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Falcon 4.0 - The Game Which Refuses to Die
jonerik writes "Today's Boston Globe has this article on the worldwide cult following behind Falcon 4.0, a 1998 flight simulator program which was discontinued by its manufacturer (Hasbro Interactive) the following year. Shortly after it was dropped, someone leaked the game's source code and before you could say 'open source' Falcon 4.0 buffs around the world began fixing bugs in the game and adding new features. Enter Claude Cavanaugh, who approached the current owners of Falcon 4.0 (Atari, which is currently owned by a French company formerly known as Infogrames) with the idea of incorporating the hackers' improvements into Falcon 5.0. Although Falcon 5.0 won't be appearing anytime soon due to financing issues, happily Xicat Interactive will be releasing Falcon 4.0 Gold: Operation Infinite Resolve in April, which will include all of the upgrades originally intended for 5.0."
Of course, I didn't have the time to go out and equip myself with all the flight sim paraphernalia (rudder pedals, joysticks and so on), so I haven't really had a chance to explore the game in detail, but it looks really fun. I was more used to EF2000 (a EuroFighter 2000 sim from the UK, which was great fun) which had less steep entry requirements, but if I ever find the time to explore simming in detail, Falcon 4 + SP4 would be the way to go - judging from all the comments by real fighter pilots, it's the ultimate flight sim.
"The slave who knows his master's will and does not get ready...will be be beaten with many blows."Luke 12:47-48
The SuperPak team was doing amazing stuff until they got slapped by a cease-and-desist from the new publisher after they bought the rights.
I think I have more faith in the SuperPak team than in the new developer, who thus far has given the community nothing but thus far unfulfilled promises...
That being said, I hope the upcoming games are yet another improvement on the best and most realistic jet combat flight sim out there...
Long live Falcon.
Well, it could be good - near as I can tell, it with the exception of breaking rank, the rest of it (firing once every 30 seconds and sitting out when you die) describes CounterStrike (another game that compromised on realism just enough to be both convincing and reasonably fun). Hell, half of the CS players love it when it decays into a knife fight anyways. And you can block with a musket, so it might be a little better than "stab, stab, stab" in a bayonette fight. And lets not forget the officers and cavalry with their horses and revolvers and sabres.
Besides, naval combat of the era could be fun too - with cannons and boarding actions and landing and suchlike. Good bloody fun.
Battlefield: 1812 might actually make for a good game. Personally, I wouldn't like it, as I don't like CS, but others do. Depending on what era you set it, you get different options on gameplay - earlier means more focus on horses, swordplay and cannons (cool) - later means more focus on rifle muskets, revolvers, and early machine guns (also cool). And there are no shortages of wars to choose from - Napoleonic, Revolutionary, 1812, French Revolution, etc. A whole era of underrepresented warfare - we basically ignore everything from between the invention of the musket and the invention of the assault rifle.
BTW, WWI is also sorely underrepresented. I'd like a WWI game as you could do the early war where there was more than just 2 factions and finally have something more then axis vs allies.
The closed development was partly motivated by the fact that very few people had the knowledge to work on accurate flight simulation (which is probably true) but in the end it was more a case of not wanting to spread the code further which I always thought was just a tad hypocritical.