Déception concernant Lock-On Modern Air Combat

"JJ" wrote in message ...
Say what? Man the arrogance of those frogs to think we can understand
that jibberish!

Speak in English!!!!

JJ

Hello everybody,

I agree this news group is international, but my first intention was
to address french speaking people in this group, as you may have
noticed, because it seems to me that the subject could only interest
french speaking Lock-on buyers.

I am very far from being arrogant, as JJ said. I come here in peace
with no aggressive mind, I hope to meet quiet people to discuss with
them.

I will make an effort to translate my arrogant french speaking to a
more comprehensive language, doing so I should look a more civilized
person.

Here is a try for a translation:
"Hello everybody,

I wanted to talk about by disappointment regarding Ubi Soft Lock-On
Modern Air Combat flight simulator for PCs.

In fact, I bought French version of the product, the so called version
Lock-On Combat Aircraft Simulator.

This product is sold in a small console game looking like box,
including a small manual and the CD.
Nothing in common with beautiful cardboard boxes we used to see a few
years ago, with complete manuals describing game principles from the
beginning to the end, keyboard keys to use, basic flight manoeuvers,
historical and technical sections regarding planes that one could see
inside the game.

Game interface is complex, for missions editor, for game options
setting screens, for level settings, and so on. This is normal, one
cannot expect to understand a flight simulator within a single hour.
Nevertheless, the small manual I told you about above looks rather
light to me, and some of the menus are not described at all. For
example, I spent time to configure my mouse to be able to flight with
it. Consequences of some settings are not well explained.

Missions editor is very rich, I would even say it is powerful. But
here again the few pages of the pseudo-manual are really unsignificant
to learn how to use the editor. How many hours I lost to make it work!

As you may have understood, my first disappointment was the manual, I
should say the lack of a manual. I searched for any PDF file on the
CD, but nothing. I called Ubi Soft support who told me I had to
download an additional manual from their web site.
It makes me rise in rebellion:
1. French version does not include any manual.
2. The user has to download the manual himself. This implies first he
has an Internet connection, second he has to download and to print the
manual using his own euros.
3. Having studied the problem, first the manual only existed in
American version, which explains the lack of a french version of the
manual. I learnt that French manual was not even written by Ubi Soft,
but by a third party (voluntary organization?).

Even the downloaded manual is uncomplete. It does not introduce all
the elements visible within cockpits, it does not say a word about
carrier landings or about mid-air refuellings, and many other things.

A flight simulator for sales at about 50 euros without any manual
looks like a swindle when you know a flight simulator is useless with
no manual.

Now let us talk about the game.
I want my message to be objective. Nothing on Earth is either
completely black or completely white.
I was really impressed by this game the first hours I tried it,
especially regarding graphics and light renderings or for planes and
ground targets moves. I had never seen such a precision before in a
game.
Animations are jerking as soon as the player's close environment
contains anything else that his own plane though I use a brand new PC
with system being far over Ubi's recommandations.

Sound part of the game is rather bad with jerks, engine sounds
(especially in the cockpit) being either too weak then suddenly too
high without any clear reason. Computer voices are good. Music will be
rapidly be disactivated, as it blows my head. It is rather radio
hubbub than music.

What mostly disappoints me is that there are not enough missions. For
each plane, we only have a campaign including 6 or 7 missions, and
some additional unique missions. For the Sukhoi 33 for example,
nothing, no mission at all. Free flight only?

You could tell me there is the missions editor, but to be able to
create a good mission with an interesting environment, it requires a
few hours before you can sit in the cockpit of a plane.

The acme is bugs.
There are so many bugs that the best I did was the first two missions
of A-10's campaign (successfully), without being able to load the
third theater. I correctly saved my game and I even tried to reboot
the machine several times but nothing.
So no hope to be able to flight for a whole campaign.
And there are as well all those game hangings when loading a mission
(Reset button of my computer will soon be tired), or the game exiting
in a middle of a flight and returning back to Windows or the game
hanging when going from one view to another.
So to my opinion the game is unusable.

Some people will tell me there as patches, but then I answer:
1. If there are some patches, then it is the proof the game is not
finished. The game was eventually for sale because of Ubi Soft
marketing service's pressure, but developers had not finished the game
yet.
May be I am an utopian, but speaking about video games, cars or
micro-wave ovens, I cannot admit something is being sold on the market
without being finished.
2. I have no warranty these patches will correct major problems I met,
since Ubi Soft corrections description does not speak about the bugs I
noticed.
3. Some users noticed regressions after the installation of these
patches, especially French version patches.

Then, what is the goal of my message?
I wanted to warn Lock-On future potential buyers about the risks if
they were to buy this product. As a consumer, I think this product is
a swindle and I think I have lost my money.
Nevertheless, if like me you love flight simulators and you would like
to see how Lock-On looks like, I advise you to be wise and to wait for
a few months or a year so that:
1. you can get a finished product,
2. you can update your machine to be able to make this game work
correctly,
3. you are able to get a complete documentation on the CD.

For now, I think the game is not finished and the consumer is
swindled.
I put the CD back into its small box, it will stay at the bottom of an
old cardboard box for a while.

An unhappy buyer."

This is the end of the translation.
Bye.

"acheteurlockon" wrote in message
om...
I agree this news group is international, but my first intention was
to address french speaking people in this group, as you may have
noticed, because it seems to me that the subject could only interest
french speaking Lock-on buyers.

Your initial reasoning was fine, and your post in French is also perfectly
fine. Please don't let a very tiny but vocal minority dissuade you from
posting as you see fit. It's true that there are certain rules of etiquette
one ought to follow, but always posting in English certainly isn't one of
them!

Pete