Overview
Long-time online pilots should all be aware of the history of Kesmai’s Air Warrior series. Ever since the 1980s, they have been playing Air Warrior on online services such as GEnie, Delphi, America Online and now the Internet. Air Warrior has evolved from an online-only "front end" to a boxed version containing online and single-player missions and campaigns. Enter the latest installment: Air Warrior III. Air Warrior III contains an extremely authentic flight model, many planes to fly, and probably more missions than any other flight simulation money can buy. Air Warrior III is primarily a WWII aircraft simulation. That means no fire and forget missiles, no sophisticated radar systems, and no afterburners.
Those familiar with Air Warrior 2 can expect the same game with a few more capabilities. 3D acceleration tops the list, adding more textures to the plane’s surface, fogging and lens flares. The full screen view now shows all the necessary instruments on the dashboard and text radio messages on a heads-up display. The wingman and enemy AI have been vastly improved, and if you thought the 360 missions available in Air Warrior 2 were enough, Kesmai decided to up the ante and add about 100 more missions for a total of over 450 possible missions and 6 new campaigns!!
Gameplay
Air Warrior III puts you in the cockpit of 49 different aircraft covering WWI, WWII, and the Korean War eras. In reality, Air Warrior III is designed as a WWII game and only offers a few single missions each of flying biplanes in WWI and jets in the Korean War. There are no campaigns to fly in the WWI and Korean eras. There are 12 campaigns to choose from, covering the Pacific and European theaters. You can fly a huge assortment of fighters or bombers for either the good guys or bad guys. If all the campaigns, missions, and planes you have to choose from are just not enough, Air Warrior III provides a mission editor that allows you to create your own missions, allowing you an infinite number of missions to fly. If you are new to Air Warrior, you will notice the funky default view window to the outside world. The earlier versions of Air Warrior used the border area of the window for text messages and gauges. Air Warrior III now has all the gauges and text messages viewable while in the full-screen mode, so there is really no reason to use the smaller view windows anymore. One complaint I have with the game was the lack of nighttime, dawn, or dusk missions. I didn’t have the time to check out all 450+ missions, but the ones I did always lacked this feature.
Graphics
The biggest gripe I have with Air Warrior III is the poor terrain graphics. Despite the 3D-accelerated graphics, there is nothing spectacular about them. The terrain is basically a perfectly flat, green textured area containing one tree in the exact middle of every square acre. Another problem is the fact that enemy planes appear as little dots at a distance. One would normally expect that when viewing a distant aircraft, but the problem exists because those dots are close enough to fire their guns at you! The graphics are not much better than the terrain featured in Dynamix’s Aces series or LucasArts Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe from the early 90s. That was state-of-the-art graphics in those days, but nowadays my expectations are much higher. The nicer visual items worth mentioning is the cockpit interiors. Kesmai obtained photos of the aircraft interiors from a number of different aircraft museums to recreate the exact same views the actual pilots had. The plane exteriors look good; however, the control surfaces do not move and there is no animation when the landing gear is raised or lowered.
Audio
From the ping of an enemy bullet piercing your airframe to the coughing startup sound of the piston engines, Air Warrior III‘s audio sounds very authentic. In the menu screens you can hear planes flying overhead, mechanics working on the aircraft, typewriters, and doors opening and shutting inside mission briefing offices. Unfortunately, there are no actual voices in the game. Messages from your flight group are in the form of text on your heads-up display. While the detail of the sound is great when you’re on the ground and in the air, the lack of voices from other pilots greatly distracts from the game’s realism.
Multiplayer Support
Air Warrior III is probably the only old game that has evolved from a multiplayer-only game to a single-player offline game. Kesmai has not forgotten its roots in the online gaming arena. Through an Internet connection, up to 250 players can compete in a huge variety of online missions. For example, multiple online players can fly on a single B-17 with a single player as the pilot, and a player for each gun position. With 5 or 6 B-17′s flying in formation and a few fighter escorts going against human enemy pilots, Air Warrior III is about as real as online play can be. Players can also control ground vehicles in the online world. You can drive a truck or operate a tank for various missions while enemy fighter bombers try to riddle you with bullets.
System Requirements
Windows 95, Pentium 133 (Pentium 200 recommended), 60 MB hard drive space (150 MB recommended), 24 MB RAM, DirectX 5 compatible, PCI Video card, 2X CD-ROM drive, mouse, network or modem card for multiplayer modes. Other supported devices include: DirectX 5 compatible sound card, Thrustmaster, CH, Gravis, and Microsoft SideWinder Joystick. Most 3D accelerator cards which support Direct 3D are supported.
Bottom Line
Air Warrior III is a combination of some very realistic features mixed with a handful of some very unrealistic features. If you can stomach the excessively plain graphics and lack of audio voices and you are interested in experiencing the most realistic WWII online experience out there, Air Warrior III is your answer.
19 Comments
fun old game
pretty cool sight
I miss this game since it was on aol for free i played it even when it went to game storm and had to pay $9.00 a month to play thats why i think it died out i loved the korea arena i liked the mig 15 against the f86 saber i played for hour and hours. there is a game aces high that is the same but no mig 15 and saber arena to bad because i love to fly fighter jets and it seems there is no good multyplayer jet games out there
This was my favorite game of all time. I Was Ice9, A Staffelkaptian with the notorious Jagdgeshwader 52 and a hated (by the Az &Bz) ‘butcherbird’ (that’s Focke-Wolfe A8) Boom & Zoom Ace destroyer of Spitfires and Lightnings. I could whack a spit in one pass. I wish they’d put it back online. EA bought the engine that drove the massive multiplayer online environments from Kesmai, and then put the best game ever to rest. (bastards!) I tried Aces High, but it just wasn’t the same. EA is having some financial problems these days I understand . . . . hmmmmm.
They’d get my 10 bucks a month if they brought AW back from oblivion – I bet they could even improve the bland terrain. The other kewl thing AW3 had was the “Vox” radio comm I think it was one of the first games that let the players communicate in real time with each other by voice online.
Bring back the old AW 3 by gamestorm…not the EA version… I honestly dont want the graphics improved ..It’s all the so called improvements that ruined that game . just give me my AW 3 back… The best game I ever played.
yep i still miss it
ilove that game
AWIII was the best. I was “Mhz” on the Bz team. I miss the gameplay and comraderie. Taking a B17 up and bombing Az & Cz bases, or gunning for “Wingnut” in his A26 ‘vader… lol…I’d love to see it revived. Aces High didn’t do it for me either after AWIII was put to sleep. Shame.
I was on the Cz side with the Rosaurious Flying Circus Squadron. I sure do miss those days and curse them when they pulled the game. Aces High did not do it for me nor did WW II online. Play world of warcraft now waiting for the day they bring our game back!!!
I loved the old air warrior. I racked up 100′s of dollars in online fees on that stupid game and I was in my late 30′s then. I loved it, bring it back.
I miss all the Air Warrior games. It was the ONLY online PC game I would pay for. It felt good droppin eggs and landing 5+ kills in a P-38. I would pay $20+ a month to play Air Warrior online again. Aces High didn’t cut it. “Cuzzo101″ Retired 38 Specials Az ex Mayhem in Cz.
… my nick was “Tango” flying for the famous JG26 / missing the good old days in AW III with teamspeak the first time and later in Airwarrior 3D before it was canceled forever / what a shame that they dropped this nice wwii flying game with all the good MOD’s for it / this one had it all and is still the only one i can remember that was real fun playing online for years / the graphics engine was real good when using the extra MOD’s for enviroment or the interieur of the planes – remember ? that was in the ninetys allmost 13 years ago / i loved the events who recreated many famous battles in europe, africa and the pacific / also the killboard in the game with my name in the top 1oo / you could compete with real persons from all over the world 24-7 in a good dogfight or take out B-17 bombers or you could fly as a gunner in these Bombers with many others / to much to list it all / it was a challange to capture enemy bases or try to defend yours / i still miss my Messerschmitt 109 F and the Focke Wulf D-9 / the costs were real high at that time in Germany when playing online hours over modem ! no flats or anything that days / but i loved it and it was worth every penny as i remember / greetings to my flying buddy and the good old friends in the states …
salutate !
I played Air Warrior all the way through Air Warrior III . Followed it to 3 different sites. My Name Was =HW= Of the Eagles Flying Squadron……. I remember you Ice9 and Mayhem , and I miss that Game!!! Looking for old squad mates, Manis454, Bud,Katfish, By god so many, A lot of us got together in Kansas City for a Eagles Squad Convention It was awesome, There are no games like this anymore!
WOW…All the comments sure did bring back a lot of good memories. I was bow843 with Spec Ops andJG52.My first month on aol i ran up a bill for over $300.00. I did not care,I sure loved that game. The old gang (JG52) Cz Left there and went to ww2 on line and well…that was it. A good group of guys that flew together for years all drifted away. I still have the game on my hard drive and every now and then i climb into my FW190 and take to the skies offline,It’s just not the same. Way back when one of the regulars passed away and we had over 100 pilots in the air and we all landed at a Bz base and someone took a screenshot of all of us Az,Bz and the Cz and then e-mailed the pic to his wife. My kids were young then…10 and below and even they played and wrote book reports on ww2 aircraft. To all my fellow pilots I hope to someday fly the unfriendly skies again.
Those were the days …. Was just so important to come home and spend the evening bombing & shootin’ down those evil Bz’s & Cz’s. It was fun while it lasted & the annual conventions were a kick well worth the trip. Pig Stompers Ruled the sky…..
The closest I’ve come to AW3 is Ilushin 2, and that is about it. It broke my heart when they pulled it. I’d been flying online less than a year when it ended so I was never able to hone my skills to the degree others did. I would gladly pay a monthly fee, even if it was only as good graphically as it was when it ended. There just isn’t anything else out there like it.
Well its sept 2010 and im still missing this game. Im almost 50 now. XeroX
Bring Back Air Warrior!!!
After all these years, I’ll never understand why they killed Air Warrior III. It is still my all-time favorite game; I miss it very much. Wish they would bring it back.
- Bulzi