F-22: Air Dominance Fighter

I am a casual flight sim player. This is NOT a game that is just played one-off. Its something you have to study continually as it is a realistic sim. Glad this game recieved alot of post launch localization support. Its kind of surprising this niche sim got a remaster at all but I am glad it did. They tried to preserve the original game as much as possible in the remaster and it good they did that. If you are new to this game I do recommend reading the manuals because they do contain alot of useful information on the mechanics and the controls. This game is a realistic flight sim and you have to actually read descriptions because this game doesn't hold your hand in any way. The tutorial requires you to memorize your instructions and you will spend the first 5 hours of this game bashing your head against a brick wall before it starts to click and you magically memorize the old and clunky controls. I am genuinely still amazed at the old map they set most of the missions in. It is largely real world accurate and you don't see this kind of attention to detail in maps based off of IRL locations made now. The autopilot in this game does indeed work and can fly between waypoints well, but sometimes it cannot figure out where to land. So learning manual landing is a must. If you are going to play this game you should probably invest in a HOTAS or some sort of flight stick because keyboard controls are very hard to actually deal with for precise aiming.

Player of the original Total Air War in the 90s here. Bought this one for nostalgia, as everything plays like it, aside the lack of dynamic campaign and selecting weapons payload. Which is the crucial gameplay flaw of the F22 ADF vs the Total Air war. Game play is otherwise fun, for a simulator that makes you feel you are a pilot, but not demanding enough like Falcon 4, where you must have a pilot's license to take off. There has been also for years floating in the internet a community based Total Air War 2.30, but it's complicated to install. I hope the official devs release a remaster of the TAW too. In which case, I will buy it. So, F22 ADF is a must for nostalgics. For newcomers, the price of 25 EUR (or 15 under sale), is I think too much for a 1997 game, especially due to the lack of the dynamic campaign and weapons selection. The game is also having the same "problems" that the original TAW had. Like unable to skip because "under threat", although there is no enemy detected in the main MFD or skipping, only to find suddenly a bunch of bandits at 5nm from you. The game plays fine with keyboard only, rare for flight simulators, but it responds exactly like the 1997 Total Air War in that regard.

A really nice re-master...but F-22 Air Dominance Fighter is a great re-master that runs smooth, looks great, is easy to pick up, and overall has the potential to be a very fun simulation of the F-22...but the missions are just terrible and I would equate the experience more along the lines of an arcade game than a sim-lite.