Jane's Attack Squadron Review

Jane's Attack Squadron is a flight simulator set in Western Europe during the Second World War, from 1943 through 1945.  You'll have the opportunity to fly 14 different planes from both sides of the conflict.  In addition to fighters such as FW-190s, Mustangs, and Spitfires, you'll also have the opportunity to try your hand at flying bombers such as the Ju.88 and B-17.

The planes in Attack Squadron are pretty simple to fly as the game has a forgiving flight model.  When taking off, most planes practically lift themselves off the ground.  Whether at the controls of a nimble fighter or lumbering bomber, stalls are rare and hard to come by.  The game does feature some realism settings, but the effect of turning them all on is not a drastic one.  While this is not a very good thing for the hard-core sim crowd, it is not necessarily a bad one for those new to flight sims or those who want an easy to fly experience.

In fact, you don't have to do much flying at all - autopilot and nav point warping get you into the middle of the action with having to bother with the "getting there and back."  Should you decide to do a little more flying, navigation is easy with waypoints appearing as green circles in the sky.  These waypoint circles are especially helpful when flying German planes, since the instruments give readings in meters but the altitude and of and distance to the nav points is always in feet and miles.

There are several in-game aids to assist casual and beginning players even further.  Targeting aids such as a lead indicator, an enemy-tracking camera window, and aircraft identification and location markers.  All of these things may make hardcore sim jocks roll their eyes, but they're a big help to those just interested in making a few aerial kills.

Despite all of these aids for new players, the game drops the ball when it comes to the manual and tutorial.  The included manual is quite thin for a flight sim, and the supplemental manual that is included in a pdf file is not that much more help.  The tutorials present the steps of the lesson as mission objectives, and then leave you on your own.  It is hard to learn how to play a game when you need to continually pause it, check the objectives, and then try to perform the next step.

The aerial combat in Jane's is enjoyable - the AI is a competent opponent, almost too competent in the case of bomber gunners.  Speaking of bomber gunners, when flying a bomber, you can man any of the guns yourself.  Manning the gun turrets can be a lot of fun, as you knock fighters that come at your bomber out of the sky. 

The game does have a location-based damage model, and will let you know where you've been hit.  Even without the damage warnings, you could see the damage to your plane, be it bullet holes or a torn rudder.  Depending on where the damage occurred, it will also have an effect on your plane's handling and a few well-placed shots will have you struggling to keep your plane under control.

There are a variety of mission types in Attack Squadron which include intercepts, escorts, bombings, and even anti-ship strikes.  The bombing missions can be some of the most fun, since as mentioned previously it is fun manning all of the gun positions.  The surprising thing about the bombing missions is that they are by far the easiest to complete.  Historically, flying bombers was a much more dangerous profession than that of being a fighter jock, but not so in Attack Squadron.  Flak never really seems to cause any noticeable damage, and fighters are routinely mowed down by bomber's defensive guns.  In addition, if you warp to the bombing run nav point, you'll be aligned with the target quite nicely.  You can just leave the plane in autopilot mode, shoot at fighters, and then hop into the bombardier position to drop your payload.

Attack Squadron has campaign games, single missions, and a quick mission generator.  There are two campaigns, one for the US and the other for the German side.  The campaigns are really just a series of individual missions - even if you are killed in action you'll move on to the next mission.  The campaign tracks some basic statistics such as number of kills over the course of the campaign, but there is not much of a feeling that you are doing anything other than playing individual, unrelated missions.

The single mission support is pretty thin, providing only five total missions.  Luckily the instant action option is pretty configurable, allowing you to specify the plane you fly, as well as the number and types of allied and enemy aircraft involved.  It is a good way to get in some quick dogfighting.  If you want to try your hand at creating your own missions, the game includes a full mission editor, although it is unsupported (i.e. you're on your own).

The graphics in the game are good - the planes look realistic and the ground and sky look good while you are in flight.  There is support for the point of view (POV) switch on joysticks that will let you smoothly look around while in the cockpit.  However, there is not really any way to visually tell when you are close to the ground.  It looks pretty much the same as it does from higher altitudes, which can lead to unintentional crash landings during lower level operations.  The cities in the game do have buildings, but they tend to be generic and very square.  They are also rendered only when you are quite close to them, so you can actually watch whole blocks of city appear out of thin air while looking through a bombsite.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 68%. With a little more work on the campaign game and mission selection, and better manuals and tutorials, Attack Squadron could have been a highly recommendable game for those new to flight sims or anyone looking for a lighter, more forgiving sim.  As it stands, it is good for someone with a bit of patience looking for an easy to fly combat sim.  Hard core flight sim veterans will find its simplified flight model and weak campaign to be disappointing.

System Requirements:  400 MHz Pentium II CPU; 128 MB RAM; 16 MB Video RAM; 16x CD-ROM; 600 MB Hard Drive Space; Mouse.