course. Unsurprisingly, the campaign mode has the most promise, requires the most attention and suffers the most from the game's inclination to CTD. In the end, I just had no patience to fly the same mission over and over again, knowing that a CTD would set me back to square one. So much of this sim went unrealized, but I've kept it around, if only for its instant action, a few minutes of some of the most demanding and fleshed out air combat I've seen on a computer, and the saddest sign of what could have been the best flight sim of all time.
Rating:
Summary: The flight sim that could have...
Review: First, a caveat - when I tried this sim on my P4-winXP, it wouldn't respond to joystick inputs. Even when re-calibrating in-game (which just sends you to the WinXP control panel), and downloading the official patch failed to help. With a 3rd party patch I realized a mixed blessing - I could now fly the sim well enough to realize how good it could have been if not for some serious flaws. While I haven't determined which of these problems were endemic to the pre-patched game, they mirrored the same problems I'd found on the Empire Interactive/Rowan game "Wings of Gold", a promising WWI sim. "MiG Alley" (MA) was one of two sims that appeared in the late 1990's dedicated to the Korean air war - the co-called "forgotten war". World's apart from "Sabre Ace", MA was still bedeviled by horrible bugs, again eerily recalling WoG - graphics re-draw (in which the program will re-draw the next graphics frame w/o fully erasing the previous one - reminding you that you are in fact looking at graphics and also making for a more psychedelic experience than you'd expect in a military flight sim), numerous freezes and the all powerful CTD (crash to desktop)! Bugs aside, MA reveals an uncompromising sim from a developer with a uniquely uncanny choice in its subjects, one obviously designed for the serious aviator (WWI sims were on the decline when WoG appeared and remain eclipsed by sims based on WWII Europe; "Flight of the Intruder" remains not only of the most demanding hardcore sims of all time, but one of the few that focused completely on Vietnam. USNF '97 graciously included VN among its otherwise blandly generic missions. "Strike Fighters" included Vietnam War-era planes, but had them fighting a fictitious war in the mideast). In MA, you fly single missions or in segmented campaigns in the Korean war, a comparatively short though bloody war in which fortunes seemed in constant flux (from the North's initial overwhelming of the US-backed South, to the allied landing and break-out at Inchon, to the entry of red China). Your choice of aircraft is extensive, but also limited to USAF assets (meaning that there's still room for a sim that has you flying FJ-3, F-9 and Corsairs from aircraft carriers, ala "Bridges of Toko-Ri" and "Men of the Fighting Lady"). You'll fly the F-80, America's first true combat jet (and the winner of the first all-jet dogfight), the F-51 Mustang (the legendary prop-fighter of WWII now out of its element flying strike missions and CAS), the early F-84 (a straight-wing jet fighter later designed with swept wings, but not in time for Korea) and of course, several versions of the F-86 itself. Though you get to fly the MiG-15 (a fighter based on the Focke-Wulfe Ta-183 prototype designed by Kurt Tank for the Luftwaffe near the end of WWII), the sim makes it clear where your attentions are devoted (i.e., there are no careers for flying Yaks or Lavotchkin fighters). Each of the plane's are wonderfully distinctive: like the real thing, the game's F-84 is bedeviled by its non-stabilator tail and non-swept wings, but its stability and resilience to damage will reward the faithful; Giving Mustangs the ground-attack missions that should have been tasked to the P-47 (a Mustang contemporary of WWII that was actually an ancestor of the F-84, and possessing, for a prop-fighter, the same stable flight performance and better able to absorb damage) was probably a bad idea, but Rowan uses the inclusion of any prop-fighter to highlight the sensation of their jets - the Mustang of this game is hardly the dumb-downed jet of "Sabre Ace", but so retains the nuances of that prop-fighter that you have to remind yourself that you're not over wartime Europe; the F-80 is the perfect jet for beginners - neither so agile that it's inclined to spin, nor so stable that you'll find yourself wrestling with the controls while trying to anticipate enemy fighters; the ultimate experience of course is the F-86, which will definitely spin if given half a chance, and will likely spin if given any chance. All allied aircraft share the flaw of being outgunned by the MiG-15 (which carried a rapid firing cannon against the machine guns - inadequate by WWII standards - lofted by our planes). Combat is challenging at every level - there were no HUDs in Korea, so just finding your targets is akin to impossible (the game "allows" a semi-3d scanner reminiscent of the one in the X-Wing Fighter games; echoing the "Air Warrior" series, the game also features dots alongside the edges of your screen hinting at the location of fighters both friendly and otherwise). Realistically, aircraft appear as fast-moving specks on the horizon, then as blazing stars (likely the sun bouncing off that aluminum) and only into fully realized airplanes once they're practically sitting on your hood. Apart from the combat, flight is also a challenge, but a rewarding one (not even downing MiGs is as empowering as saving your plane from a spin - just remember to ram the nose down, lateral neutral, and use full rudder opposite direction of the spin). The campaign mode is also interesting - allowing you to choose how deeply you want to control its course. Unsurprisingly, the campaign mode has the most promise, requires the most attention and suffers the most from the game's inclination to CTD. In the end, I just had no patience to fly the same mission over and over again, knowing that a CTD would set me back to square one. So much of this sim went unrealized, but I've kept it around, if only for its instant action, a few minutes of some of the most demanding and fleshed out air combat I've seen on a computer, and the saddest sign of what could have been the best flight sim of all time.
Rating:
Summary: Let's be realistic here...
Review: I can understand the complaints about graphics, but let's face the fact that not everyone is sitting in front of some super-fast high priced PC. I am running a K6-III 400 with 256MB of RAM and this game screams with everything cranked to the maximum. This really is a great game. It's very difficult and unique unlike most sims out there. Flying a MiG 15 is even more difficult. But that was the nature of the beast. If I really want to get picky I would point out that the MiG 15 did not have wing fences as the outside view shows in the game -- the MiG 17 was the first MiG to use this for improved high speed performance and stability. And if I wanted to get even more picky one could say that the NR 23mm and 37mm cannon don't do as much damage as they would in real life -- one shot would tear any plane apart in almost every case, including B-29s. They were derived after all from German Rheinmetall-Borsig MK-series cannon from WWII. But anyway, the only real complaint is that there is limited use with MiGs and the campaigns start you out in a Mustang where you try to hit targets on the ground that are almost invisible. I have yet to have a successful campaign mission. But that's fine -- something to work at. There's nothing wrong with the explosions or bullet tracers or little superficial stuff. The fact of the matter is that there aren't any '50s era dogfighting games on the market -- current sims being stupid high tech fighters of today using missiles and that's pretty boring. The only other complaint is that the radio chatter isn't exactly very clean, but again that's small and superficial. The only real complaints are limited MiG useage and that campaigns force you to be a ground attacker at first. If you want a really difficult simulation, this would definitely fit the bill, and the graphics aren't that bad and the options for flight and the game itself are very extensive. It's definitely a great game.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding dogfighting and dynamic campaign
Review: I highly recommend this outstanding flight sim. Its only problem is mulitplay which needs some work, however the rest of the sim more than makes up for it.
Rating:
Summary: Last of the real dogfights!
Review: If you are a fan of the Air campaign over Korea then this is a must have! Mig Alley accurately depicts how chaotic and close the air combat was. The campaigns are robust in that you can control not only your flight but other units that can affect the outcome of the war. It takes time to learn how to do it but it is worth it. I wish there was more medals and stuff in the campaign. The graphics rock, but you need a PC that can take it, what else is new. Yanking and Banking in this sim is not easy because spins can happen at a moments notice. Once you get the hang of it though there is nothing cooler than watching a Mig-15 burst into a fireball! One draw back is that you can't be Mig in a campaign, but you can fly single missions in one. All in all this Sim is well worth your hard earned $$$$.
Rating:
Summary: Mig Alley Puts You There
Review: Mig Alley gives a good feel of actually being there. It's also jets and guns, so you get up close, rather than missles. The flight model is good and you can fly close to the ground without crashing as you do in several other combat flight sims. The sounds are good and the graphics are more than adequate.
Rating: 
Summary: Sad to say but . . . disappointing.
Review: Sorry sim fans, but Rowan really dropped the ball with an outstanding opportunity. Many of us Saber fans was elated to learn that the group which released the outstanding World War I flying sim, "Flying Corps", was to develope a Korean War era flight sim. Sadly, Rowan developed this sim "FROM THE VERY SAME FLYING CORPS" engine that is at least four years old. So much so that the Mig Alley key strokes/controls are almost identical to Flying Corps. When in "hud only" mode, the player will view the same Flying Corps '+'/red gunsight(!), the same explosions, the same Flying Corps gun sounds and the same pathetic(white?)tracer. Hardly authentic. Graphics on a 650 Althlon with a Voodoo 3000 could not improve the poor graphics and detail. Also: The limited Mig game missions/options are no less disappointing. Also included is an option to fly the F-84, F-80 and F-51 (P-51) for ground attack. After flying the P-51 in Janes WWII Fighters, I feel the F-51 not worthy of comment = period. However, ALL is not lost. For those who could care less about graphics, realism, and detail, it's entirely possible to enjoy Mig Alley. When locking horns with a Mig at 40,000 feet the sim will duplicate the problems of air combat at that altitude: stalling. In most cases, the sim automatically creates combat environments above 30,000-35,000 feet and the player will spend an "enormous amount of time" just trying to get into a favorable firing position on your opponent. And all the while stalling, and attempting to survive 'coffin corner'[redlining the engine while a few knots above stalling speed]. But in short Rowan's Mig Alley is not the way to go. Pick up the three year old Janes World War II Fighters -- which I believe to be the standard for flight sim (WWII) accuracy [still do!]. If you have a PC that will handle the graphics, you won't be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Great concept but needs work
Review: The graghics are great and the concept is appealing but after reading War & Peace to get the gest of how to operate this sim for 4 day's I was looking forward to enjoying the time in the skies over Korea. However between the Ilegal operations and the lock ups the enjoyment faded to frustration. Back to EAW until this sim is debugged!
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