EF 2000

The Good
DID prided themselves on their accurate flight models and striking graphics, and EF2000 was one of the first titles to include a useful 'padlock view' (a feature pioneered in the company's previous game, 'TFX'). EF2000 is still good to look at today, helped by the decision to set the game in the bleak snowy wastelands of northern Norway. The sky is generally very dark and moody, and the sensation of being locked in an air-conditioned box, floating in a freezing black wilderness is quite unique. In common with the last two 'Falcon' games, 'European Air War' and sadly very few others, EF2000 had a dynamic campaign in which your actions had bearing on subsequent missions. The simulation engine was complicated enough to be satisfying but not so complicated as to inspire panic, whilst the sensation of flying at great speed through narrow, glacial canyons - with time advance on, of course - was as close to the end of 'Firefox' as any computer game has come. Note that a patch exists to provide for functionality with 3D cards.

The Bad
DID's games always had two huge flaws which are present here. Firstly, the manual is awful, explaining in detail what each control and MFD screen is, but not what it does or why you might want to use it. Much is written about the theory of dropping laser-guided bombs, but nothing explains how this is achieved in the game. Several key commands and much information were also left out. Secondly, the game is full of bugs and omissions, even with the various patches which were released (this came at a time when patches were quite unusual). Without the patch, the only way to see how many weapons your plane had was to pop up one of the external views; there was no way to load specific weapons in advance; it was never explained how to finish a mission, so that you spent a lot of time flying around on patrol, landing back at base, and... sitting on the runway, with the mission continuing (the answer was to use one of the time-advance controls, but this was never explained). The existence of a separate add-on pack, TACTCOM, to provide for internet and extra functionality suggests that DID needed more time, although the majority of their games are flawed in similar ways, including this game's recent sequel. In fairness, the real-world EF2000 has been beset by problems as well.

The Bottom Line
This game is quite hard to find nowadays; Ocean Software no longer exist, indeed both DID and Infrogrammes seem to have vanished (the latter rebranded as Atari). It was available for a time in a two-pack with TACTCOM, although Falcon 4.0 makes it obsolete, bar the moody scenery. A sequel, Eurofighter Typhoon, was released to little impact in 2001 and is now available as an ultra-cheap budget game.