Falcon 4 BMS 4.33 has made a number of huge changes in many areas. Despite this, there are a few deficiencies that make Falcon 4 Allied Force still the most fun game to play. But BMS 4.33 is the future and technically, it is the far superior achievement and piece of work. BMS 4.33 makes such huge improvements in every area except artificial intelligence, that they are different than the changes made in previous versions of Falcon. They are large enough in scope to make it a qualitative improvement rather than an incremental improvement like previous versions of Falcon including BMS 4.32.

The first improvement of Falcon 4 BMS 4.33 that is rather obvious is its huge leap forward in graphics. While other versions of Falcon just retouched the graphics, this version makes the graphics so different, that it dramatically changes the game. The texture of the terrain looks way more pleasing to the eye, like that of Lock on Modern Air Combat. More importantly, the terrain has way more curves and details to it. The curves in the terrain are we more numerous and also very easy to see. This makes it far more easier to find hiding places from enemy missiles. It also makes it easy to do pop up attacks, because the terrain features are numerous and that they are easy to see.


The other improvements of Falcon 4 BMS 4 are the avionics improvements. The targeting pod that is used to lock guided munitions is very detailed. This is an important improvement in Falcon 4 BMS 4. The detail of the targeting pod comes close to matching the level of detail when flying the real thing.

The cockpit realism in general has also been improved. Although the cockpit may be about the same graphically, BMS 4.33 operates more realistically like it would in real life than the previous version, BMS 4.32. To operate the cockpit, you are now forced to use the targeting management switch to lock targets, like real life.


The most important avionic improvement is in the harm targeting pod. For densely populated surface-to-air missile vehicles, zooming in can make it possible to separate and target every vehicle no matter how closely they packed they are. This is a very important improvement and is also necessary for the improvement in how the surface-to-air missiles operate.


In the previous version of Falcon 4 BMS 4, the component vehicles of a surface-to-air missile were far less realistic than in Falcon 4 BMS 4.33. In BMS 4.33, every surface-to-air missile site has a tracking radar component and a search radar component. A surface to air missile threat, can be eliminated by just zooming in and targeting the tracking radar. You need a good harm targeting zoom feature to be able to do this. This is present in BMS 4.33.


BMS 4.33 has made more than just improvement in its graphics and avionics realism(cockpit realism). The artificial intelligence has also been improved. The computer-controlled aircraft on other flights are better at hitting their targets in air to ground missions. This is especially important in interdiction of vehicle missions. It means that air power can make a much bigger difference in a dyamic campaign in affecting the ground war. This is a huge improvement, because computer controlled flights hitting their targets has seen little if any improvement for many years. It also makes the dynamic campaign more realistic and interesting.

Another flight/avionic dynamics feature that is different is a more realistic flight model. New to BMS 4.33 is that if you accelerate too fast during a turn, it will damage the aircraft. Luckily, if the flight model seems a little too realistic and complicated for you, I think you can select a less realistic flight model in the game set up menu.


The radar warning receiver in BMS 4.33 is also imperfect at detecting enemy radar missiles. This means that sometimes an enemy radar missile will look like it hasn't been launched or has been defeated when that isn't the case. This can complicate avoiding radar missiles. Unfortunately, there is no way to turn this feature off in the game. Personally, I would rather always know when a radar missile has been launched at me, or whether a radar missile has been defeated or not. It may make it a better simulation, but not a better game for those wanting to play to win- and believe whether you survive or not should be the fault of the pilot(player) and not the fault of the aircraft components.


The air tasking order has also been improved. One good feature of this and previous versions of BMS 4 has been that fighter escorts are provided to aircraft doing vehicle interdiction missions and not just airbase, bridge, and installation strike missions.


Also, the air tasking order tasks a bunch of destroying enemy air defenses missions at the beginning of the campaign. This is like real life, in which you want to eliminate the air defenses first before you send aircraft in areas threatened by them.

But the air tasking order does have one important problem. It does not task enough defensive counter air missions. This is important, because I think it should be a priority to defend airbases. I think real mission planners would be very intolerant to having enemy aircraft around their airbases and threatening them. But in BMS 4.33, aircraft are allowed to easily get dangerously close to airbases.

The good news with the air tasking order is that enemy aircraft and ground attack missions can be put on offensive mode in the F4Patch. This is under the selection in which you checkmark offensive air to ground missions.


Another important problem of BMS 4.33 is in some areas of the artificial intelligence. But these are important areas. There are two problems with the artificial intelligence. First, the air defense artificial intelligence is not intelligent at turning their radar on and off. Fortunately, the manual says that air defense artificial intelligence is like a simulation within a simulation. It will be a project for BMS 4.34.


The second area of the artificial intelligence that is deficient is the aggressiveness of the enemy aircraft. They are not good at launching follow-up missiles. They are also not good at launching missiles at you in general. By this I mean, that they are not good at distributing launches between all aircraft that get close to them. They will launch missiles at you aggressively if you're the only aircraft, but if you come in with a group of four aircraft, you are likely to not get very many missiles launched you if any at all. In fact, you can be outnumbered many times and still penetrate far into enemy airspace without having many missiles launched-which is true even at the beginning of the campaign in which they have plenty of missiles to shoot at you. The enemy aircraft also seem to be aware of your prescence because they show up on the radar warning receiver.

This is not true in Falcon 4 Allied Force. If you enter enemy airspace and are outnumbered, you will not get very far without having enemies missiles launched of you very aggressively. It is very difficult if not impossible to penetrate enemy airspace if you are outnumbered.

The good news is that the enemy aircraft artificial intelligence seems to adapt. If you manage to destroy enemy aircraft after enemy aircraft, the artificial intelligence will respond. Eventually an enemy aircraft will stop you from destroying more of their aircraft. They will become more aggressive and start to launch missiles at you. I am not sure whether that solves the lack of aggressiveness problem. The enemy aircraft artificial intelligence does, however, get pretty darn hard if you destroy quite a few aircraft.

The aggressiveness of the enemy aircraft artificial intelligence is not a deal breaker for creating a good hard game. If you want to get stopped in your tracks from enemy aircraft and have the game be superhard, then maybe Falcon 4 Allied Force may be the better game. But if you are interested in seeing how many missions you can fly before you are shot down, then the enemy aircraft aggressiveness will definitely be adequate in BMS 4.33.

If you are interested in flying a long career and seeing whether you can get through most or all of the campaign, then BMS 4.33 is the game for you. There are other components to a simulation than air combat. The other pluses of BMS 4.33 such as cockpit and flight physics realism will clearly make BMS 4.33 come out on top of the older version of Falcon, Falcon 4 Allied Force.


BMS 4.33 has created a number of realism improvements to Falcon 4. Unfortunately, two of the realism improvements have a fit and finish issue related to them. For some reason, the enemy aircraft missile physics have been changed. The enemy aircraft missiles have a lot more drag added to them in BMS 4.33 then was present in the older BMS 4.32. I do not know why this change took place and the manual doesn't explain it, as far as I know. The enemy aircraft missiles slow down at a much faster rate than they did in the previous version. The artificial intelligence of the enemy aircraft firing the missile has not been changed to compensate for this fact.

The enemy aircraft fire a missile at you from far away, but have a problem firing another missile at you when they get close. They turn around and run away from you sooner than it would have to in order to avoid your missiles. This makes it so the enemy aircraft are running away from you in such a way that it makes them not a threat and an easy target. Fortunately though, other aircraft do not run away from you. But again there is a lack of aggressiveness and deadliness to the enemy aircraft artificial intelligence.


Secondly, the terrain is great in BMS 4.33. It is very curvy. Unfortunately, the dynamics of the harm missiles fail to react appropriately to the new terrain. They run into the ground unless they are launched very high at close range. This is true even if there is just a subtle hill bump in the terrain. And by subtle bump, I mean one that it is barely noticeable. You should not have to both fire at high altitude and at close range to prevent the harm missile from crashing into the ground. I find this behavior rather annoying, since you do not know whether a harm missile will hit or not unless you take extreme measures to compensate.

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