Falcon 4.0
European box art
Developer(s)MicroProse Alameda
Publisher(s)Hasbro Interactive
Designer(s)
SeriesFalcon
Platform(s)Windows, Mac OS
Release11 December 1998[1]
Genre(s)Air combat simulation
Mode(s)Single player, multiplayer

Falcon 4.0 is a combat flight simulation video game developed by MicroProse and published by Hasbro Interactive in 1998. The game is based around a realistic simulation of the Block 50/52 F-16 Fighting Falcon jet fighter in a full-scale modern war set in the Korean Peninsula. Falcon 4.0's dynamic campaign engine runs autonomously.

The game is the ultimate development in the Falcon series from Spectrum HoloByte that began in 1984. HoloByte had acquired MicroProse in 1993, and started using that name for all of its titles in 1996. After MicroProse was purchased by Hasbro, official development ended. In 2000, a source code leak allowed continued development of the game by members of the gaming community, including bug fixes and new campaigns.[2] Many of these additions were collected by Lead Pursuit, which arranged an official license of the original code base from the owner Atari; these were published as Falcon 4.0: Allied Force in 2005.[3] Spanning well over a decade, the Falcon 4.0 series is one of the longest running game series using the same code base in PC history.[4]

In the present day, the game is still supported by a community of players with the most supported branch of the game being the one by Benchmark Sims Community, called Falcon BMS.[5]

On May 4th 2023, after a 24 year long absence, developer MicroProse announced the reacquisition of the copyright to the Falcon series, including Falcon 4.0.[6]

Gameplay

The game's story begins in the early 1990s with North Korean forces invading South Korea. The United States deploys extensive support to the South, including military aircraft, armored forces, and naval vessels. The rest of the game plays out in response to the player's actions, potentially involving China and Russia. Japan has an airbase, but plays no role in the conflict itself. Because of the game's story content, which involves war in the Korean Peninsula, it was banned in South Korea until 2003.

Cockpit view

Falcon 4.0's gameplay parallels actual fighter pilot combat operations. First, over 30 training scenarios acquaint the player with F-16 maneuvering, avionics operation, and various USAF protocols. After training, the player may start the primary gameplay mode in the campaign, which simulates participation in a modern war. Alternatively, the player may engage in dogfight mode, which provides an individual air engagement without any continuous context, or create what are effectively miniature campaigns, known as "Tactical Engagements".

The results of the player's performance are used to generate a 'logbook'. This contains details such as flight hours, air-to-air and air-to-ground kills, decorations, a name and photo, and the current rank of the player. Good performance (such as eliminating large numbers of enemy ground units, or surviving a difficult engagement) during a mission may lead to the award of a decoration or promotion; conversely, poor performance (destroying friendly targets or ejecting from the aircraft for no good reason) can lead to demotion or court-martial.

Campaign gameplay has two primary stages, briefings and missions. The briefing section is used to handle the planning of flights and packages (a number of flights grouped together for mutual support in obtaining a military objective), assignment of steerpoints for determining the route of a given flight, and the weapons loadout used by the aircraft. It is also possible to issue instructions to each ground unit manually, overriding the AI's handling of the war. As is the situation for real life pilots, it is of the utmost importance that the player examines closely all of the data presented here to perform well during the mission, in order to best formulate a plan of action when actually flying the jet. Failing to note the location and abilities of enemy SAM sites or CAP aircraft and account for methods of defeating these will almost certainly result in a short flight.

The mission section of the simulator encompasses the actual mechanics of flying the aircraft, radar and weapons operation, threat evaluation, radio communications and navigation. Everything is done in such a manner as to model the aircraft in use as closely as possible, while on the highest realism settings.

The initial release of the software came with three pre-set scenarios for the player to use in campaign mode. 'Tiger Spirit' depicted a war where ROK and Allied forces had repelled the initial DPRK assault and moved onto the offensive. 'Rolling Fire' depicted a closely matched situation where DPRK forces had overrun the DMZ and made small gains, while 'Iron Fortress' simulated a scenario where the North had overwhelmed the South and pushed it back to its last line of defense.

Unlike its static counterpart, a dynamic campaign has no set game path. Missions and the rest of the game world develop as the game progresses, affected in part by the player's behavior. Dynamic campaigns can present a more random and diverse game experience, but are more difficult for programmers to implement. The AI controlling the activity of the Falcon 4.0 campaign engine can be influenced by a wide range of configurable settings, all of which can be adjusted to meet changing objectives as the scenario progresses.

A Tactical Engagement (or TE) is a small scale, hand-built, 'one-shot' mission with a pre-defined objective. The same engine handles the activities of AI controlled units. One of the advantages of building this style of mission is that it allows experienced pilots to practice attacks on high value, well defended targets, which are often eliminated from campaigns early on as the planning AI assigns packages to eliminate them in order to maximise the effect on enemy combat readiness.

The Instant Action mode of operation places the user in an F-16 currently in flight, armed with an infinite number of missiles. Progressively more capable waves of enemy aircraft then move in and engage the player's aircraft. Many different options are available to customise this mode, including disabling SAM and AAA defenses, setting unlimited fuel, and the difficulty of the first wave of inbound hostiles.

Falcon 4.0 originally featured 3D graphics with multitexturing support. It was one of the first programs on the market which was designed multi-threaded to take advantage of dual-core x86 processors.[7] The game used one thread for graphics and primary simulation and the other for the campaign engine.

Development

The game was in development since 1994.[8] The game was originally designed and produced by Steve Blankenship and Gilman Louie and published under the MicroProse label. Though originally slated for a late 1996 release,[9] the game ended up being rushed to market in order to make the 1998 Christmas selling season.

Source code leak

On 9 April 2000 a developer of the game leaked the source code of a Falcon 4.0 version between 1.07 and 1.08 on an FTP site.[10]

Digital distribution re-releases

In October 2015, Tommo's Retroism publishing label re-released the Falcon series (including Falcon 4.0 as a bonus) via digital distribution at GOG.com, titled as the Falcon Collection, after being commercially unavailable for some years.[11] In January 2016, Retroism released the Falcon Collection on Steam, with all four titles also available for purchase separately.[12]

Modern community development

Falcon BMS (BenchMark Sims) is a community-made total conversion mod for Falcon 4.0. The mod, made by Benchmark Sims, is a "complete revision" of the aging game, adding such features like graphics improvements (DX7 -> DX11), 3D cockpits, a newer terrain engine, partial VR support, and multiplayer code improvements.[13]

Falcon BMS is still under active development with the latest version (4.37) being released on 30 December 2022. Falcon BMS is available for download on the BMS website.[14]

Reception and impact

In the United States, Falcon 4.0 sold 41,209 copies during 1998, after its release on 12 December of that year. These sales accounted for $1.85 million in revenue.[24] By October 1999, its total sales in the region had risen to 116,776 copies, which drew revenues of $4.57 million.[25] It sold 209,000 copies during 1999 alone.[26]

Falcon 4.0 won Macworld's 1999 "Best Flight Simulation" award.[22] PC Gamer US likewise named Falcon 4.0 the best simulation of 1998.[24] The game was a finalist for Computer Gaming World's "Best Simulation", GameSpot's "Simulation of the Year", IGN's "Best Simulation of the Year" and Computer Games Strategy Plus's "Simulation Game of the Year" awards, all of which ultimately went to European Air War.[27][28][29][30] The editors of Computer Games Strategy Plus called Falcon 4.0 "extremely impressive", while those of Computer Gaming World described it as a sim with unprecedented detail.[27][28]

The Falcon 4.0 series is one of the longest running game series in PC history to have used the same code base. The history of Falcon 4.0 spans over two decades due to derivatives like Falcon 4.0: Allied Force,[31] the BMS derivative from 2012,[4] and other variants.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Mullen, Micheal (11 December 1998). "Playback: The Week in Review". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 18 June 2000. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
    "Word on the street on Friday [December 11] is that Falcon 4.0 is nothing like Hasbro's Frogger, and it is already showing up on retailers' shelves for the weekend. So if you're looking for a copy - get ready to fly again".
  2. ↑ Hiawatha Bray (21 January 2004). "Diehard pilots keep Falcon flying". Boston.com. Archived from the original on 8 April 2004. Retrieved 2016-06-28.
  3. ↑ "Critical Acclaim For Falcon 4.0: Allied Force". GamesIndustry International. 10 October 2005. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  4. 1 2 Stone, Tim (1 June 2012). "The Flare Path: God Quicksave The Queen - A Falcon For A Knave". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 16 April 2014. BMS is basically a free standalone sequel, albeit one that – for legal reasons – won't install unless it sees an original F4 disc in your CD drive. [...]Radars, targeting systems, HUDs, data link modelling… everything has been reworked by people that either have first-hand experience of fondling Falcons or have access to people that have first-hand experience of fondling Falcons. All this forensic fiddling means that wonderful original manual that's been bowing your manual shelf for the past 13 years, is next to useless in BMS.
  5. ↑ "Homepage - Falcon BMS". Homepage - Falcon BMS. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
  6. ↑ "MicroProse is back on the Falcon series". steamcommunity.com. Retrieved 11 May 2023.
  7. ↑ Falcon 4.0: The First Dual Core Game on TrustedReviews by Gordon Kelly (24 June 2005)
  8. ↑ Hedstrom, Kate (3 July 1997). "Falcon 4 Update". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 28 April 1999. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  9. ↑ Sherman, Christopher (January 1996). "Total Entertainment Signing Deals". Next Generation. Imagine Media (13): 25.
  10. ↑ Bertolone, Giorgio (12 March 2011). "Interview with Kevin Klemmick - Lead Software Engineer for Falcon 4.0". Cleared-To-Engage. Archived from the original on 18 March 2011. Retrieved 2014-08-31. [C2E] In 2000 the source code of Falcon 4.0 leaked out and after that groups of volunteers were able to make fixes and enhancements that assured the longevity of this sim. Do you see the source code leak as a good or bad event? [Klemmick] "Absolutely a good event. In fact I wish I'd known who did it so I could thank them. I honestly think this should be standard procedure for companies that decide not to continue to support a code base."
  11. ↑ Serious Simming: Falcon Flight Sims Land On GOG on Rock, Paper, Shotgun by Alice O'Connor on 23 October 2015
  12. ↑ "Falcon Series Soars onto Steam". Retroism. 6 January 2016. Retrieved 3 February 2019.
  13. ↑ "Features - Falcon BMS". Features - Falcon BMS. 11 August 2021. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
  14. ↑ "Falcon BMS 4.37.0 Released!". Homepage - Falcon BMS. Retrieved 31 December 2022.
  15. ↑ "Falcon 4.0 for PC". GameRankings. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 11 May 2011. Retrieved 23 July 2022.
  16. ↑ "Falcon 4.0 Metacritic Review Score". Metacritic.
  17. ↑ Basham, Tom (1 April 1999). "Falcon 4.0". Computer Gaming World. Archived from the original on 16 August 2000.
  18. ↑ Jones, Nathan (April 1999). "Raptorous". PC Gamer UK. No. 68. Archived from the original on 27 June 2002.
  19. ↑ Bennett, Dan (March 1999). "Falcon 4.0". PC Gamer US. Archived from the original on 12 March 2000.
  20. ↑ Wells, Jeremy. "Falcon 4.0". PC Zone. Archived from the original on 18 January 2007.
  21. ↑ Mouneimne, Neil (1 January 1999). "Falcon 4.0". Computer Games Strategy Plus. Archived from the original on 5 February 2005.
  22. 1 2 Breen, Christopher (December 1999). "1999 Macworld Game Hall Of Fame". Macworld. Archived from the original on 11 June 2001.
  23. ↑ Stern, Zack (September 1999). "Falcon 4.0". MacAddict. Archived from the original on 14 July 2001. Retrieved 16 August 2019.
  24. 1 2 Staff (April 1999). "The Numbers Game; Does Award Winner = Best Seller?". PC Gamer US. 6 (4): 50.
  25. ↑ Brown, Ken (October 1999). "EA Scraps Jane's A-10". Computer Gaming World. No. 183. pp. 44, 46.
  26. ↑ Dunnigan, James F. (3 January 2000). Wargames Handbook, Third Edition: How to Play and Design Commercial and Professional Wargames. Writers Club Press. pp. 14–17.
  27. 1 2 Staff (April 1999). "Computer Gaming World's 1999 Premier Awards; CGW Presents the Best Games of 1998". Computer Gaming World. No. 177. pp. 90, 93, 96–105.
  28. 1 2 Staff (11 February 1999). "The Best of 1998". Computer Games Strategy Plus. Archived from the original on 3 February 2005.
  29. ↑ Staff. "GameSpot's Best and Worst of 1998". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 15 August 2000.
  30. ↑ IGN Staff (29 January 1999). "IGNPC's Best of 1998 Awards". IGN. Archived from the original on 4 April 2002. Retrieved 16 August 2019.
  31. ↑ Baker, Tracy (2 August 2005). "Falcon 4.0: Allied Force Review". gamespot.com. Retrieved 19 April 2014. It took seven years, a number of false starts, and one of the most devoted fan communities in existence, but the release of Falcon 4.0: Allied Force shows that its potential has finally been realized.
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