OPERATION: FIREFIGHT

  OPERATION: FIREFIGHT is a mission disk for use with FALCON, the premier
combat flight simulator from Spectrum Holobyte. The basis of this article
is the Atari ST version and in order to fly it you'll need FALCON and an ST
with 512K, a color monitor, and 360K disk drive. Although OF will run on
512K of memory, Spectrum recommends 1MB, which will take advantage of
additional sound and graphics enhancements. Both the Black Box flight
recorder and the communication features have been dropped.

  FIREFIGHT showcases all the wonders of FALCON -- outstanding graphics and
animation, exhilarating flight simulation, excellent sound effects and
digitized voices --, and offers an all-new campaign built around twelve
all-new missions, new weapons and enemy craft, keyboard control, hard drive
support, and no copy protection.

  In OPERATION: COUNTERSTRIKE, the previous FALCON mission disk, air
battles took place mostly over enemy territory; enemy top gunners got
warnings from ground control communications. In FIREFIGHT, the stick is on
the other foot: though some of the missions are strictly offensive strikes,
you're basically defending your home territory. You'll have access to
messages from friendly ground control, which is a good thing because you're
going to be terribly outnumbered. The basic objective is achieve numerical
superiority, in terms of tanks, over the enemy.

  Like FALCON and COUNTERSTRIKE, OF can be controlled completely with the
keyboard; either mouse or joystick can be used for banks, climbs, and
dives, while the keyboard handles all view controls and aircraft functions.
Unless you have a joystick that's been specially designed for flight
simulation, the keyboard is the controller of choice. Keystrokes 1
(clockwise) and 2 (counterclockwise) rotate the outside view around the
aircraft.

  The OPERATION: FIREFIGHT package for the ST comes with one 360K disk and
a manual explaining the campaign structure and the new missions. The OF
disk replaces FALCON disk one; it can be backed up on a floppy. An
alternative is to copy the OF disk and FALCON disk two on to a 720K disk.
The Install program will copy the necessary files to your hard drive, but
the chances of the program running from it are no better than 50/50: my ST
bombed out more often than not. If you want to run OF from a particular
hard drive partition, rather than the default, you can edit the datafile
that works with the Install program.

  OPERATION: FIREFIGHT can be reviewed easily, without a lot of detail: if
you already have FALCON, you can rest assured that FIREFIGHT is everything
FALCON is. If you don't have FALCON, you should purchase it immediately:
it's a contemporary classic that takes full advantage of an excellent
machine. FIREFIGHT will then sell itself, no hype necessary from either me
or Spectrum Holobyte.


  OPERATION: FIREFIGHT is published and distributed by Spectrum Holobyte.