F-15 Strike Eagle 2 MPS Labs MicroProse, 1989

F-15 Strike Eagle Games

F-15 Strike Eagle 2 is a 16 bit combat flight simulator released by MPS Labs of MicroProse for IBM PC MS-DOS in 1989.

F-15 Strike Eagle 2 was designed and programmed by Sid Meier and Andy Hollis.

F-15 Strike Eagle Atari 8 Bits 1984

The original F-15 Strike Eagle was released on the 48 kbyte Atari 8 bit 400/800 by MicroProse in 1984. The original F-15 Strike Eagle was coded by Sid Meier and drawn by Michael Haire.

F-15 Strike Eagle IBM PC 1985

The 1985 IBM PC version of F-15 Strike Eagle was coded by Randall Don Masteller. Running in 4-color CGA 320x200 display mode the IBM PC Booter version requires an i808x and 128 kbytes RAM.

The 1985 IBM PC version of F-15 Strike Eagle could also be run in 16-color EGA 320x200 with 640x400 menu-screens:

F-15 Strike Eagle Atari ST 1985

Mike Jones of Digital Illusions ported F-15 Strike Eagle to the Atari ST in 1985. The graphics of Atari ST F-15 Strike Eagle were drawn by Michele Mahan, and the project leader was Ed Bever. The Atari ST version of F-15 Strike Eagle features much better presentation and audiovisuals than the other versions, but the screen updates are very choppy. F-15 Strike Eagle supports joystick or mouse control.

Atari ST F-15 Strike Eagle is historically significant because it was the first big-budget and serious flight sim to appear on 16-bit micros, with proper hardware mouse cursor navigation of menus. There was no Amiga version released.

F-15 Strike Eagle 2 IBM PC MS-DOS 1989

The IBM PC MS-DOS 2.1 version of F-15 Strike Eagle 2 requires an i808x or i80x86 CPU and 384K of RAM. The MS-DOS version supports 256-color VGA 320x200 graphics (640x400 titlescreen). 

However, the VGA dithering technique shows that it does not take full advantage of VGA's palette range: the in-cockpit views look no better than 16-color Falcon 1988 or EGA. However, the land-and-sky color gradients constitute a notable graphical improvement over Falcon and the Amiga version of F-15.

In fact, F-15 is the first flight sim to employ land-and-sky color gradients. Viewport graduated detail can be increased and decreased via Alt-D.

Of course, on i80386es the MS-DOS version's framerate is much smoother than the Amiga version's framerate; thus, the MS-DOS version is the best version to play.

F-15 Strike Eagle 2 was distributed on 1x 3.5" 720kB DS DD diskettes or 2x 5.25" 360kB DS DD floppy disks.

In F-15 Strike Eagle 2 of 1989 the player pilots the McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle.

There are two scenarios added onto those in F-19 Stealth Fighter:

• Libya
• The Persian Gulf
• Vietnam
• The Middle East
• The North Cape
• Central Europe

F-15 Strike Eagle 2 is a simplified version of F-19. For example, you cannot choose your armaments. Another difference is that F-19 is about stealth tactics whereas F-15 is more about action and dogfighting.

F-15 Strike Eagle 2 Armaments

• M61A1 20mm Vulcan (six-barrel gatling gun-style cannon)
• AIM-9M  Sidewinder
• AIM-120A AMRAAM
• AGM-65D Maverick air-to-ground missile

F-15 Strike Eagle 2 Combat Maneuvers

• Turning Inside
• Scissors Turn
• Immelmann Turn
• Split-S Turn
• Yo-Yo Turn

F-15 Strike Eagle 2 manual: 100 pages.

F-15 Strike Eagle 2 Amiga 1991

Microprose released F-15 Strike Eagle 2 for the Amiga in 1991.

F-15 Strike Eagle 3 IBM PC MS-DOS 1992

F-15 Strike Eagle 3 was released by MPS Labs of MicroProse in December of 1992 for IBM PC MS-DOS 5.0. F-15 Strike Eagle 3 requires an i80386 clocked at 16 MHz, 588K of free conventional RAM and 752K of EMS RAM.

F-15 Strike Eagle 2 displays in 256-color VGA 320x200. Note the hill density but also the chunky 3D graphics. Note also the cinematization of the presentation: in comparison to some other flight sims of the early 90s, less info is given per screen as a result.

Via drop-down menu graphics detail can be tailored on-the-fly: Mountain and Fighter have three levels of detail (high, medium, low) and Object, Ground, Explosion and Sky have two levels of detail (high, low).

F-15 Strike Eagle 3 was designed by Andy Hollis, Jim Day, George Wargo and Chris Clark; it was coded by Andy Hollis, Scott Spanburg, Bill Becker, Don Goddard, Ned Way and David McKibbin.

F-15 Strike Eagle 3 was distributed on 5x 3.5" 1.44MB HD diskettes or 6x 5.25" 1.2MB DS HD floppy disks.

F-15 Strike Eagle manual written by Paul Fudiccia & Ed Bever: 44 pages.

F-15 Strike Eagle 2 manual written by Jeff Briggs: 97 pages.

F-15 Strike Eagle 3 manual written by Jim Day & Lawrence Russell: 208 pages.

See also: Combat Flight Simulators --- WinUAE Amiga Emulator --- Best Amiga Games.