AIRWARRIOR FOR THE HARDWARE POOR
As I pointed out in my 'biography' I started out
playing AirWarrior with the old DOS version, which allowed arena play, head to
head duels, and was a pretty decent stand alone game. It didn't have
the eye-candy you got with the last 3d version, but it had something
else very important - frame rates that were playable on 486 machines with
8 mb ram and plain vanilla graphics cards.
I first experienced SVGA AirWarrior version 1.13
from a cdrom boxed set borrowed from a friend. The sun was RED, and
hung nicely in the southern part of the sky. The weather, of course,
was always perfect, whether you flew in the little European Theatre, or
Oceana (the big Pacific theatre). The fields were conveniently labeled
with numbers, instead of abbreviated names, and the manual was simple and
effective. You could even fly with a mouse!
At the time, I didn't even have a modem in my machine,
which was a patched together 486 dx2/66 with a measly 4mb of ram and a
Cirrus Logic based generic video card. Until I bought a second
hand Reveal CDRom kit I didn't even have an internal sound card (I'd been
using a Portable Sound external unit that plugged into the parrallel port).
My hardware was sufficiently advanced to run SVGA AirWarrior, however, and I was
almost instantly hooked solid. My downfall was complete once I went and
bought a joystick <G>.
I set the realism effects to full right off the
bat and played it solo, and enjoyed it more and more as I progressed from
crashing into the ground to actually shooting down the drones. I
had access to the Web through a part-time job at night, and began searching
for more information on the multiplayer community attached to this incredible
game. Then I discovered the Cactus archives, where they kept copies
of the game and accessories such as Break and Vfilm. Here I discovered
the SVGA 1.20 version that was currently being used in the online arenas.
I downloaded it, installed it discreetly on the company machine, and then
painstakingly put all the files onto floppy disks to take home.
This was the one, boys and girls. This was
the best version of all. This had a yellow sun. This had the
N1K2. This had a slightly harder flight model. This had FUN
written into it with real zeal. This sent me to the store for a modem and sealed my fate.
Although I got an internet access account, I didn't
go running out and get a gaming account. I didn't want
to spend a whole lot of money here, and the hourly rates being charged
to play AirWarrior at the time were out of my reach. Instead, I would
study AirWarrior on the web, and then hook up with a local dueling
partner a couple times a week. We would go at it for hours at a time,
beating hell out of each other for free. Life was good.
Then came AOL and AirWarrior for Windows (now called
'classic'). AOL would allow me to play in a real arena against LOTS
of people, and their rate was a flat 10 bux a month for all you could play
(if you had your own ISP). This was too good to pass up, so in I went
with both feet, averaging about 40 hours a month or more playing AW4W ('classic').
Of course, my machine wasn't really up to this, and I was getting my butt
handed to me by folks with faster frame rates. THAT could not be
tolerated.
Ok, Windows 95 didn't really look THAT bad, so out
I go to buy that. Still not fast enough, so I go buy a 90 mhz Pentium
(ka-ching) and a new motherboard (ka-ching) and video card (ka-ching) to go
with that. More ram is needed, of course (ka-ching). Hey, while
we're at it, why not some rudder pedals (ka-ching)? Ok, we're flying
better now. I'm happy.
Then comes AirWarrior II and it's off to the stores
again to get more ram (ka-ching), another new video card (ka-ching), better
joystick (ka-ching), and of course, the boxed version when that comes out
(ka-ching). Back to having poor frame rates, but I'm outa hardware
money, so I stick mostly with the AW4W (classic) arena. This ain't so bad.
I tell myself the puter needed upgrading anyway.
The killer comes with AirWarrior III. AW4W
is ending on AOL and they plan on charging an hourly rate to play the new version.
Gotta go to GameStorm - great deal there for 10 bux a month and all kinds
of games (never played 'em, but they were there <G>). Then AWIII arrives
there and replaces AWII. Now the P90 and Trident graphics card just can't
handle it. I try, but it just isn't making it. I get lucky
and have a p133 given to me (thanx Rapier!), but have to buy a new video
card (ka-ching) and still more ram (ka-ching). Worst part of it was,
the frame rates were still just at the barely playable level - but playable!
I needed new hardware to play AWMV, and then finally to effectively play Aces High. Well, of course you know I spent the
money again. Can't get this monkey off my back any more. It's
here to stay. But I do long for the days of high frame rates with
a cheap machine, and free and easy dueling with folks I know. Once
in a while I start up the old SVGA AirWarrior version 1.20 under DOS (of
course I still have it, silly), and beat hell out of the drones for a while
to forget my woes.
SVGA AirWarrior Version 1.5 can often be found in the 'cheap rack' in software stores for about ten bux, and there are those who still harbor fugitive downloads of SVGA AW 1.20 or AW4W(Classic). Of course, you'll have to be able to run good old DOS or Windows 3.11 if you want them to function properly.
As for AWII or AWIII, they're also out there on the dusty shelves or in the cluttered bins, but the final AWMV download version is probably lost forever.
Oh well, time and tide wait for no man nor Muskie.
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