By Ian Boys
 
 

Su-27 Flanker is an old game. So let's get it out the way: the graphics are extremely dated, there are no textures, and the wingman commands are laughable. There is minimal sound and no speech.

So why have I been playing it more than Falcon 4? Well for one, it works perfectly. It does exactly what it says on the tin. Secondly the flight and weapons models are first class and are still held up as the standard which other games must follow. And best of all is the mission editor. No placing whole battalions in a rough area as in Falcon 4. Here every vehicle can be individually placed, assigned a crew quality and direction.

Recently I have been playing a series of eight missions - all involve sinking the same tanker in the same harbour. But in each mission the defences grow more and more difficult. It is all there - ZSU-23-4 Shilkas, SA-7 Manpads, Tarantul missile boats, medium range SA-6s, Mig 23s, Mig 29s, and finally the big bad king - a Russian Slava Cruiser, with its immense range and firepower. If you fly well you are going to die. If you fly really, really well you might just make it! And so you go up again and again, varying ingress routes and heights, weapons loadout and the exact moment to start jamming.

In one mission the Mig 29 has a longer range A2A missile than you. So you have to hide behind the mountains relying on the datalink from the AWACS to tell you when to pop up and take the shot. In another mission getting the ingress route just right means you can hit just one Tunguska and then the target tanker. That is dangerous enough, but any other route means you face dealing with two at once.

Yes, Su-27 Flanker is addictive. It is difficult and very rewarding. When you survive you encounter with the Slava with one engine out and a great yaw to the left, when you have put on the maximum possible rudder trim, when your airbase is in sight and you finally get down in one piece - you feel great. Except that you want to do it again and see if you can get away without being hit at all!

Su-27 relies on its mission editor. The missions it ships with are appalling. There is no campaign. There is no intro video and no cutscenes. This is not a game, it is a simulation, pure and simple. But it excels at what it does.

The fight models have to be seen to be believed. Isn't it easy to down a Mig 29 in Falcon 4? Isn't it even easier in Total Air War? To be honest it isn't too hard in Longbow 2! Well in Su-27 you have a fight on your hands. Your BVR missiles may be defeated by a counter-launch forcing you to break lock. Or he may beam the missile and you've lost it. And once you get to knife fighting range it just gets worse. He will go vertical at just the right speed and make a very tight turn and if you don't get it just right he WILL be there behind you. And you get just 150 cannon rounds to stop him.

The best weapons in your arsenal are the R-77 "Amraamski" and the R-73 Short range IR missile. The R-77 will fly stealthily to 15 miles from the target, giving you a big advantage over older fighters. And the R-73 slaved to the helmet-mounted sight gives you a great dogfight capability.

Flying a Russian fighter is fun for the little differences. You can lock up and shoot an air target without radar - using the thermal imager built into the aircraft. You can use the helmet sight to engage far off the centreline. You can read your HUD in Russian.

Yes. The HUD is in Russian. All the dials are in Russian. The windows interface is in English. Not much use at 1000 km/h when a Grumble system has just launched on you. Doesn't bother me much, as Russian is my thing anyway, but the rest of you will just have to take my word for it that you will get used to it. And that insistent beeping sound is universal anyway - you have a bad guy on the MFD and he knows where you are.

Which brings me onto SAMs. Given that the game models only Russian equipment, it nevertheless has the greatest diversity I have ever seen. From the Kashtan close defence system mounted on a small missile boat to the big S-300 theatre air defence system, from the SA-7 man portable launcher to the SA-11 Buk, it is all there. And the radars are all done perfectly. The Buk, for example, has one main search radar for the battery, then each launcher has a targeting radar. So if you fire an Anti-Radar missile you will hit a launch vehicle, leaving the other vehicles still free to engage you. The SA-6 Kub by comparison has a central targeting system - hit that and the whole unit is neutralised.

Well first things last. The theatre of war is the Crimea - a good choice for its relatively small size and several airports. The set up of the mission editor suggests a conflict between Russia and the Ukraine. The USA and Turkey have fighters in the area to monitor the conflict, but they play a negligible role. You can only fly the Su-27, though there are mods permitting you to fly the Mig 29 and Su-25. Other aircraft are excellently modelled, from the A-50 AWACS aircraft to the Backfire-C bomber and its deadly supersonic Kh-15 missiles. Unfortunately there are no helicopters, but this is unmistakably a jet sim.

If they can keep the flight and weapons as they are and add a decent, sensible campaign, they should have a winner on their hands when Flanker 2 finally ships towards the end of the year.