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- Manfred von Richtofen
n
1914, as Europe prepared for what it thought would be a
quick, bloodless, and even entertaining war, few soldiers or
politicians on either side thought that aircraft would have much of a
role. Four years later, after the smoke had cleared and the
devastation was being repaired, the airplane remained. Like a
bloodstained phoenix it rose from the ashes of the First World War to
become one of the most decisive instruments of military power ever
devised.Today it is sometimes argued that the weapons rule, that there is no longer room for human genius in aerial combat. Contests are decided now in laboratories and testing grounds, and victory goes to the pilot with the fastest computer, not the fastest reflexes.
Whether or not this is truly the case, there are those in the flight sim community who still remember and dream of the lost era of the biplane and machine gun. For these players Sierra has crafted Red Baron II.
To explore these new realms I used a Pentium II 266 with 64 Megs of RAM, a Diamond Fire GL 1000 Pro video card tied to an Orchid Righteous 3dII 3dFX accelerator, and an SB32 sound card. Control was done via a Saitek X36 programmable control system.
This is probably Red Baron II's greatest weakness, but there is supposedly a 3dFX patch in the works that will likely remedy this problem. Still the graphics are good and the game is runable on systems as limited as a Pentium 133 without 3d acceleration, an increasingly rare phenomena these days.
With all the realism options enabled, you will have to contend with
the same obstacles that plagued early fighter pilots. Your guns will
jam in the heat of combat, steep dives and hard turns will threaten
the structural integrity of your plane, etc. The strengths and
weaknesses of different aircraft are modeled in depth, and you will
have to be keenly aware of your aircraft's performance envelope to
ensure victory. You simply cannot fly an SE5 the way you would a
Camel or Fokker Dr 1. More than once I made the mistake of getting
into the wrong kind of fight for my plane, and then having to use
ever trick in my repertoire to get out, sometimes to no avail.
What is even more enjoyable (to both casual and hard-core gamers) is that the world around you acts like a world, not a piece of software. If you prowl over an enemy airfield for a while, a flight of fighters will launch to attack you. If you attack an observation balloon, the crew on the ground will attempt to reign it in before you shoot it down.
Throughout much of the war, pilot skill was more important in most cases than technology, so it is fitting that Red Baron II has probably the most diverse and realistic AI for non-player pilots I have ever come across. Sometimes you will encounter a flight of relatively inexperienced pilots who will freeze at your first shots and become easy prey. In other instances you will run into groups of aces from such crack squadrons as England's No. 56 and the famed JG 1 led by Richtofen himself. When this happens the fight will be tough and challenging. Although you can adjust the quality of enemy pilots in the realism settings, there will always be a range of variation, and there will always be a mixture of cannon fodder and aces.
If you chose to play the campaign mode, you enlist in the air force
of one of the four major players on the western front: England,
France, Germany, and later the US. (Although present, aircraft were
not as large a factor on the eastern front, and the Russian
revolution pulled that nation out of the war in October 1917.) You
can select the date of your enlistment, your rank, and to which
squadron you are initially posted. As you fly missions and accumulate
kills your rank and renown will grow, leading to decorations from
above and increased responsibility. Eventually you may even be
given command of your own squadron.
Whichever side you choose to play, you will be affected by the shifts in technical superiority throughout the war. As a German pilot you will start relatively on par with your enemies (the game does not let you start as far back as the summer of 1915 and the famed "Fokker Scourge"). Then you will enjoy easy pickings during "Bloody April" 1917 when the Albatross D.III wreaked havoc on Allied squadrons. As the war progresses you will frequently have an edge in technology, but be outnumbered in most encounters. The opposite is true if you fly for the allies.
All of this adds up to a total gaming experience not really matched
by many of today's other sims. While most games concentrate on
developing graphics and flight models to the most minute level of
detail, Red Baron II keeps its eyes locked onto the higher goal of
providing the most total experience possible. Whether it is the
performance of the aircraft, the skill of the pilots, or the
disturbing but historically accurate sight of pilots hurtling from a
burning plane to the ground, Red Baron II models World War One air
combat. And while there are few people alive today who remember that
exhilarating and horrifying moment in history, this sim holds closely
to the accounts that they have left behind.It is a triumph not only of technology, but also of history, and it reminds us all of how far the world has come in so short a time.
