Review of USNF '97

by David Harms

USNF is a great game. You are a carrier pilot who has many different planes to fly. My favorites are the F-4 Phantom, F-22 Raptor, F-14 Tomcat and the F/A-18 Hornet. There are several other aircraft including the A-7 Corsair, MiG-17 and the AC-130 Spectre Gunship.

You can fly in three campaigns. One you fly off of the USS Eisenhower. You fly off of the Ike and fight the Russians trying to take over the Ukraine. You and your fellow pilots are trying to stop the Russian advance with the help of the Ukrainians. The planes you can fly our the: F-14, F/A-18 and the A-7. No missions recommend you use the A-7 and neither do I. It is slow and hard to maneuver.

In The Kuril islands campaign you fight against the Russians. Due to the war with Russia in the Ukraine, we (The US) decide to take over the Kuril Islands to protect Japan. You are a Marine fighter pilot flying Harriers off of the USS Wasp. The missions in this campaign are more of the close support missions rather then "lets blow them up from 50 miles" type missions. You are providing close support for the Marines on the shore. You also have to protect the carrier group from air attacks. The planes you mostly fight are Su-27s.

The last campaign is a Vietnam campaign. In this campaign you fly F-4s and F-8s. Your missions include bombing, escort missions and fighter sweeps. In this mission you are dealing with very maneuverable fighters in you less maneuverable Phantoms. You also have to deal with tons of flak. All these things together make this a very challenging and campaign.

Another great feature in the Pro Missions Editor. You can design missions. You can write another campaign or just make huge fighter duels. This is nice if you just want some air-to-air combat.

There are some things I didn't like about USNF '97. One thing is that you can't target civilian targets. Ship names also appear as names of different ships at the same time. That means that if you make a battle group of two carriers they would both have the name Eisenhower. I fixed most of these with my USNF '97 Library.

All in all USNF '97 is a great game. If you want a game for carrier aviation I definitely recommend it.

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