TFX
DOS - 1993
Description of TFX
Ah… the 3rd member of the 1994 ruling triumvirate of military flight sims (the other two being F-14 Flight Defender and Tornado, TFX sported the best graphics around at the time, with lots of detail in those polygons.
In TFX you are a UN pilot that is placed in several campaigns. There are three flyable aircraft, the Eurofighter, the F-22 and the F-117. There are a lot of missions, adjusting to these three planes as needed. The VGA graphics are pretty good, being excellent sometimes. The sounds is also very good, with the annoying exception of the “lizard family” (every time you lock an enemy fighter the game goes off with “Traaaacking… looks like a lizard”… by their sheer numbers, obviously lizards rule the Earth in TFX). The music isn’t bad, but very annoying. The CD version only increased the sampling quality of the music, making it less annoying, unless you have a personal distaste for anything techno or sampler based.
Flight modelling is good, while not true to life. The EF burns up his fuel in a second, which isn’t really realistic, while the American aircraft can fly all day long. Many weapons are modelled (including a treat for the real pyros among you – the air launched version of the Tomahawk) and they perform reasonably well. Bear in mind that you maybe stuck on one of the training mission, which will prevent you from entering the campaign. Just look around the Web for cheats and you’ll know how to skip the infantry mission.
Recent similar games include EF2000 (which was its direct descendant), Tatcom, and F-22 ADF.
Note: The first release of the game is a bit buggy, but fortunately DID released 3 patches to perfect the sim. Get them from The Patches Scroll.
Review By HOTUD
External links
Captures and Snapshots
Comments and reviews
AIM-9X 2022-04-16 6 points
This is a truly fantastic early '90s flight simulation. For 1993, this has arguably the best graphics of its time, with some amazing visual effects (i.e., city lighting, clouds, terrain, and horizon shading techniques). This was one of the first flight sims to not only have really good 3D aircraft models, but also 3D weapon models that you could see on the aircraft's pylons while in an external view! The flight physics were impressive for the processing power available at the time, and the sim really challenges you with its practice missions. This sim isn't perfect; however, and has some notable issues. The first is the lack of a flight path marker/velocity vector in the HUD. For all of the HUD's realism, I can't be sure why the flight path marker was left out. The second issue is with the lack of a heading bug/steerpoint indicator on the heading tape within the HUD. Without a steerpoint indicator, we have to constantly look at the map to determine orientation. TACANs (or equivalent) are not simulated, which would easily allow the pilot to either navigate back to the airbase, or find a tanker. Third is the lack of rudder control, which the manual incorrectly indicates that rudder is 'rarely used.' At high speeds, I would agree, but when landing, I have to bank hard in one direction just to properly align the aircraft's nose. Finally, "trackiiiiing...looks like the lizard" and "missile launch!" are just weird...I'm sure NATO brevity codes ("fox 1," "fox 2" and "fox 3") existed at the time. For all of those complaints, the sim is still totally worth playing, and these are really just minor complaints for what is otherwise a real masterpiece. This runs nicely on modern hardware in DOSBox.
Duckman 2022-01-26 0 point
Fantastic game when it came out. Still enjoyable even when I played it just recently. Great soundtrack as well, which I discovered you could play through your CD player (as long as you skipped Track 1). I think I played the music almost as much as the game.
UltraKapibara 2021-12-05 0 point
I played TFX a lot in 90th. It's a very good simulator with complicated plane physics. Planes differ from each other. Piloting А-117 is not the same as piloting Eurofighter. And the main problem for the player is to return back and land the plane without a disaster.
Classic Champion 2021-04-03 2 points
Interesting bit of information, Hotud, if you're reading this...."Looks like the Lizard" is an in-joke reference to one of the people on the development team who playtested the game...Jamie Cansdale. His in-game callsign was "The Lizard". He's on the Arcade High Scores leaderboard. Play the game and go through Arcade, win or lose, and you'll see his name listed as one of the high-scoring pilots.
Classic Champion 2021-04-03 1 point
LOL Hotud, if you're reading this, interesting bit of information-"Looks like the Lizard", I found out, is a reference to one of the people who play-tested the game and his name is in the Arcade high-scores leaderboard. I didn't find that out until I played the Arcade mode.
Ed 2020-02-27 2 points
Trackiiiiiinng.... Looks like the Lizard!
What a game. Barry Leitch's music turns a good flight combat sim into an incredible game - thankfully the tracks are available on YouTube for reminiscing. I had many happy years playing this, one of my fondest gaming memories. 26 years on i still seem to remember F6 is fly-by view - it was epic :D
Classic Champion 2019-05-09 2 points
This game is really challenging for two main reasons. First of all, you don't have any wingmen in this game......you're just one pilot alone in the sky against, like, at least 6 other enemy pilots trying to shoot you down. Secondly, if you die or mess up and go to jail or get captured by the enemy, the game ends immediately. You don't get to "restart" the mission you just screwed up, and you have to just go to
the main menu and create a new pilot and start all over again. But it is very well designed, and if you want to really test your skill as a simulation pilot this would be a very good way to do that.
TFX Nut 2017-02-10 2 points
I remember buying this from woolworths! It came in a nice box with the manual. Loved the game so much. Then went on to EF2000. Best days for combat flight simulation.
Paulo josé 2014-12-04 0 point DOS version
good graphics , and a good simulator the fly , in year odf Ms -dos , there a real game
ton fly .....
Alcaran 2014-06-11 0 point DOS version
I remember playing this game and was ahead of its time when it came out. If I remember I think this game was on the news for having secret aircraft design info that was not yet available to the public.
david1806 2013-12-17 0 point DOS version
ahhh, this is the daddy! Well, this and Microprose Stealth Fighter. I loved the way the buildings were in this game, with the little lights. It had just the right balance of hard-core sim and arcade.....loved it!!!
:o)
billy336 2013-10-24 0 point DOS version
thx but.... how comes it the campaign is so short?? i read about over 300 missions in Tour of Duty?! Are there missing parts of the game?
bakerben80 2013-10-24 1 point DOS version
Thanks so much. I remember playing this on my pentium 100 with 16mb of ram..... I even had a 150mb hard drive....The good ol days...
timmmm 2013-07-01 1 point DOS version
I spent maybe half of my time as a adolescent playing levels from this game. I just. Loved. It. Soo much!
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DOS Version
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Various files to help you run TFX, apply patches, fixes, maps or miscellaneous utilities.
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