F-19 Stealth Fighter | Masterpiece of Tactical Aviation Gaming | Retro Review on IBM PS/2

Gorgeous 3D graphics in 1988, revolutionary views from external perspectives, highly enjoyable gameplay and interesting radar-evasion management… A really entertaining flight sim, F-19 Stealth Fighter transports you into the cockpit of an ultramodern aircraft, shrouded in mystery and cutting-edge technology. Set against the backdrop of a Cold War conflict, the game embarks you in top-secret missions where you must navigate behind enemy lines to complete covert operations.
This comprehensive review uses genuine hardware and software of the time: IBM PS/2, Amstrad PC 1640 and 2286... Emulator scenes don't amount to more than 20% of the films.
0:00 Introduction
0:45 History & Context
5:52 Box & Manual
9:33 Personal Anecdote
10:51 The Game's Basics
16:13 Performances Comparison
18:15 Tactics & Advanced Gameplay
22:46 Landing
24:38 The USSR Experience
25:31 Conclusions
27:38 Best Flying Sequences

[@TheHawkeyede]

Thank you for bringing my childhood back to life. Your video is inredible, and calling it just "awesome" is an understatement. It's comforting to know that I wasn't the only teenager obsessed with the game. I hope you've forgiven your father for not letting you fly the mighty F19 for a few days. :)

[@RetroDream]

Thanks a lot, much appreciated! Yes I have forgiven him ;) Glad you liked this format, because I'd like to make it the channel's standard one

[@MikeTXBC]

I remember playing this game ALL THE TIME back when it came out. As a young kid, I was obsessed with Top Gun and at the time I had no idea what the difference was between the Air Force and the Navy. I just knew "both fly aircraft" and in my defense, I was maybe eight or nine and this game did sometimes let you take off and land on aircraft carriers. In the game I got to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, but I was never able to make it to Colonel for some reason. This game, along with Red Baron (created by Dynamix and released in 1990), fueled my interested in aviation and military history. I also read through the entire F-19 manual more than once, and I used to read and re-read the Red Baron manual as it was mostly history about WW1. I'm in my mid-40s today and I still have my Red Baron manual. In fact, the cover tore, so without me knowing my wife fixed it because she knew it meant a lot to me. BTW, I completely agree with you: it's your first introduction to some games that make an impression. Like I wrote before, Red Baron was hugely influential to me, and despite later installments being technologically superior, they never "felt right." I wonder why flight sims were once so hugely popular and today they've mostly disappeared. Sure, you have Microsoft Flight Simulator and DCS, but for the most part they've become extremely niche. Maybe they always were, but there was less competition on store shelves. Whatever the case, I miss the 80s and 90s, when flight sims were everywhere.

[@RetroDream]

Thanks for sharing, and glad you agree! You're lucky your wife took care of your Red Baron manual: mine won't do that :) It's endless whining about my retro stuff and all the place it takes... But yes, these manuals WERE something indeed. As for flight sims nowadays, I also wondered. I guess it was actually suited for early gaming because developers could create the sensations of flying an aircraft without too much difficulty. It doesn't take so much to achieve that: rudimentary 3D is sufficient. The rest is in the player's imagination.

[@skornie123]

I can totally relate to the reading of manuals!^^ It was like building your own game in your head.^^ I also love that with flight sims like F117A, Gunship or F19 games the menu screens have so much personality navigating them alone seems so much fun abd really immersive for the time they came out^^

[@skornie123]

I can totally relate to the reading of manuals!^^ It was like building your own game in your head.^^ I also love that with flight sims like F117A, Gunship or F19 games the menu screens have so much personality navigating them alone seems so much fun abd really immersive for the time they came out^^

[@skornie123]

I can totally relate to the reading of manuals!^^ It was like building your own game in your head.^^ I also love that with flight sims like F117A, Gunship or F19 games the menu screens have so much personality navigating them alone seems so much fun abd really immersive for the time they came out^^

[@skornie123]

I can totally relate to the reading of manuals!^^ It was like building your own game in your head.^^ I also love that with flight sims like F117A, Gunship or F19 games the menu screens have so much personality navigating them alone seems so much fun abd really immersive for the time they came out^^

[@wjadams2]

Myself and my dad logged many hours in F-19, Gunship, and Strike Eagle II on a 286 with EGA graphics. My favorite was F-19. Microprose titles in that era were incredible.

[@RetroDream]

That's for sure. Thanks for sharing!

[@GrimGalore]

I played this as a kid. It was DOPE!

[@galbyman]

I think that I read the manual to this game multiple times over and spent hours every week playing through the missions. This game along with F-15 II and M-1 were so special to me.

[@RetroDream]

Thanks for sharing

[@JimLeonard]

I appreciate you showing the game running on period-correct hardware at the correct speed.

[@RetroDream]

That's the whole point of this channel.

[@JimLeonard]

@@RetroDream The whole point of the channel is sharing your nostalgia for these systems and games. Other channels do the same thing, but they rely on dosbox for footage.

[@Brianreese83]

hence the seconds per frame... nah run it on something faster... this is absurd.

[@JimLeonard]

@@Brianreese83 You would rather see it running way too fast, incorrectly, on hardware it was never intended for?

[@mgtroyas]

Thank you so much for this video, I've spent many years on retrogaming but you've just unlocked a lot of memories I had forgotten. My first computer was a 286 12MHz PC clone, pretty similar to your machine, even the monitor. My father brought it home when I was 6 or 8 I suppose, after spending a small fortune in pesetas, and obtained some game copies from his coworkers, one of them being F-19. I remember launching the game and not knowing how to do anything (of course I didn't have the manual, nor knew english at the time), so I rotated my plane on the ground and gunned friendly planes to see them burst in flames. Some years later I got a digital copy of the manual and discovered I should change keyboard layout to us, then magically the thrust buttons worked! I then spent many time on it and passed countless missions, I enjoyed it a lot. I still have that computer and monitor on my parents house, and recently bought a sounblaster clone and more powerful VGA card, and upped the 512KB o RAM to a whole MB. One of the first things I did then is launching F-19 to experience it with proper sound effects and much improved framerate, proving my 286 was not so slow, but the Tseng ET3000AX VGA card was indeed a bottleneck. As I suggested you on Reddit, there were later patches to the game that added support for extra sound cards, one of them being the Roland MT32. They also changed the plane model from the one used to the real F-19, as it was a licensing problem, but years after release it was not important anymore. I remember spending many hours both playing to death F-19 and M1 Tank Platoon. I'm not a simulation guy, I love racing sims but haven't touched a plane, tank or similar sim game since then. But these Microprose games had something special. Something that, as you said, made many people remenber them fondly even today. Again, tank you very much and congratulations for a great video and a great channel I'll now explore deeper.

[@RetroDream]

Thanks a lot for your interest! Many interesting points here. For instance that the VGA card was a bottleneck (I didn't think about that). As for the US keyboard, I never figured that out back in the day, so that I played countless hours with the inadequate French keyboard: I could increase thrust, but not decrease it! So the only way to land like this (at full throttle) was on the deck of the aircraft carrier, because it had a blocking mechanism that went out as soon as you touched down... Otherwise, I just needed to bail out instead of landing when the mission was completed... That's why I didn't get many medals in the end :)

[@fcsuper]

If I remember correctly, Microprose claimed that the DoD actually approached them about the F-19 game because it was so accurate in some of it details.

[@RetroDream]

I heard something like this yes

[@daverr8163]

I too played F-19 but hours on end . parents were not that strict with me.i use to land in enemy bases, photograph and destroy the target cause i can.,used maverick missles on everything cause it was the easiest to use. I loved the sim games like 688 attack sub, silent service , m1 tank platoon, falcon ,I could go on. I remember i even had space shuttle sim.

[@RetroDream]

Thanks for sharing. You were lucky! Yes the Maverick could be used against almost everything, but with various degree of efficiency, for some targets it had a 30% chance or less.

[@rodzandz]

Ahhhg! I remember the dreaded IL-76 radar plane! SAM missiles were impossible to evade when those were around!

[@RetroDream]

especially at Veteran difficulty level

[@____________________________hi]

The game of my childhood, the screeching sound of my parents nightmares!

[@RetroDream]

Haha yes 😄

[@GeorgesChannel]

Great video! Really impressive game. We are missing the experience nowadays having nice thick manuals and overlays for most of the modern days. Maybe perhaps the complexity was about right for that at that time. I build the f19 as a model back than from a kitt. I still have a model-kitt waiting for beeing built.

[@RetroDream]

Thanks George. This was really my most beloved game. I still remember most of the keys even though last time I played it was long ago... I'd like to see you model kit

[@RemnantCult]

Hell yeah. Long live retro simulators! It's my favorite niche in classic gaming. I love how, even with limited graphical and processing potential, folks were trying to create simulations that make you feel like you're manning a complex machine while also balancing a fun factor with it. The Star Wars X-Wing and Tie Fighter sims are a few of my favorites and do a good job at emulating machines that don't exist. Thank you for the video.

[@RetroDream]

Thanks for your feedback! Indeed it's interesting to see that older flight sims were already very immersive, even with limited technical possibilities. If the game was well done, then the player's imagination did the job instead of the machine.

[@myawen_]

One of my favourites!

[@RetroDream]

Kudos to you for playing the CGA version

[@jameshoy380]

I played this game for hours on a Tandy 1000 (I think) when I was 9 years old.

[@RetroDream]

The Tandy 1000 was a good machine

[@accountname8819]

I like how reflective the Videos on your Channel are!

[@RetroDream]

Glad you like them!

[@CYON4D]

Awesome video. Played it back in the day on my 286 IBM PC which had a very similar horizontal case like your have. Good times.

[@RetroDream]

Glad you enjoyed and thanks for sharing!

[@raulgonzalez7434]

Maze of Galious on MSX is glorious... Any Konami game for MSX in the 80s is pure magic. Perfect control, perfect adjusted playability, music and graphics.. The overall experience.

[@RetroDream]

Can't agree more, sir :)

[@limp6986]

I had that same exact joystick. A few years ago, I was so nostalgic that I bought a new old stock and a USB adapter. Man, did it feel good playing again with it! Oddly enough, me and my family used it to play platformers! Our first big loved game was Bio Menace (Apogee) and so that's my favourite childhood game, as you so eloquently explained 😃

[@RetroDream]

Thanks for sharing your childhood memories! That's correct, nothing replaces the use of your faithful joystick🕹🕹🕹

[@damsonn]

Great review of this classic flight sim. It really holds up even today. The game mechanics are well thought out and I only truly appreciated them much later when I was older. I first played it on Amiga 500 around 1990. I remember one of my parents' friend while visiting us saw I was playing F-19. He said he played it too but he sucked at landings and asked if I could teach him proper techniques. And so I did (I was pretty good at it, with proper on speed AOA, even carrier landings were no match for my skills) - I explained the ILS (which btw works not as IRL), and how to properly align with the centerline, how to slow down to approach speed so your main gear touches first etc. He was impressed, I was maybe 10-11 at that time. Another story - back then in Poland you couldn't buy original game releases, official game distrubutors were absent and piracy run rampart. You couldn't get properly boxed game with the manual. I was able to get a hold of translated game's manual in a book store once. I don't believe it was official, but someone probably had original one, translated it and published it. It was so good I took it anywhere with me. That one time, when visiting my family, my uncle wanted to see what I was reading. He started getting through it and got so interested in force dispositions in the theatres he started to reading it hmself. I can't remember if he was aware that this was a game manual ;)

[@RetroDream]

Haha excellent story 👌 thanks for your feedback! I do believe your uncle read it all eagerly: this manual was really fascinating. Did you get the full copy? It's over 200 pages... I didn't play the Amiga version back then, only recently. It was a good one. I need to play the C64 to compare.

[@damsonn]

@@RetroDream Yeah, it was pretty thick, but I'm not sure now since it got lost long time ago. I own the original since I've been re-buying all the classics I wasn't able to get back then and in really good condition, with all the maps, overlays and other stuff (promotions etc.). And as you said - the manual is worth the price of the whole game. In fact all those flight sims from the 90s were gems. My early knowledge about the aviation was from the game manuals of the Microprose, Jane's, DID and many others. It was truly an golden era.

[@petr79]

unfortunately Amiga was far too exotic outside Europe, despite having the superior versions of many games. Eg f117-A despite released in 1993 when dos really took off, was still better on Amiga with better controls and sound.

[@yakovkhalip9714]

F-19 was a popular game here in Moscow in early 90's, when 286 computers were considered as cool gaming machines along with Prince of Persia, DeathTRack and the GoldenAxe. There's a psyhodelic writer here, called Viktor Pelevin, who wrote in early 90's a story "Prince of Gosplan" about people who play at work computer games in the last months or years of the USSR period and have halucinations of that game's stories in their life - real life and scenes from games in that story merge into one other in their minds) Main character of that story lives in the world of PoP game, while his boss in one of Soviet ministrys - in the world of F-19. As for myself I use and collect vintage computers - have it installed on my 286 machines as well as on Amiga 3000 and sometimes I still play that game on a good old 286 - along with the Knights Of the Sky, Red Baron I and F-15-III )

[@RetroDream]

Thanks for sharing this interesting experience! And yes I know about Pelevin

[@mbe102]

Looking forward to the inevitable Mechwarrior 2 review, because THIS is fantastic and I'd love to see the effort and skill put into the very first PC game (I played Command & Conquer 1 a few hours later). Keep it up dude, happily subbed!

[@RetroDream]

Thanks dude, welcome aboard!

[@parveenboora7009]

Thank you for this video, but especially for the time you spent focusing on the manual. In the glory days of Microprose their manuals were the absolute best. I read them before bed, I read them while eating breakfast, I brought them along to read on the school bus. I learned a ton about the real world from those game manuals. Great video - I'll happily subscribe. Also -- my dad also only let me play 1 hour a day 🤣

[@RetroDream]

It seems like we have a lot in common 😉 Thanks for your interest! You're absolutely right, the manual was a great (amd heavy) component of this game. It also was my bedside book for a long time. Happy to learn your experience!

[@claudioherrera6926]

Excellent video very well explained everything, what memories when with very few computational resources it was enough to enjoy them, Now looking at the low FPS how they moved one filled those missing fps with imagination and everything seemed more fluid. I am surprised with the size of the manual, I had never seen it before and I would surely have enjoyed reading it a lot at that time.

[@RetroDream]

Thanks for your feedback. Indeed the manual was really something, a huge part of this game you might say.

[@mrhassell]

I remember the day, I was in year 8 at high school, at Mt Clear Technical High school, Ballarat, when two of these showed up in the office for the admin users and all I could think of was hijacking one of them to play. I'd been cracking cartridges for the MSX for some time and was aware of the PS/2 but not of any games...

[@32KOFDATA]

You should voice over cinema trailers. 😁

[@f.k.b.16]

I remember playing Flight Simulator on my Tandy 1000. In my 8 year old brain, I thought the game was designed to be one game a second. Only until I played it on my Pentium 100mhz pc and it blazed at 60 FPS and that's when it clicked how computers really worked.

[@RetroDream]

But interestingly, even with a low frame rate these sims were highly enjoyable!

[@mirarstudios]

Some of those missions you could literally walk away for ten minutes and make a sandwich and it would still be flying over desert

[@RetroDream]

Haha yes I agree 👍

[@MarquisDeSang]

I remember trying to read the giant Gunship 2000 manual for my Amiga 1200, I did not fully understand english at that time (french quebecois here). Amazing times to be alive back then.

[@RetroDream]

Legendary stuff...

[@Spacegamejunkie]

A terrific video on an astounding game. Thank you.

[@RetroDream]

Thanks a lot.

[@sifrimh]

Great review, great channel!

[@RetroDream]

Thanks!!

[@ValueYourTimeOnEarth]

I remember ….😅

[@danbruce9294]

Great video !!! I loved this Sim :)

[@NusianceValue]

this got me all emotional.

[@RetroDream]

Then the goal is reached. Thanks for your interest and glad you enjoyed!

[@cybermodo]

So, you all think MPS was one cool company? Think about this, then - this game, and number of other awesome complex simulators - were made for C64 and cassettes! Even for ZX Spectrum and 48K of RAM! Now, that's not cool - that's way beyond supercool! Packing so much goodness in such limited resources - pure alchemy. And MPS knew the secret of the ancients.

[@RetroDream]

Well said, my friend!

[@andrejrockshox]

why most of you retro reviewers dont have fully stretched picture on a monitor? i had CRTs and i always used whole available area.

[@RetroDream]

It's not always easy with all of them

[@adilsongoliveira]

I still have the manual but lost the game disks years ago :(

[@yopachi]

The concept of "classic computer game" is more broad and subjective than say "classic nintendo game"

[@RetroDream]

Yes it is

[@Swizzley]

Love the content but I can't stand looking at the computer the whole time. It's cool in the beginning but then it's all just wasted space. I want to see the game not the monitor, wall, desk, plant, etc.

[@RetroDream]

After watching it again for the 10th time I eventually realized the same: although a significant portion of the time is a close-up of the screen, I agree it could be even more so. The next videos I'm currently working on (M1 Tank Platoon, Loom and Dungeon Master) will take this into account. The thing is, this channel's primary aim is to show the real original environment, CRT screen and all. So it might still be closer to the screen, perhaps, but it will never be the plain simple emulator screen. Not only it doesn't feel authentic, but it's actually a different rendering of what you saw back in the day: not the same pixels, not the same picture. So, more closeups, yes, but emulator, no. I was using emulation in the early months of this channel (you can watch a couple of other F-19 videos if you scroll back there) but I no longer do that. Too easy, not authentic, not the real stuff.

[@CH10010]

3-4 FPS

[@RetroDream]

yea

[@Brianreese83]

JFC get a faster PC for this game its crawling at seconds per frame.

[@RetroDream]

yup

[@vampalan]

Frame rate is terrible, got any footage of game running better?

[@RetroDream]

Only genuine original

[@AncientElectronics]

I suspect it would run pretty well on a mid-range 386 which would still be quite period correct.

[@gromm93]

​@@AncientElectronicsI can verify, since I had a friend with a 386 back in the day. It ran a *lot* better on that CPU.

[@bad.sector]

... but why did you use an AI voice? 🤔

[@RetroDream]

not at all, it's not the case

[@bad.sector]

@@RetroDream All right, but then why do you sound so different? Or is it a different speaker?

[@JimLeonard]

@@bad.sector It's a hired narrator. I would love to hear his actual voice (even with un fort accent français), because the hired narrators don't seem to convey the same feeling as what he wrote in the script. The content is very good, but I don't like the narrators because you can hear they don't understand what they're reading.

[@bad.sector]

@@JimLeonard Greetings Jim, still have the MFC from you and I hope you my AdLib Gold, which must be the Bitcoin of sound cards now :) Thanks for the explanation... it was a wild guess. The voice is good, almost too good, hence my guess. Yes, not being connected to the content one of the issues with narrators. I saw some of his other videos and was irritated by the change... I would have probably explained it initially if I had been the creator.

[@RetroDream]

You have me speaking (and showing up) for a couple of minutes in the previous video about the French TO7 computer. And also here on my other channel, Age of Ink kzbin.info/www/bejne/pGKzm2aopqiYa6csi=JTs6l5IhL0BvDc1O

[@thenathanhaines]

Yay, FIRST!