F-22 Total Air War

The F-22 Total Air War is a flight simulator produced by the British company Digital Image Design - authors of several successful simulation games such as the F29 Retaliator, TFX and EF2000 series. In the game we can sit at the helm of a Raptor fighter - one of the basic planes used by the Air Force of the United States. The game is a continuation, or rather an extended version of F-22 Air Dominance Fighter.

Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor was founded in 1990, but only came into serial production 7 years later. Made in stealth technology, the aircraft is one of the highest achievements of American military technology. Both the shape of the aircraft and the special materials used in its production contributed to its high level of undetectability for radars and made it a legendary machine before the fighter was mass-produced.

The action of the game takes us again into the known from F-22: Air Dominance Fighter theater of action: the Red Sea region and the airspace of Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. Programmers from Digital Image Design prepared 10 mini- campaigns ranked according to the degree of difficulty, describing 10 fictitious armed conflicts involving the United States, China and Russia. A characteristic feature and at the same time the biggest advantage of the game is the non-linearity of these campaigns. Depending on our actions, the computer gives completely different orders to each enemy unit. Thanks to this, each subsequent approach to the game differs from the previous one, and A.I. is always able to surprise the player with different development of events. Apart from the campaign mode, the authors have made available a number of training missions, especially useful for beginners, as well as the possibility to create their own battles in multiplayer mode, where up to 8 players can fight at the same time.

The physical engine and flight model used in the F22 Total Air War comes directly from the F-22 Air Dominance Fighter and is a skillful combination of advanced simulation with elements characteristic of arcade games. On the other hand, the realism of the battlefield was recreated very faithfully. During the campaign, the situation in the area of activity changes dynamically, forcing the player to apply a slightly different strategy. Thanks to the AWACS system mapping, we can also take a command post in the game, so that from the special E-3 Sentry we can manage the situation in the entire airspace. This introduces an interesting tactical element to the game.

Graphic design of the game is also based on a predecessor published almost a year earlier. Total Air War, however, develops its wings only with the use of a good graphics accelerator. The new version has added 3D clouds and improved the appearance of some terrestrial objects, giving the impression that the graphics of the game was almost completely outdated. In return, we get high liquidity, even on weaker machines. As in the previous installment of the series, a slightly weaker element of the game is the sound layer.

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Last updated on August 14, 2015