PowerPC 80MHz (120 rekommenderas), 16 MB RAM, 7.1. Top Gun: Fire at Will! is a fast and furious action flying game. The action begins at Top Gun School, where you compete for the coveted Top Gun Trophy. Live-action video creates the experience of a lifetime as you battle your way through an epic adventure set against a backdrop of burgeoning global crisis.
The Game:
The funniest part of the game is that when you get to Top Gun school, a training ground for the "best of the best" navy pilots, they begin by teaching you how to fly a plane. Forget that you got there by being the "best of the best" already. No matter.

The game begins at this point and does a very good job of training you. You begin by targeting and shooting down "drones", or dummy aircraft, and move on to more elaborate tasks. In each training drill you get more than enough information that not only preps you for the task at hand but sets the mood. It really does feel like you're in a military training school

The typical gamer who is not a diehard flight sim fan will really appreciate the many accommodations the game gives. There are several gradients of difficulty, and each one allows the automatic pilot to be activated. Even your entire flight training at Top Gun school can be completed by your autopilot.


But Top Gun school isn't necessary for those wanting to jump right in and send some million-dollar metal flaming to the ground. There is an "instant action" option at the startup screen with a very good host of missions to fly, including a playground with endless enemies.

The most impressive part of the game is also the most annoying. Just like a real fighter pilot, you have a radio stuck in your ear through which you communicate with your teammates. In Top Gun they're always talking. During heavy combat they're announcing their missile launches and coordinating attacks, but they're also constantly making Top Gun Movie-type quips. Some are very funny at first, but after a while you want to turn your plane on your comrades just to shut them up. One pilot says repeatedly after flaming a MiG, "Uh, excuse me, but your plane is on fire." And if I hear "Lock and load" one more time, I'm going to lock and load a bullet through my computer screen.

The Interface:
The game packaging makes a big deal out of the "high-resolution voxel engine" driving the graphic realism. It wasn't bad really, though it isn't as good as some other flight sims. Essentially, it was pretty good when it originally shipped two years ago. It's adequate now, beating the blocky graphics of the first FA/18 Hornet and A-10 Attack! games. Since most of your combat flying is done via the inter-aircraft HUD and screens, it really doesn't matter much.

What's interesting about the interface is the little window in your cockpit display that acts as a "picture-in-picture" to the events outside the plane. When an enemy comes into your view, you see the plane very clearly in this window. Amazingly, launching a missle then sends the camera out with the missile, tracking it to the target. It's an awesome camera angle that I'm sure real pilots would love to have. It does a good job of compensating for the fact that in a flight sim you can't see out of your plane as easily as in real life.

My very favorite part of the game had nothing to do with flying action. Taken in total, it would be easy to argue that Top Gun: Fire At Will is an educational/training title more than a game. The manual is full of details about the plane, flight tactics and weapons, backed up by an excellent interactive encyclopedia on military warcraft. You can read and listen to great information about American and foreign planes, boats, missiles and guns. A window displays a 3D rendering of the item which you can freely rotate. Each plane's strengths and weaknesses are discussed as well as their roles in combat. I spent almost as much time with this as I did with the game.


The minuses are all dependent on perspective. If you'd rather have a flight sim game that sets you free to do as you wish with no annoyances, Top Gun might not be your direct bag. It is in many ways more realistic because you are with a supporting cast of pilots that are as annoying as real people can be. If you are a casual gamer wanting to try a good flight sim, you might be frustrated by the complexities of learning to fly a plane.

The game goes to great lengths to set an atmosphere. This could simply get in the way of the serious gamer and make playing too much of a hassle. The graphics are good, but certainly not state-of-the-art. Acting and voices are corny to say the least. All that was needed was one pilot named "Dickie" to balance out the ultra-cool names every other pilot assumed.

Many times during the game I wondered: is modern air combat really just a matter of getting an enemy plane somewhere near your radar scope and firing a guided missile? On easy settings there were rarely times when you were hunting down an aircraft with your cannons firing. At times when I had wasted my missiles and had to resort to cannons, I found the ability to pull 8G banking turns a little unrealistic.

The same major minuses can also be pluses. There is a tremendous amount of atmosphere generated by the Top Gun music, chatter from other pilots and intro movies of fighter planes. If it doesn't drive you nuts, you'll find yourself getting into the game very heavily. The music is very good and the remake of Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone" is quite close to the original.

Gamers lacking much of the patience and coordination to even launch a plane will appreciate the easily-activated AutoPilot feature. This is a good way to get off the ground (or ship) and in the direction of the action.


Bug Report:
The game was extremely solid on my system. Each port to the Mac platform published by MacSoft seems to improve in stability and "native" feeling. Resetting controls involves dropping out of the game into a control window. Every time I did this, I thought the game had crashed, but it snapped right back up after configuring.

Conclusion:
Top Gun: Fire At Will is all about a solid arcade gaming experience. It is not out to be the latest and best flight sim on the market. Instead it excels at getting the gamer in the mood and mindset of a fighter pilot and providing the thrills of hunting down enemy targets. You are never alone in Top Gun. This may really bother some gamers, but it more likely welcomes amateur gamers into the flight sim realm. I would easily recommend this game to younger kids or adults with little patience for excessive detail. Make sure you were able to tolerate the "cool factor" of the Top Gun movie, because this game is dripping with it.

Overall: 70%

Rating Percentage
Playability: 60%
Inferface: 80%
Longevity: 70%
Stabilty: 100%
Hardware Demands: 80%
Value: 60%

Pros:
- Nice atmosphere created by movies and sounds.
- Good range of realistic flight controls.
- Wealth of encyclopedic information included in game.
- Good replay value for those who love arcade flying.

Cons:
- Corny, corny, corny military jargon.
- Can be far too easy.
- Acting could have been better.
- Two-year old graphics engine.
- Constant chatter from other pilots.

Konfigurationer