STRIKE ACES

 STRIKE ACES is a combat flight simulator designed and written by Vektor Grafix
and published and distributed by Accolade. Based on the Strategic Air Command's
Bombing and Navigation Competition, ACES offers fine 2-D/3-D graphics, four
difficulty levels, eight missions, four aircraft, training mode, joystick and
keyboard control, and copy protection. The Commodore 64/128 version is the basis
of this review.

 The Bombing and Navigation Competition, which Vektor Grafix uses as an excuse
for the game's existence, makes ACES the cockpit equivalent of POWERPLAY HOCKEY,
which was based on the U.S. hockey team's Olympic victory. I hear someone is
writing a graphic adventure based on Al Capone's vault (Geraldo gave the
go-ahead and will assist), which in turn will be followed by a new version of
BREAKOUT, inspired by the collapse of the Berlin Wall. On the up side, as a game
and a flight simulator, STRIKE ACES is nicely designed, good-looking, and
reasonably easy to control. On the down side, there are play problems that
result in surprise and frustration.

 The SAC Bombing and Navigation Competition is an annual event that's held at
Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. The Competition began in 1958 and
involved only U.S. forces until 1984, when NATO and WARSAW PACT nations were
invited to participate. The object of the Competition is to fly air-to-air and
air-to-ground missions, and do it well enough to win the Curtis LeMay Bombing
Trophy.

 ACES has four levels (Covert, Tactical, Strategic, Offensive), each of which
consists of two missions. Each level is more complex than the previous one, due
to additional activities, such as in-flight refueling, special armaments, and
increased navigational skills. The Player Aircraft are the USAF's F-4E Phantom
and F-111F Aardvark, Britain's Panavia Tornado IDS, and Russia's MiG-27
Flogger-D. Enemy aircraft are the US Navy's F14 Tomcat, Russia's MiG 29 Fulcrum,
and F5E Tiger II, which is used by the air forces of 21 different countries.

 Armament includes built-in 20mm cannons; Sidewinder, Maverick, HARM, and ALARM
missiles; Paveway, Durandel, cluster, general purpose, high drag, and Airfield
Denial bombs. ECM Pod Chaff and IR Decoy Dispensers are defensive items for use
against enemy radar and missiles.

 The starting point of ACES is the Pilot screen, which will keep track of your
name and all pertinent mission information. Next is the Aircraft screen, where
you can read about each aircraft, see either a static 2-D or a rotating 3-D
view, and choose which plane to pilot. This is followed by the Enemy screen,
where you'll select the type of plane that'll be flying combat patrol during the
missions.

 On the Mission screen you choose from the preset missions. At first, only
Covert level and Free Flight are available. Successful completion of the two
Covert missions opens up the challenges of Tactical level. Free Flight, which is
not part of the SAC competition, provides some training: You can start on the
runway, at 30,000 feet, over a bridge that can be used for practice bombing
runs, or lined up with the runway for a landing.

 The Briefing screen has a map on which the strike route is plotted; you can
also read a text briefing of the mission and get information about the current
target. Next stop is the Arming screen, where you must select for your craft the
weapons that will be most useful against the current mission's target.

 The Debriefing screen appears at the end of a mission (regardless of the
outcome); it shows the planned mission route, the route you flew, and gives a
text report. On exiting the Debriefing screen, you can select a new mission,
refly the previous mission, or select a new pilot.

 The preflight selection screens progress logically. All are nicely designed and
graphically very good. The rotating three-dimensional aircraft views are
especially notable.

 Once you've done all the preflight work, the mission begins. The C64 screen
display consists of (guess what?) a cockpit. Each cockpit is slightly different
for each aircraft, though all of them provide the same information: compass;
thrust and fuel gauges; mission info (weapon status, waypoint); radar; and wheel
brake, airbrake, stall, horizon, and landing gear indicators. The Heads Up
Display (HUD) is the same for all aircraft: heading, airspeed, targeting
reticule, altitude, and the selected weapon. The landscape lies outside the
cockpit windscreen: mountains, trees, roads, and targets (all of which are line
graphics).

 ACES is controlled via joystick and keyboard. The stick controls the dives,
climbs, and left and right rolls of the craft; the button fires the current
weapon. The many keystrokes control the following aircraft functions: thrust,
afterburner, brakes, landing gear, rudders, radar range (1, 3, 6, 12, or 25
miles), air/ground target selection, weapon selection, and chaff and flare
release; you may also pause, or quit the current mission.

 In addition to the aircraft function controls, there are a host of view
controls: There are four views from the cockpit; there are views from an
observer plane, a satellite, a chase plane behind the enemy, the control tower,
and a missile. Certain views can be zoomed in and out, or panned in the cardinal
directions. Control-G changes the ground color.

 The STRIKE ACES package comes with one double-sided disk that's copy-protected,
and an instruction manual that explains all game functions and controls, and
describes the aircraft, the missions, and the weapons. There is no save option.

 For the most part, ACES looks very good and runs smoothly. The graphics and
animation are all right, considering the machine, and the aircraft are easy to
control. Practice mode is useful for getting yourself accustomed to flight and
weapon handling. Control-G not only changed the ground color, it also banked the
plane, a unique though improper combination. Control-Q not only quit the current
mission, it bombed out the whole machine nine times out of ten.

 The worst parts of ACES are the actual bombing and missile runs. Aircraft dives
and swoops followed by precise timing of bomb drops can be mastered with enough
practice. The missiles, however, are another story. Heat-seeking Sidewinders and
video-guided Mavericks should have no trouble hitting targets, even if you're
not a great pilot (and especially when a target-lock is indicated on the HUD).
In ACES, the opposite is true: Missiles had no trouble missing targets. When you
fire a target-locked Sidewinder seconds before you fly through the target and it
still doesn't hit, well, you can kiss that Curtis LeMay Trophy goodbye. You'll
miss only so many targets before frustration sets in, at which point Control-Q,
the bombout feature, comes in real handy.

 A flight simulator is a flight simulator (as if there aren't enough already),
no matter what it's based on, and not even the office of the Strategic Air
Command can imbue ACES with greater importance than a flight simulator.
Accolade's game designs are usually smooth and logical and ACES is no exception.
But the play problems and regular bombouts force me to suggest that you might
want to hold off purchasing it until the bugs are fixed.

 STRIKES ACES is published and distributed by Accolade.

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253