Ultra Flight Pack

Ultra Flight Pack is a 2000 compilation for Windows and DOS that bundles eight flight simulators, offering a diverse range of aviation experiences from historical military conflicts to civilian and futuristic scenarios. It includes seven military titles covering World War I (Flying Corps: Gold, WarBirds: Dawn of Aces), World War II (WarBirds), modern eras (iF-22, F/A-18 Korea, F/A-18 Hornet 3.0), and near-future combat (Ultra Fighters), alongside the civilian Flight Unlimited II, providing a comprehensive package for flight simulation enthusiasts.

Ultra Flight Pack: Review

Introduction: A Hangar Full of History, For Better or Worse

In the waning days of the 20th century, the flight simulation genre stood at a crossroads. The meticulous, switch-by-switch realism of the early ’90s had given way to accessible, graphically ambitious titles like Microsoft Flight Simulator and the F/A-18 series. Into this evolving landscape stepped Koch Media, an Austrian publisher known for value-driven compilations, with a bold proposition: why sell one flight sim when you could sell eight? Ultra Flight Pack (2000) is not a game in the traditional sense but a curated museum, a CD-ROM time capsule attempting to span nearly a century of aerial combat—from the fabric-and-wire biplanes of World War I to the speculative plasma-cannons of a post-apocalyptic 26th century. Its legacy is not one of groundbreaking innovation but of ambitious aggregation, a product that encapsulates both the zenith and the nadir of the late-’90s flight sim boom. This review will argue that Ultra Flight Pack is a fascinating, deeply flawed document: a compilation that succeeds as a historical survey of a genre in flux but fails as a cohesive player experience due to the glaring quality disparities between its constituent parts, most notably the inclusion of the notoriously maligned Ultra Fighters.

Development History & Context: The Budget Bundle Battlescape

The Studio & The Vision: Koch Media AG, operating primarily in the German-speaking market, was a master of the budget compilation. Their business model relied on acquiring licenses for games that had completed their initial retail lifecycle and repackaging them for mass discount retailers. Ultra Flight Pack was the logical culmination of this strategy within the flight sim niche. There was no singular “visionary” studio behind the pack; it was an editorial exercise in curation, aiming to create the definitive “everything sim” collection for a curious hobbyist. The stated goal, as per the German PC Games review, was to provide “fast alles, was ein Hobbypilot benötigt” (almost everything a hobby pilot needs).

Technological & Market Context: The games within the pack were originally released between 1997 and 1999, a period of rapid 3D acceleration adoption. Titles like Flight Unlimited II (1997) and Flying Corps: Gold (1997) were showcase products for their respective developers (Looking Glass Studios and Rowan Software), pushing graphical and aerodynamic boundaries. By 2000, they were aging but still respected. The market, however, was shifting. The complexity of hardcore sims was being challenged by the mainstream appeal of arcade-action titles and the looming specter of online multiplayer shooters. A compilation like this was a way to extend the commercial life of these titles, but it also highlighted the genre’s fragmentation. The included games represent four distinct technological and design eras:
1. Mid-90s 3D Pioneers: Flight Unlimited II and Flying Corps: Gold.
2. The “Present-Day” (Late ’90s) Standard: iF-22, F/A-18 Hornet 3.0, F/A-18 Korea.
3. The Persistent World Experiment: WarBirds (1998) and its expansion Dawn of Aces, early forays into large-scale online combat.
4. The Ambitious Misfire: Ultra Fighters (1999), a near-future title from Eagle Interactive that struggled with its own engine.

This temporal spread is the pack’s greatest strength and its fatal weakness. It provides a genuine historical through-line but forces players to endure massive leaps in quality and design philosophy.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: From Historical Recreation to Dystopian Allegory

The compilation’s narrative cohesion is virtually non-existent, with seven of eight titles offering period-authentic, mission-based combat without overarching plots. The profound exception, and the source of the pack’s only substantive thematic depth, is Ultra Fighters.

The World of Thermodux: Set in the 26th century following a “Global War,” Ultra Fighters presents a meticulously detailed dystopia. Fossil fuels are banned due to irradiated oil fields. The United States has reconstituted itself as a corporatized entity, a “private company” where citizenship is tied to shareholding. China, reunified under the militaristic Emperor Zindo, dominates Asia. The MacGuffin is Thermodux, a rare material that amplifies clean energy output. The conflict erupts over control of Thermodux research on the Solomon Islands, with the player cast as a mercenary pilot for NAVCO, fighting for cash and U.S. government shares. This framework is a sharp, prescient satire of late-capitalism, outsourcing, and resource wars, echoing the cyberpunk cynicism of Snow Crash or the geopolitical tensions of Deus Ex.

The Gap Between Lore and Gameplay: Unfortunately, this rich world-building remains entirely in the realm of text—manual blurbs and mission briefings. The gameplay reduces this complex setting to a sterile “bounty hunter” loop: shoot enemy craft, collect money, buy upgrades. There is no narrative campaign, no character development (the player is a silent “recruit”), and no exploration of the themes beyond flavor text for mission locations. The satire is inert, a cosmetic layer over a generic combat sim. In stark contrast, the historical titles (Flying Corps: Gold, WarBirds) derive their narrative power from historical authenticity and the implicit stories of the pilots they simulate, not from a authored plot.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: A Gallery of Contrasts

The core “gameplay” of the Ultra Flight Pack is eight disparate experiences. Analyzing them as a unified whole is impossible; the value lies in the spectrum they represent.

The High Fidelity (The Keepers):
* Flying Corps: Gold & Flight Unlimited II: These are the crown jewels. They feature sophisticated flight models where physics matter—stalls, spins, and momentum are simulated. Flying Corps excels in WWI dogfights with its delicate biplane handling. Flight Unlimited II (in its reduced “1 CD” version here) offers breathtaking, fluid cloud-filled skies and a revolutionary “cloud tank” combat mode. Their UI is dense but functional, aiming for cockpit realism.
* F/A-18 Hornet 3.0 & iF-22: These represent the polished, “modern” military sim standard of the era. They focus on weapons systems, navigation, and carrier operations. The gameplay is about mastering complex avionics and delivering precision strikes, with mission editors providing longevity.

The Niche & Experimental:
* WarBirds Series: These are less traditional sims and more “persistent world” combat games. The gameplay loop involves patrolling, intercepting, and defending in a shared online server where individual kills contribute to a larger war effort. The mechanics are simpler, prioritizing large-scale dogfights over hyper-realism.
* Ultra Fighters: This is the pack’s black hole. Its systems are fundamentally broken.
* Flight Model: Criticized as “Airbus-like” (sticky, unresponsive) and prone to ludicrous stalls. The physics feel arbitrary.
* Economy & Progression: A bounty system where cash is earned for kills but lost for failing to protect friendly assets. In theory, this adds risk/reward. In practice, the economy is unbalanced, making upgrades feel unrewarding.
* UI & Controls: A notorious failure. The radar does not rotate with the aircraft, making it nearly useless. Keybinding conflicts prevent common actions like firing while toggling afterburners. The interface is clunky and obstructive.
* Combat: Weapon impact is negligible; explosions are visually underwhelming. Dogfights devolve into tedious turning matches.
* Multiplayer: Supports LAN/online (2-8 players) but is plagued by connectivity issues and balance problems, a common failing of late-’90s peer-to-peer sim networking.

The Verdict on Mechanics: The pack is a study in contrast. For the enthusiast, the first four titles offer hundreds of hours of deep, rewarding simulation. For the casual player, the jarring drop into the clunky, unrewarding systems of Ultra Fighters is a deal-breaking catastrophe. The compilation makes no effort to unify control schemes, interface philosophies, or even graphical settings, forcing the player to mentally re-tool between each title.

World-Building, Art & Sound: A Sonic and Visual Rollercoaster

Visual Direction: The aesthetic range is extreme. Flight Unlimited II‘s (1997) cloudscapes and lighting were groundbreaking, creating a palpable sense of altitude and atmosphere. Flying Corps: Gold‘s (1997) meticulously modeled WWI aircraft and European terrain still hold a certain rustic charm. The F/A-18 titles present sharp, Angus-squared carriers and naval aviators. WarBirds uses simpler models to facilitate its online scale. Then there is Ultra Fighters (1999): its post-apocalyptic 2600 AD setting is realized through blocky, low-poly aircraft with perfunctory “sci-fi” glued-on parts (glowing engines, generic fins). Environments are generic tropical islands and industrial complexes shrouded in fog to hide draw-distance limits. The art direction is functionally nonexistent, a lowest-common-denominator approach that makes its “near-future” look dated even for 1999.

Sound Design: The audio landscape is equally bifurcated. The late-’90s titles generally feature period-appropriate engine roars, sampled weaponry, and functional (if sparse) UI sounds. Ultra Fighters, however, is a masterclass in failure. Critics uniformly panned its “dilettantish” sound effects. Lasers emit feeble pew noises. Explosions are quiet and unsatisfying. The synth-heavy soundtrack loops relentlessly, and the AI co-pilot’s monotone alerts (“Enemy spotted. Threat identified.”) grate on the nerves within minutes. It’s a jarring, cheap-sounding experience that actively harms immersion.

Atmosphere: The compilation’s atmosphere is schizophrenic. You can go from the tense, silent majesty of a dawn patrol in a Sopwith Camel to the garish, audio-assault of a Thermodux dogfight in under five minutes. There is no consistent tone, no artistic hand guiding the experience. It is a museum where the lighting and audio change radically from wing to wing.

Reception & Legacy: A Polarizing Pack

Critical Reception: The German press, which reviewed the compilation as a local product, was brutally divided, reflecting the pack’s internal contradictions.
* PC Games (80%): Saw the value in the breadth: “beinhaltet nahezu alles, was ein Hobbypilot benötigt” (contains almost everything a hobby pilot needs). They acknowledged the gap in the WWII-to-Present timeline but praised the comprehensive coverage.
* PC Player (67%): A more lukewarm “für Sammler und Fans” (for collectors and fans), implying a niche appeal.
* GameStar (49%): The most scathing, coining the infamous verdict: “Was hier versammelt ist, sollte eigentlich in Frieden vergammeln” (What is assembled here should actually rot in peace). Their argument was sharp: the two best titles (Flight Unlimited II, Flying Corps: Gold) are available in better compilations or as standalone purchases, and their value is diminished by being forced to share space with “Krücken wie Ultra Fighters” (crutches like Ultra Fighters). The low-effort packaging (manuals on CD, outdated patches) sealed their disdain.

Commercial & Cultural Legacy: Commercially, it was a bargain bin staple. Its legacy is twofold:
1. As a Preservation Vehicle: In the pre-digital-storefront era, compilations like this were crucial for making older, out-of-print sims accessible to new audiences. A player in 2000 could, for one price, experience the pinnacle of late-’90s flight sim design across multiple eras.
2. As a Case Study in Curation Failure: It stands as a classic example of how not to build a compilation. Quality control was sacrificed for quantity and chronological coverage. The inclusion of Ultra Fighters—a game with its own 39% MobyScore and panicked reviews—as the “Near Future” representative poisoned the well for the entire package. It demonstrated that a publisher’s desire to claim “complete” genre coverage could backfire spectacularly if the included content is of such low caliber.

Its influence on the industry is indirect. The pack itself is forgettable, but the trends it represents—the bundling of legacy content, the difficulty of maintaining niche sim franchises, and the risks of including underdeveloped original titles in compilations—are enduring business realities.

Conclusion: A Curious Artifact of a Bygone Hangar

Ultra Flight Pack is not a game to be played, but a specimen to be studied. It is the ultimate embodiment of the late-’90s flight sim’s identity crisis: a genre fragmenting into hyper-specialized sub-niches (WWI, Modern, Persistent World, Sci-Fi) while simultaneously becoming too complex for the mainstream. Koch Media’s attempt to solve this with a “greatest hits” approach was logically sound but practically disastrous because it could not—or would not—apply consistent quality filters.

For the video game historian, it is invaluable. In one package, you can trace the evolution of 3D flight modeling from the pioneering but rigid Flying Corps: Gold to the more fluid Flight Unlimited II, and then see the branch into online warfare with WarBirds. You can experience the sterile, procedural combat of the “modern” sims and then confront the bizarre, failed experiment of Ultra Fighters, a game that tried to marry a compelling political dystopia with broken mechanics and crashed on the runway.

The final, definitive verdict is this: Ultra Flight Pack fails as a recommendation for any living player today. Its interfaces are dated, its installation is an archaeological project, and Ultra Fighters is an actively bad experience. However, it earns a permanent, critical place in gaming history as a stark monument to the pitfalls of compilation curation. It proves that a collection’s value is not in the number of its parts, but in the integrity of its curation. It is a hangar full of aircraft, some beautiful and functional, others crashed on the tarmac—and the pack insists you tour them all with the same level of interest. Its 65% average critic score is a mathematical surrender, a median between masterpieces and misfires, perfectly capturing its schizophrenic soul. It is, in the end, a fascinating failure.