There are two basic ways that you can fly a plane on your computer system. You can hop into a cockpit and blast into the sky, seeking out the enemy and dispatching him with extreme prejudice. Games that allow you to jump right into the action with a minimum of training are justifiably fun and popular. Lock On: Modern Air Combat is definitely not that type of game. If you are looking for the closest thing to a military flight simulator this side of the Boeing factory, this is your game.

Amazingly, Lock On provides six different complete fighter simulations that offer a completely different set of controls, characteristics, and learning curve. While I am not familiar with the exact control layouts of each of these planes, I find it entirely credible that the game faithfully recreates every dial and lever in each cockpit. You truly get the sense of flying some of the most advanced warplanes in the world, as well as a couple of trusty warhorses to boot.

The graphical detail of the landscape, interior and exterior plane shots, and the atmosphere is spot on. You would be hard pressed to name another game that has this much built into it. Since these extreme graphics carry a stiff performance price, those with anything but the very latest in hardware may find themselves taking advantage of the numerous options to reduce the graphical detail, just to keep the frame rate usable.

There is a very active gamer community around this title, which was eagerly awaiting its release. Judging from the acrimonious posts describing a multitude of installation and operational problems, the consensus is that regular gamers who are not die-hard fans of the series, should wait until the first set of patches are released. I had several problems getting the game to recognize the CD in the drive, but once it was running, I saw very few flaws.

Calling Lock On a game is probably not doing the title justice. As a flight simulator goes, this is as technical and detailed as it gets. For fans of warplanes and flight sims, you should look forward to getting this running on your highly advanced PC system. For the casual gamer, though, this will probably be far to difficult to get any fun out of.