Jane's F-15


Jane's F-15 is a combat flight simulator video game developed and released by Electronic Arts in 1998 for the PC. It models the McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle. EA's 1999 Jane's F/A-18 used an improved version of F-15's game engine.

Gameplay

The game has two campaigns: one based on the 1991 Gulf War and the other focusing on fictional conflict against Iran.
The virtual cockpit was one of the first of its kind, but the game still featured a 2D cockpit which also allowed the player to switch between the pilot and the weapon systems officer seat in the back of the cockpit to monitor the different multi-functional displays.

Reception

In the United States, Jane's F-15 sold 126,461 copies and earned $5 million by October 1999.
While F-15E pilot Sean Long commented that the flight model was high quality and landings were fairly accurate, this was prior to the release of a patch that fixed all landings being set to "easy" difficulty mode. There was widespread complaints by players on both the fight model's oscillations, tendency to have excessive instantaneous pitch authority, and the inability of the crudely modeled pitch trim SAS to deal with this disparity and the lower sustained turn rates. The usefulness of the radar modes was also lacking compared to the follow up Jane's F/A-18.
Next Generation reviewed the PC version of the game, rating it four stars out of five, and stated that "If fast-paced, hot-and-heavy air combat against a truly diabolical enemy AI sounds like your kind of high, F-15 fits the bill nicely."
F-15 was a finalist for the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' 1997 "Simulation Game of the Year" award, which ultimately went to Microsoft Flight Simulator 98. F-15 was a finalist for Computer Gaming Worlds 1998 "Best Simulation" award, which ultimately went to European Air War. It was also a runner-up for Computer Games Strategy Pluss "Simulation Game of the Year" award, losing again to European Air War. The editors called F-15 "extremely impressive". PC Gamer US likewise nominated F-15 as the best simulation of 1998, although it lost to Falcon 4.0. They wrote, "f Falcon 4.0 had come out just a month later, there'd be no question that Jane's Combat Simulations' F-15 deserved the award."