FINALLY! A non-MicroProse Game Review. This one by Saudi Arabia's leading expert in Flight Games! When I first purchased Dynamix' Aces of the Pacific it seemed like a pretty good bang-bang shootem-up flying game, but as I grew accustomed to the program, it presented more and more "hidden" features. This is one where you need to RTFM (Read the ******* manual) in order to learn where all the switches are. Indeed you need the information to know what switches you even have available! Aces is based on the air war in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Most of the scenarios are based on the actual situations from historical records. You, as a pilot (either U.S. or Japanese), may choose where you wish to start your career. You then follow the natural progression of briefings, missions, bull sessions afterwards, etc. The graphics are very good and aircraft performance seems to be typical of the aircraft that were flown in the Pacific Theater. Your opponents are no slouches either! If you aren't careful, you could wind up the War in a Pine Box with your family being a bit sad (but you have the option of ignoring the mission that killed you IF you backed up your career). As you progress through your career and the WAR, you will be moved around the Theater to new locations, squadrons, or aircraft. This prevents you from becoming complacent with your current location as you may not be there next flight (kinda like it is in a REAL WAR). You can have very glorious missions or some that are total failures, depending upon your skills. The program is very easy to reconfigure or calibrate by pressing F10 and following the Menu that is displayed. Aces also has a map that will show you where your are, where you're supposed to go . It also supplies you with information on the ground and air targets that are shown on the map. The program has the standard set of gauges, Landing Gear Indicator, Flaps Indicator, Rudder Indicator, Dive Brake Indicator (on the appropriate aircraft), etc. There are many internal / external views available by use of the Function keys / Joystick. If needed, you can even Bail Out (over enemy territory, this is a bad idea, just ask me!). Don't look for any hi-tech electronic aids in the program. The simulation is exact -- they weren't around in the 1940s so you don't get them now. Your most effective search function is not some anachronistic radar of the 1990s, but the best radar of the 1940s -- your eyes. The programmers did add one rather neat feature however, a video recorder. (I know, they weren't around during the war but ....) The recorder allows you to save your battle winning mission to a file. Later you can replay it (Now you'll have something to back up those war stories). The book for Aces is 200+ pages of information, history, hints etc. It seems to cover almost every situation that you are likely to encounter. It is definitely a "M" where you wish to "RTF". Since the program requires quite a lot of lower memory and some upper memory, it can produce a "Boot Disk" that will give a minimum configuration that will use the available resources (your computer) to the maximum. However, I did it a bit differently. I created a second CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT which I stored in a directory (copies of the original CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT are stored in another directory). Then, when I wished to play Aces, I just have the system delete the old files, copy them in from the Aces directory, and reboot. After completing the game, the last few lines cause the system to restore the old files and reboot again. This program MUST be installed from the source disks as the files are compressed and must be decompressed before executing. This is a "FUN GAME" where you take your chances against the BAD (or GOOD) Guys and your progression depends upon your flight skills and LUCK! In my opinion, this is a very good game and well worth the cost. If you enjoy flying and war games, this one is a definite MUST HAVE. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS (Minimum) 80386 System 2 MB RAM DOS 5.0 Hard Drive VGA Graphics Card and Monitor High Density Floppy Drive Memory: 610,000 bytes of available Conventional Memory AND 1 MB EMS Some sort of Extended Memory Manager such as EMM386 or QEMM Reviewer Gus Carroll is a computer fanatic who brings 20 years of Air Force experience to his comments. Back to Cry Havoc #3 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com