Lock On : modern air combat Gold edition

[HunterICX]

Usually I would say Jet fighters are not my thing
but after seeying a lot of Cold war and Modern documentaries about Tactical bombers and Fighter planes and the evolution of these beasts I want to try it out.
my question is:

is the Lock on gold edition worth buying?
as seeying its system requiremetns its in my favour.
(my PC: 2.8 ghz, 512 Ram, Geforce FX5700LE 256Mb)

anyones that has this game can tell me something about it?
also seeying it has a MP feature how is this?

thanks
HunterICX

[Skybird]

Be careful with those specs. I have 3 GHZ, 1 GB RAM, 7800GS, and at medium settings and 1024x768 without AA or AF saw it stuttering.

It looks good, without doubt, but I think consensus is that concernign system avioncis and realism, Falcon has some more to offer, beyond the inferior graphics (which are not that bad again). I also did not like the mission-design in LOMAC. It felt sterile, and not immersive. But that may be a question of taste. Not too mention Falcon's hopelessly superior campaign mode.

Watch out for starforce. I do not remember the details, but I seem to recall that some non-German versions of the addon came with it.

I tested LOMAC for myself over a week, when it came out for smile price. I then deinstalled it and never looked back. Even Longbow 2 I liked better - mmuch more immersion. Technically, the LOMAC cockjpits are very good, though.

check my gunship thread (Black Shark), it was planned as an addon for LOMAC, but now comes as a standalone product. It is a new engine, but you can see the familiarity with the LOMAC engine.

P.S. Until a year ago or so, I occasionally used Flanker 2.5 for a flyaround, which felt nice due to the good flightmodel. That sim was the predecessor to LOMAC, and features a very nice 3D cockpit and FM. The free mega-update gave me the Mig-29 additionally to the Flanker. Doing touch-and-gos with it was fun. As a combat sim - again, too sterile, no immersion.

[HunterICX]

Ah I see the lo-mac website contains a demo
I will try to see how my system handles the game.

and seeying the other thread, I will check out WoV too..looks like fun to fly with cold war jets.

[Chock]

I think Skybird's assesment there is a fair one. LOMAC tends to prefer PCI-x graphics cards from what I can gather, and I've known people who simply cannot get it to run a server (which meant I had to do it), although I have run a server and played it at the same time with two other people on and most of the graphics up reasonably high, so it's not as though it's a slideshow if your PC is reasonably up to date.

LOMAC looks great from a 3D graphics standpoint, the planes look very convincing indeed and have cool virtual cockpits that work well, although the ground detail isn't up there with something like FS, for a combat sim, it's certainly among the better ones, the sim also implements stuff like heat haze on the exhaust plumes and was in fact one of the first sims to do that, so it's a looker, no doubt about that.

However, LOMAC is more of a 'survey sim' than a 'study sim' in that you won't find every switch working in the cockpit, and some aspects are greatly simplified in comparison to the real thing (notably the missile launch parameters and the radar operation). Since the radar and other sensors are very much the heart of a modern combat aircraft, you might find this ultimately disappointing, if that was where your interest was coming from, and if you were interested in the weapons side of things, and the cockpit controls to launch them, then Falcon AF is more likely to blow your skirt up.

Personally, I think LOMAC falls between two stools in this respect, being not complex enough to please the 'rivet counters', yet slightly too complex for the fun brigade, although the difficulty sliders can alleviate this a bit. It's sort of hard to place my finger on why what Skybird said about LOMAC being a bit sterile in feel is true, but it's what I feel about it too. The moment one fires up Falcon for example, it's a case of 'ooh yeah baby, now that's what I'm talking about...', similarly, stuff like wings Over Europe may be simplified for jets, but you feel they got the snips in the right places, and it also puts a smile on your face. I've never had that feeling from LOMAC.

What a lot of people were disappointed with by LOMAC (apart from it's legendary delayed release), was that it 'talked a big fight' promising to be 'the new Falcon 4' with superb realism (this was before Falcon AF came out), but when LOMAC came out, it became apparent that it was long on promises, and short on delivery.

Others may feel different of course, and if it floats their boat, then that's great, I'd suggest trying it out, it may be what you want, so judging it for yourself with the demo might be better than going off my opinion, which is after all, just an opinion.

Chock

[Steel_Tomb]

the lomac demo is nothing like the full game, espeicially gold which include flaming cliffs. FC reduces your FPS by about a quater if not more. I've got a pretty high spec rig and I cant run on full settings. If you like eye candy, but not much more then go for Lockon (although performance will be pants with 512mb, need 1gb ram at least)...falcon all the way!