Combat Air Patrol (Third Review)



Title		Combat Air Patrol (Third Review)
Game Type	Flight Sim
Players		1
Compatibility	All
Company		Psygnosis
Submission	Sami.Niromaa@sci.fi



Review
C.A.P. was released as a flight sim with a really revolutionary
stragetic military warfare part. You're settled in the USAF during
the Gulf War and your duty is to kick Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.
So here comes the first (and worst) part of the game: the commanding
of the ground troops. In this part you face a map with all the ground
troops that are present in the area and you command their advancements
AND assign some air strike targets that you want to be erased...
So here we get into the real thing: flying.
When you created your ego you also chose your squadron (attack or fighter)
and that's where you got your aircraft: For all Top Guns fans you can
choose the fighter squadron which uses F-14 Tomcats and for the other
ones you've got F/A-18 Hornets in the attack squadron.
Tomcats are used generally as a flying bodyguard for the Hornets but they
have some special missions for them too, as fleet defence patrols or
recon flights, so with this plane you'll mainly be dogfighting with
Iraqi airforce pilots. Hornets on the other edge are used for all kinds
of air to ground attacks but they can have some AA missiles in the
event that the Tomcats are busy elsewhere.
The graphics in this game haven't got anything special but the airplanes
are quite well modelled so that saves that point, on the other hand
the sounds are really good (you can FEEL the power of your engines when
you set afterburners to the maximum).
Flight modelling is quite good and the control of the two different
planes is really different... for example try flying real high and you'll end
dropping because of the thin air or try to fly with an F-18 at as slow speed
you can with an F-14 without getting down (geometric avionics are great), high
(around Mach 2) speed turns with trimmers aren't possible either...
The enemy planes often outnumber you or try, for example, flying below the
radar coverage, but you have so much better aircraft you don't have to
fight against the odds.
Overall this game's a damn good simulator for it's age but it doesn't
fall that short compared to the modern sims either...


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