The F-19 is the best sub ever! It’s so intense.
On one side there are very gamey aspects: the conventional war turns you into one heck of an all-purpose killing machine; a lot of the countermeasures are “timers off”; the enemy won’t investigate you on your suspected current position, but on your last known — otherwise there’d be pretty much no way to survive.
On the other side, a lot of quite hardcore aspects: the “cold war” setting turns the game into a pure adrenaline stealth experience, where you have to study the map and set up your waypoints beforehand, bombs require precise manoeuvering to reach their target effectively if it is impervious to Mavericks all-mighty, and the stalls are some of the most unforgiving, especially associated with your low attitude!
It is a bit too intense on the landing, as merely reaching the end of the runway means instantaneous and permanent death. I seem to remember this was the case already in another game I played back then (F-15 Strike Eagle maybe?), but I wonder if it wasn’t just an early flying sim convention of the 80s.
I have tried playing both F-19 and its remake F-117 with a joystick, but unlike any other sims I tried in DOSBox, it seems the game doesn’t take into account analogue controls. I don’t know if it’s a DOSBox issue or a game issue (it seems peculiar that both those games suffer from it). Maybe it was a rudimentary way to simulate fly-by-wire controls? In any case, I fly the F-19 by keyboard, which is more convenient anyway as you need immediate access to tons of buttons.
As I venture into DOS territory, gameplay from people who remotely knows what they are doing (the opposite, cringing cases are sadly more common) with a given game has been very instructive as to whether I’d enjoy it or not, and I come regularly accross our own @BrianRubin’s. I watched this one yesterday about Rules of Engagement 2 — very nice presentation and even tutorial, by the way! — and I won’t spoil the surprise to anyone who will watch it, but I litterally choked at one point.