SU-27 Flanker

A whole jar of new missions, lashings of multi-player, a dash of Gouraud, and what have you got? A mid-life modernisation of a two year old flight sim.

Su-27 Flanker 1.5 is an upgrade to keep current Flankers happy while they dream about the forthcoming attractions of version 2.0. It includes 156 missions, Gouraud-shaded graphics, new camouflage schemes, 16-player LAN networking, head-to-head play over the Internet, a random mission generator, an extended mission editor, a new AWACS view for budding Schwarzkopfs, improved artificial intelligence, and a campaign shell generator. But wait. There are no new theatres, no new terrains and no new planes or objects. The Gouraud shading will bring anything less than a Pentium 200 to its knees and. importantly, isn't available when looking out of the cockpit. There is no support for DirectX or Direct3D, and with delicious preview shots of version 2.0 up on the SSI Website for all to see. one wonders if anyone will salivate over the still-a-bit-old-looking 1.5.

On the subject of the game's much-vaunted realism, my computer foes appeared to have unlimited fuel, infinite ammunition, were seemingly invulnerable to each other, and were able to pass right through buildings. Call me a realist but surely this only happens somewhere near Bermuda.

When lost in the vastness of the game, such issues are not all that intrusive. Su-27 Flanker remains entertaining, is based on an aircraft that holds 27 world records, and is one of only a handful of Windows games that appear to have a proper measure of the Windows interface. It's also easy to get to grips with. Then again, you had all that with version 1.0. So do you really need this upgrade?