''MiG Alley'' is a combat flight simulation game, developed by Rowan Software for PCs with

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

, and was published by Empire Interactive in 1999.

Description

''MiG Alley'' is a historical simulation which focuses on early jet fighter combat in the

Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top: ...

– specifically, the so-called MiG Alley in northwestern

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and ...

, for which the game is named. One of the interesting aspects of the game is the closeness in overall performance between the main combat fighter aircraft – the

MiG-15 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (russian: Микоя́н и Гуре́вич МиГ-15; USAF/DoD designation: Type 14; NATO reporting name: Fagot) is a jet fighter aircraft developed by Mikoyan-Gurevich for the Soviet Union. The MiG-15 was one o ...

and the

F-86 The North American F-86 Sabre, sometimes called the Sabrejet, is a transonic jet fighter aircraft. Produced by North American Aviation, the Sabre is best known as the United States' first swept-wing fighter that could counter the swept-wing Sov ...

Sabre. Another is that the game was one of the earliest in the genre to incorporate a 'dynamic' campaign, in which the player's missions are influenced by in-game events rather than being presented in a predetermined order.

History

''MiG Alley'' was developed by Rowan Software and published by Empire Interactive in 1999. In 2001, when Rowan was shut down by Empire Interactive, the developers released the

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to allow the community to continue the game's support on their own. The release happened with permission from Empire Interactive under the "Empire Interactive License", and didn't include the textures and landscape detailing.

Reception

The game received favorable reviews according to the review aggregation website

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

. Christian A. O'Brien of ''

Next Generation Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...

'' called it "a fine sim with terrific graphics and a great sense of campaign flow. There's something here for just about everyone". In the United States, the game sold 4,171 copies during 1999, after its release on November 30 of that year. Jason Ocampo of CNET Gamecenter wrote that it "tanked at retail". The game was a finalist for the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' 1999 "Simulation Game of the Year" award, which ultimately went to '' Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000''. However, it was named the best simulation of 1999 by ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through t ...

'', ''

PC Gamer US ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games mag ...

'', CNET Gamecenter, ''

Computer Games Strategy Plus ''Computer Games Magazine'' was a monthly computer and console gaming print magazine, founded in October 1988 as the United Kingdom publication ''Games International''. During its history, it was known variously as ''Strategy Plus'' (October 1 ...

'' and

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

. ''PC Gamer US'' highlighted the game's "outstanding flight modeling, butter-smooth graphics, and rich dynamic campaign structure".

References

External links

*
MiG Alley
at rowansoftware.com (archived in 2000) {{DEFAULTSORT:Mig Alley (Video Game) 1999 video games Cold War video games Combat flight simulators Commercial video games with freely available source code Korean War video games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video games with historical settings Video games set in Korea Windows games Windows-only games Empire Interactive games Rowan Software games Single-player video games