Novalogic recently released F-22 Lightning III as the latest in their Lockheed Martin fighter series. Novalogic continues their tradition of ease of access for novice players, challenging gameplay for advanced players, and massive multiplayer air combat over Novaworld.net. F-22 Lightning III is the third of Novalogic’s F-22 simulations in as many years. It’s ancestors are F-22 Lightning II, and F-22 Raptor. Having played all three simulations, I have seen Novalogic break sound barriers and constantly improve this product line while keeping costs reasonable. On the downside, Novalogic’s F-22 series has always been a little light in the realism department. Novalogic has designed this simulation with the casual sim pilot in mind. F-22 Lightning III has some definite hits and near misses, but overall, it is a pleasing simulation.
Starting with the basics, the interface and menus are on par with previous Novalogic simulations. All menus are straight forward, and keyboard and joystick customization is all easy and straightforward as well. I did have some difficulty with the custom programming and my Thrustmaster FLCS. My solution was to simply revert to using Thrustmaster’s own programming utility to customize my stick according to my personal preferences. The joystick mapping in Lightning III will not support multiple levels of button programming, so I used my custom programming utility as always to get my stick dialed in. Other than the small issue with the joystick buttons, the rest of the menus functioned normally.
The single-player games consist of several missions over a series of campaigns. After completing several of the missions and crossing over a campaign, I was a little disappointed at the lack of a cutscene. However, gameplay was reasonably challenging, except for the fact that the AI wasn’t much of a challenge. I found the AI pilots easily dispatched with both AIM-9s and AIM-120s; usually I only had to fire a single missile to score a kill. I could not find any kind of difficulty slider to ramp up the computer AI difficulty. Probably the most challenging tactic that the AI used was to send massive flights of enemy fighters at you while the other fighter group shot down the package you were assigned to escort. The Wingman AI had all the basic commands, such as “break right and engage,” “engage my target,” and “escort my target.” There were a few wingman commands that were new to me, such as “Engage my target’s attacker” and “Patrol Home Base.” The Wingman does a decent job supporting you, but unless you tell him otherwise, he’ll fly on your six in close formation regardless of nearby bandits.
F-22 Lightning III introduces some new weapons that were not present in the previous F-22 simulations. The BLU-109, the AGM-88 HARM, and my personal favorite, the B61 Tactical Thermonuclear Bomb. These weapons and the ability to mount weapons on external hardpoints indicate a step in the right direction since the real F-22 is capable of external mounts as well as using all of the weapons available in the simulation. Players will love using the B-61! It’s a blast, literally!
The Avionics are good and actually viewable in padlock mode. You can also view a close-up of any MFD by pressing the appropriate key on the numpad on your keyboard. The MFDs that you’ll use the most are the attack display, the status display, and the NAV display. The attack display is very useful in an area with multiple bandits. You can look at the attack display to see which bandits you have already shot missiles at by looking for missile indications. I have noticed that sometimes the missile indicators disappear or do not show up at all. Sometimes you can see the missile indicators for your wingman as well as other members of your flight. For some reason, this feature appears to be sporadic since sometimes missile indicators won’t show up correctly. The absence of the SHOOTLIST from the previous F-22 is definitely missed. While some people may not have used it much, you’ll find yourself wishing it was available when there are several groups of bandits and you keep cycling through the wrong group of targets. The shootlist allowed you to isolate a group of targets and only target that group while cycling targets. In Lightning III, I found the best thing to do is put your target group in your forward radar cone and press “BORESITE TARGET,” and then cycle targets. The navigation display comes in handy to augment the command-steering cue. (the tadpole). Probably the most useful MFD is the tactical map that shows everything your AWACS can see, or what you can see with your radar, including the labels of the flight group. While all the MFDs are covered decently, there are a few problems in the cockpit, namely the lack of a shootlist and the sporadic attack display.
The cockpit viewing system covers either snap views or a pan and tilt cockpit view. Both views have their advantages or disadvantages, and the user can choose the method he or she is most comfortable with. I noticed that when using the padlock view, when an object gets past the halfway point of your cockpit, the view goes funky. Once an object gets in your rear quarter and you maintain padlock, for some reason it doesn’t feel like you’re turning correctly. I haven’t been able to put my finger on it exactly, and a friend has commented on the same issue. After I kept getting nailed while trying to figure out what the padlock was doing wrong, I started using the easy aiming indicator (red arrow) in the HUD view to locate and engage my target. I only used the padlock when I knew the enemy fighter would be in my front quarter because the padlock seemed to function correctly while the enemy was in front of your plane. My advice is to use the HUD-only view unless you know the enemy is in front of you or above and forward of you.
The graphics were very well done. The weather and lightning effects are very cool. The rain effect was very well done, with the raindrops looking very realistic. The night vision goggles come in handy at night, and I’m happy to see that Novalogic put them in the simulation. The object detail is very intricate, and the landscape is awesome as usual. I do miss seeing the volcano that appeared in F-22 Raptor, and the desert terrain doesn’t feel as good as the desert in F-22 Raptor, but it’s still very well done. Visually, F-22 Lighting 3 upholds the graphic quality of its predecessors, and with 3D acceleration, it looks even better.
Multiplayer is probably my favorite feature of this simulation. Novalogic runs a free multiplayer service called “Novaworld” that allows up to 128 players to engage in Deathmatches and RAW (Raptor Air Wars), where your team defends your base while destroying the enemy squadrons base, and the new game that is available now is co-op play. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, you will have no problem finding a game to play on Novaworld. The connection is solid for most everyone, and it is fast-paced gameplay. If you’re not into the crowd thing, you can host your own game either publicly, where anyone can join, or privately for just you and your friends. My compliments to Novalogic for allowing us the ability to host our own dedicated servers that support up to 16 players. I was able to host a game on one of my systems and swap the CD so I could join in on the same game on my other system. So this is great for people who want to set up a dedicated server for people to play on.
Unfortunately, with all the good things about multiplayer, I did notice a few bad things. My biggest complaint is the lack of a muting feature in Novaworld. Too many times I have found certain people engaging in shouting matches and telling everyone what a big man they are. Also, there are chat-flaming wars that are just as intense as any RAW war. So, please, Novalogic: ADD A SELECTIVE CHAT MUTING SYSTEM TO NOVAWORLD! Other problems I encountered were a couple of co-op missions that had bugs in them. On one mission, one of the required target flights kept disappearing before we had a chance to kill them. After 3 tries, we reset the server and moved onto the next mission, which, oddly enough, after bombing a missile boat, my kill was not registered, and the missile boat was still selected when targeting. After close examination of the target, I could see the crater where I hit, yet there was no target. Since we could not kill a target that wasn’t there, we had to reset the server yet again. Despite this, we played co-op one night for about four fun-filled hours. I am personally glad Novalogic decided to allow co-op in their fighter simulations.
Another new feature is VON: Voice Over Net. This allows people to talk with each other while playing multiplayer games. F-22 Lighting III even comes complete with an Andrea Electronics microphone, which offers excellent voice quality. Of course, it could not replace my trusty headset with a microphone and headphones, but I don’t think Andrea will complain much because my headset is the Andrea Electronics GameWare headset, and I have nothing but good things to say. The VON quality itself is decent, with some people having good quality and others having poor quality. I think it’s a line quality factor rather than a problem with VON since voice over the Internet has always been a little flaky. Using VON, I was able to communicate with several people in the co-op game, and I found communication discipline to be an issue since most people haven’t used voice for simulation flying much. I guess we can hope that people learn quick and concise formats in which to transmit information to avoid confusion while flying a mission.
Novalogic has an update checker in Lightning III, so updates are simply a matter of clicking the button to check for a new update. As I am writing this, I am updating my F-22 Lightning III with the newest update, which is a whopping 13 MB of update! Usually, they are good about keeping the updates small, but considering the rough edges here and there, I can see the need for a larger update. I’m waiting to hear what the update addresses as I write the article.
Final Analysis:
I started really enjoying Novalogic’s aircraft simulations with the release of F-22 Raptor and the introduction of Novaworld. F-22 Lightning III continues this fine tradition. I have had a lot of fun flying on both Novaworld servers and my own server. The co-op multiplayer is the best new feature for F-22 Lightning III. I would have loved to see a selective chat muting in Novaworld, but I guess I’ll just have to ignore the rude people and sort out the useful commo. The Voice over Net feature is nice when you have a good connection and are talking to someone with a good connection. The graphics are as nice as ever and even better than F-22 Raptor with 3D acceleration. The game itself is geared toward easy learning and fast and furious gameplay. Another good point is that the price of F-22 Lightning III is low compared to other sims. I have seen it on sale at CompUSA for only $29.95, and I think that’s a good deal for the amount of fun you get out of this sim. Bottom line: if you liked the F-22 Raptor, you’ll love the F-22 Lighting III, but if in doubt, try out the demo on Novalogic’s site first, and you may be surprised at how much fun it can be. So, if you’re looking to jump right in and duke it out with a lot of other people online, or you want to get with some close friends for a game, or even if you want to fly the single-player missions, F-22 Lightning III is sure to bring you hours of entertainment.
The Review
F-22 Lightning III
If you liked the F-22 Raptor, you'll love the F-22 Lighting III, but if in doubt, try out the demo on Novalogic's site first, and you may be surprised at how much fun it can be. So, if you're looking to jump right in and duke it out with a lot of other people online, or you want to get with some close friends for a game, or even if you want to fly the single-player missions, F-22 Lightning III is sure to bring you hours of entertainment.
PROS
- Varied Missions
- Multiplayer Mode
- Good Graphics (for Its Time)
CONS
- Limited Realism
- Limited Replayability