Lock On: Modern Air Combat
Developer: Strategic Simulations; Publisher: Ubisoft
Preview by (23 October 2003)
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ANY FAN OF JET fighter simulations will right now be patiently waiting for the news that Lock On: Modern Air Combat has gone gold. LOMAC has been delayed more times than an Air New Zealand flight from Wellington, and seen more ups and downs than a playground seesaw. It is more than a year over-due and has been through a number of changes that has seen features dropped and altered.
It's pedigree is without question though, being the next generation sim from the team that created Flanker 1 and 2. Despite the delays and changes, it has maintained a strong and passionate fan base, built largely on the promise LOMAC brings, and the fact that there hasn't been anything similar on the sim release front for quite some time. A high fidelity modern jet combat sim but with 6 of the most bad-ass planes flying today are available to the player, offering almost every aspect of modern air warfare a sim-head could want. Ground attack, close air support, air to air, carrier operations, aerial refuelling. It is nearly all there. In fact, all that is missing is any form of ground radar (none of the aircraft modelled have ground radar in real life). This all makes for a sim, which while having a ton of potential also carries the question, "will it live up to expectation"?
Now expectation is an unusual beast, because ultimately it is formed by the individual so we would argue, nothing really lives up to expectation, and in the case of video games where there has been such a long development period, is very easy for expectation to be blown out of proportion. The die hard have had some respite in the form of the recently released demo, but this has probably thrown up more questions than it has answered. So we have sorted through all the expectation, information and salivation to bring our own LOMAC preview by looking at the various aircraft and how they all tie together.
As stated, LOMAC allows us to fly 6 different aircraft, the Russian Mig-29, SU-25, SU-27, SU-33, and the American A-10, and F-15, although the Mig-29 has 2 flyable variants, and you can also fly it as part of a western force via the German Air Force.
The Mig-29 Fulcrum is a highly manoeuvrable fighter of limited range but able to takeoff and travel at high speed to intercept air threats and head back home. You will be able to use this plane in the ground attack role as well, with it being able to carry certain air to ground weapons like rockets.
The awesome SU-27 is a beast of an aircraft with phenomenal agility, a huge fuel load, and therefore range, and a powerful suite of air-to-air avionics. The 27 was designed as a fighter through and through and carries a large number of missiles.
The SU-33 is the navalised version of the SU-27 looking almost identical but has canard winglets just behind the cockpit. With the SU-33 you will be able to take off and land on the Russian aircraft carrier Kuznetsov which should please the fans of naval aviation. All of these Russian fighters have an optical sensor for designating their targets without having to turn on their tell-tale radars. This makes them extremely dangerous in the air, especially when using the tactic of being directed to the target by ground or air based radar, while remaining undetected even after they have fired their weapons.
To counter the threat posed by these Russian aircraft is the mighty F-15C Eagle, arguably the greatest air superiority fighter in the world. The Eagle has been overwhelmingly dominant in every aerial conflict it has been involved in although LOMAC will be the first chance you will have to test it against the might of mother Russia. The F-15C has a comprehensive avionics suite but unlike the Russian fighters, it has no ground attack ability.
For the fans of Mud-Moving we have the toughies of modern jet combat. The SU-25 Frogfoot and the A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog). Both designed as anti-tank platforms and to support ground troops by loitering for long periods and being called to action as needed. Neither have radar or any form of night vision, although the A-10 is probably the more advanced of the two with its weapon delivery, the SU-25 should be quite a challenge to master with only a simple WWII gun sight to help you aim the bombs and rockets.
Talking of guns, the A-10 carries the devastating GAU-8/A 7-barrel rotary canon (the entire plane was designed and built around this awesome gun) that fires rounds about the size of a grown mans forearm. They don't call the A-10 the tank buster for nothing, and this is probably the most anticipated aircraft amongst LOMAC fans. Despite the lack of radar and any form of night vision equipment in either plane, night missions will be possible with the battlefield flares which can be fired from artillery to light up the night sky, a first in a jet sim (that we are aware of). The types of missions these two planes can perform should keep things really interesting for those who decide to fly them.
All of this will take place over the Crimean Peninsula / Black Sea region in a fairly large map, but not the largest we have seen in a modern jet sim. It does however have plenty of variation in the terrain which should please those of us who like to get down low and dirty. Terrain however is one of the hardest areas to get right in a flight sim. It has to look equally good at altitude and on the deck. We are happy to report that LOMAC just about nails it when it comes to the environment.
The development team seem to have found a great balance between eye candy and frame rates. Things like trees are the old cross-section type that have been used in sims for years, but they aren't an issue at 400+ knots, and it allows a dense population of them to become a forest area. The ground shows up as different colours for various farming pastures and areas are bordered by rows of trees, roads, power lines and rivers.
As for towns and cities, they appear to be very well done and are in the correct location to the real things. There are different looking houses and structures, seaside populations have jettys, wharfs and boats. We would like to see some really tall buildings and expansive cities, but this may just be an indication of the theatre though.
As for the ocean, one word - stunning. It is the best-looking representation of water we have ever seen in a sim. The weather also looks very good with clouds casting shadows on the ground and reflecting in the water, low visibility conditions are a nightmare and winds will bump your plane around like crazy. In the worst of weather however, flying becomes a huge ask, let alone trying to fight anything, and the clouds can be very frame rate hungry.
Down to the combat side of things, LOMAC will ship with an impressive array of AI planes, ships and ground units to ensure the virtual battlefield is dynamic, and a hell of a dangerous place. Like all good sims there will also be an encyclopaedia to learn you up good about all the units in the game. Of course this knowledge is best put to use in the campaign/mission builder, which promises to be very comprehensive, even including such elements as aircraft failures and weather variables. There will also be a quick mission generator to put you in the thick of battle pronto, on whichever steed you choose to ride.
To help you learn the game, there will also be training missions for each aircraft. One of the features cut from LOMAC was the planned dynamic campaign, which is replaced with a scripted version. These kinds of campaigns can be very good, or very bad, and it remains to be seen what kind of randomness will be incorporated into these canned missions to keep them interesting. Regardless, the inclusion of a mission and campaign builder will ensure plenty of awesome flight time in the unfriendly skies.
If you haven't guessed by now, LOMAC is the next big thing on what is a very sparse simulation horizon. It has been a long time coming and the success or failure of LOMAC is likely to affect the flight sim market for some time, so for any fan of the genre, it has to succeed (an F18 add on has already been mentioned by those high up in the LOMAC development team, depending on LOMAC's sales). While many are on their knees hailing it as the 2nd coming of the Messiah, it is probably more realistic to see it as an evolution of previous sim titles.
While the LOMAC team have constantly pushed the sims scalability for different ability groups, have no doubt that even at its easiest settings, this is still a simulation. On the other side of the coin the ultra hardcore crowd will likely be disappointed if they expect to be able to push every button and fiddle with every setting.
LOMAC will be the jet sim for the next few years, of this we have no doubt. Just hopefully it makes it in time for Christmas.
Check out the Official Site.
Download the  Lock On: Modern Air Combat Demo.
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