| Introduction
Although the Gameboy has featured flying games before,
there's always been a sense of limited gameplay because
of its hardware limitations. Anyone who's played a PC
based flight sim is well aware that almost all the keyboard
and, on occasions, the mouse is used making for an extremely
complicated interface. The GBA's two extra shoulder
buttons however appear to have tempted the developers
at Virtua Craft to try and come up with something a
little more involved than simply shooting other planes
out of the sky and here we have F-14 Tomcat. It's an
ambitious project and as with some flight sims on home
based consoles, which feature a more varied controller
layout, it will be interesting to see if it all comes
together.
GamePlay
To start with you'll want to swing over to the options
menu to choose your difficulty setting. The 'novice'
option generally does everything automatically, including
landing, and your fighter is equipped with much more
ammo. On the other hand the 'ace' setting really is
difficult and you have to constantly check everything
here just to stay in the air. Both options however feature
all the instruments so you can pretty much check anything
from completed objectives to planes or missiles approaching
via an incredibly intelligent radar. There's also a
variety of on-board warning systems and the cockpit
will light up whenever your' re flying too low or in
imminent danger.
Every mission starts with a briefing usually consisting
of map references and objectives but while they start
off simple, for instance, just shooting down other fighters,
you quickly find yourself flying against with time limits
with submarines trying to shoot you down. After the
first three you will probably be attempting missions
more than once as F-14 appears to be all about finding
the correct order in which to attack your targets. This
is mostly achieved by trial and error as the missions
have varied objectives, so while on one occasion disposing
of all the fighters first is the best strategy, in others
it may be better to outrun them initially.
Possibly the most fun is the head-to-head War game
or 'death match' option. We tested this out with two
players and, as always, the threat of a real pilot and
not an AI one hunting you down is a lot more exciting
as you can never learn your opposition's patterns of
behaviour. If you have enough friends, and copies of
the game, we'd urge you to try out the four player mode
because if our little game was anything to go by it's
going to be a riot.
Controls
This is complex and ambitious to say the least and
the first few attempts at the game will be played with
the instruction booklet on your knee. This could have
been made a lot easier had some training missions been
thrown in but, alas, it's straight into the game. To
be honest missions do start off very simple and so give
you some time to acquaint yourself with how your plane
handles. Basic flying does use the 'D-pad' and 'A' and
'B' but other functions such as readouts, radar and
changing weapons require combinations which can sometimes
be a little confusing.
Graphics
Firstly it must be pointed out that the imagery in
F-14 is not true 3D which you would expect from your
PC based flight sim but is actually simulated. This
is achieved using some very clever visual tricks and
advanced scaling techniques thus making the end product
look, well, like 3D. The developer is helped by the
fact that everything takes place over the sea even when
your radar indicates you're over land. Also the only
targets you'll ever encounter visually are other planes,
all the rest appear as a small animation on your display
when hit with a missile. There's also been considerable
care taken over the various readouts and displays which
are very easy to extract information from even on the
GBA's small screen.
Sound & Music
Whilst the music has been kept to a minimum and only
really features on the title screen, the sound effects
are a little more advanced. This is yet another one
of those titles were I'd highly recommend the use of
headphones, as blocking everything else out and listening
to other fighters speed past is essential to fully immerse
yourself in the game. The explosions are quite good
but everything else seems to consist of the sound of
engines whirring so you're left feeling that a little
more effort in the audio department could have vastly
improved the game.
Final Comments
This was always going to be an ambitious project
and, as a first generation flight sim for the GBA, it's
actually quite accomplished. It's by no means perfect
though and the repetitive nature of both the missions
and graphics may annoy some players and simply bore
others. As we're now being shown various screens of
future flight sims in glorious true 3D there's a good
chance that F-14 will be forgotten quite quickly but
if you are a fan of this genre and, as it's all that's
available at present, it's probably worth a look.
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