Chuck Yeager's Air Combat

Game: Chuck Yeager's Air Combat
Platform: PC
Release Year: 1991
Stephen's Rating: 7/10

Yeager's Air Combat is a flight simulator utilising early 3D graphics. It was the first and possibly only flight simulator I've ever played.

Basic Plot

There is no specific plot involved with the game other than the ability to fly several real world air combat scenarios, or customise your own. You could fly campaigns from World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars,  as well as free form flight mode.

Gameplay

This was the first game I ever played which involved the mouse (optionally). You could use the mouse to steer the plane and use keyboard controls for the throttle, windbreaks, landing gear, weapons, and flares.

Flying in the game.

Free play mode allowed you to pick any of the dozen or more planes available in the game and take a flight. You were limited only by the amount of fuel. There were training missions which involved a particular objective, as well as real world missions from several wars.

One of my favourite modes was the custom campaign where you would choose what kind of battle you wanted to have as if you were telling a story after the fact... so it would start off with "There I was in my..." and you could choose which plane you wanted to fly in. Then you could choose up to 15 enemy aircraft to take on, how high you were flying, how high they were flying, and then go ahead and actually play out the skirmish.

 Choosing your aircraft.

I had a certain satisfaction in flying the planes. In terms of the technology of the time it was fairly realistic. The graphics were basic and didn't even have textures in most cases, but the general feeling of airflight was achieved.

Positives

The feeling of flying a plane was pretty realistic. I liked the many modes of gameplay, and there were plenty of planes from different eras to test out.

Negatives

The graphics were early 3D and therefore quite clunky and ugly. Flying the planes was also very difficult and took a lot of practice.

Memorable Moments

I once took on 15 F-4 Phantom's in a P-51 Mustang. Nuff said.