Fighter Ace (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.0 stars Good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 6.6 (3.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Alan Dunkin
• Reviewed on: 02/24/1998
• Updated on: 05/01/2000
• Released on: 11/22/1998
• Originally published on GameSpot: Fighter Ace (PC) Review

Following the relative success of Interactive Magic Online's Warbirds, a number of developers quickly began jumping onto the online flight simulation bandwagon. One of these developers, VR-1, attracted the interest of software giant Microsoft, and soon thereafter VR-1's Fighter Ace appeared as Microsoft's first premium pay game on the Internet Gaming Zone. There is no boxed set available in stores; you can download Fighter Ace (around 8MB) straight off of the Internet. The only other requirement is that you'll need Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser software since it's required to access the Internet Gaming Zone (though it will support Netscape soon).

Fighter Ace comes in two pricing schemes: a $1.95 per day rate or $19.95 for a month - both flat fees, so if you plan on flying more than ten days a month, the second rate looks a lot more sensible.

First off, Fighter Ace is definitely not Warbirds by any stretch of the imagination. The bulk of the action takes place in the basic arenas where the flight models are simplified and the chances of taking off right in the middle of an air battle are pretty good. In fact, the opposing airfields are typically clustered together, making any attempt to actually use real-world air combat tactics a waste of time and energy. Few, if any, pilots fly in the realistic arenas. Consequently, Fighter Ace is not for online pilots looking for realism or real-world physics modeling - at least, not if they want to fly with everybody else.

The graphics in Fighter Ace are all texture-mapped, but it doesn't help much. At anything but high altitudes (and sometimes even then) the ground is a horrible hodgepodge of organically colored splotches with little or no real terrain features except for pixelated roads and the occasional hill or big rock. Buildings and airfields are merely adequately done, and the only things that look even halfway decent are the aircraft and the smoke effects. While offline practice is nice and smooth at all detail levels, the same is untrue online. The best thing to do is run the game at the lowest terrain detail level just to make it playable online. Expect some strange problems to crop up because of Net and server lag.

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