Aces Over Europe
Released: 1993
Published by: Sierra Online
Developed by: Dynamix, Inc.
Author(s): Damon Slye, Lincoln Hutton, Bob Lindstrom, Christopher Reese, Nathan Dwyer, Paul Bowman, Ryan Hinke, Caedmon Irias, Dayne Freitag, Nancy Hamilton, Mark Peasley, Cyrus Kanga, Damon Mitchell, Peter Lewis, Mike Jahnke, Jarrett Jester, Ron Clayborn, Mark Vearrier, Tito Pagan, Alan McKean, Norman Nelson, Jan Paul Moorhead, Christopher Stevens
Introduction
Coming a year after Aces of the Pacific, Aces Over Europe added improved graphics and better aircraft models with individual squadron markings. Terrain objects were also a little bit better than on AOE. Just like Red Baron and AOTP, it came with a campaign mode, though the missions were more randomized based on the aircraft you were flying and in which squadron, though still based on historical dates so your home base was accurate for that point in time during the war.
Fly on behalf of the USAAC, British RAF or the German Luftwaffe in a variety of missions including bomber escort, search and destroy, intercepting, ground attack and dogfighting a famous ace.
Fight for the US Navy, Army Air Force, Marines or Japanese Navy and Air Force in a variety of missions including ground attack, reconnaissance, bomber escort, dogfighting, or against famous aces. Just like in Red Baron, you have the option of single mission or campaign mode.
Aces of the Pacific features 34 detailed aircraft you can fly over land and sea, and the broad array of realism selections from the earlier two games remained in this one. AOE added a "Tall Res" graphics mode that provided a 320 x 400 resolution, up from the standard 320 x 200 modes supported by AOTP and Red Baron.
System Requirements
| System Requirements | Intel 486SX CPU, 4 MB of RAM, DOS 5.0 or later, 2x CD-ROM (for CD release) Graphics support for 256-colour VGA only. Audio support for PC speaker, PS/1 Audio Card, Ad Lib, Sound Blaster, Pro Audio Spectrum and Roland MT-32/LAPC-I. Keyboard, joystick and Mouse supported. Thrustmaster FCS/WCS supported. |
|---|---|
| Original Media | Three 3.5" 1.44 MB (DS/HD) floppy disks, or one CD-ROM disc. |
| Installed Size (MB) | 7.2 MB |
From where can it be run?
The game must be installed to your hard disk. The INSTALL.EXE utility detects if it is being run from drive A: or B: and will automatically go into 'installation' mode, rather than 'setup' mode. If you have all the files from the floppy disks in a subdirectory on your hard disk, e.g. if installing from a subdirectory and using DOSBox, use the DOSBox mount command to mount drive A: as your subdirectory (the real one on your hard disk, not the one in DOSBox), e.g.
mount A: C:\mydosbox\aoe\
Then also in DOSBox go to the newly mounted drive A: and run INSTALL from there.
Copy Protection
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How to Setup
Insert disk 1 (or the CD), go to that drive and run INSTALL.EXE. If you have any issues installing, it might be due to a resource conflict - if so, run INSTALL -m to avoid any checks being made on your hardware.
As mentioned further up, INSTALL detects if it's been run from drive A: or B: and if so it will automatically think you want to install the game to your hard disk and start that process. If it detects it's been run from a hard disk it will go into 'setup' mode as if the game has already been installed.
'Installation' mode:
'Setup' mode (if INSTALL.EXE detects it's being run from a hard disk):
1) INSTALL's intro page after installation is complete:
2) Main menu:
3) Music card selection:
If you chose 'Roland MT-32, MT-100, LAPC-I, CM-32L, or CM64', you will see this:
4) View Documentation Update in README file:
5) Make bootable floppy disk:
If you are running this from DOSBox, or you don't have your DOS directory in the path environment variable, you may see this message. Make sure the INSTALL utility can see the location of the DOS FORMAT utility:
6) Accept these choices and save configuration:
Problems
Symptom: I have configured the game for my Roland MT-32, but the sounds are very off!
Cause: The game requires an MT-32 "New". There were a number of bugs that Roland corrected with the 2nd version of the MT-32, but by then a lot of developers had used these bugs to exploit more of what it could do. This means running a game designed for the MT-32 "New" on an MT-32 "Old" will sound like it's playing the wrong instruments.
Resolution: Use an MT-32 "New" with this game.
To Quit the Game
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Supporting Documents
Additional Files, Drivers and Utilities
This section includes any additional files, updated drivers (original and third-party) or utilities that help make the game a better experience.
- Aces Over Western Europe 1940 - By Charles Gunst, 1998. Provides a complete patch for Aces over Europe, of the air campaigns of 1940, the Battle of France and the Battle of Britain. With completely new aircraft including 3 biplanes, new squadrons and new pilots - all historically accurate for 1940.
- Aces Over Europe 1941 - By Charles Gunst, 1998. Barbarossa: The Invasion of Russia - New aircraft, pilots and campaigns on both Western and Eastern Fronts. Covers June-Dec 1941 with the Russian invasion through to their counter-offensive in December of the same year.
- Aces Over Europe 1942 - By Charles Gunst, 1997. Provides completely new aircraft, including classic mid-war aircraft like the Spitfire Vb, Whirlwind, Typhoon, Bf-110G, Me-210A, P-38E and P-39, new squadrons and new pilots, with more realistic flight models, damage characteristics and weapon loads, new campaigns, new historical missions, and new ships including British aircraft carriers and German surface raiders.
Save Games
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Versions of the game known to exist
| Version | Date | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | 8th Nov 1993 | Initial public release. |
| 1.01 | 27th Dec 1993 | Official Aces Over Europe Patch A. Fixes issue on Packard-Bell and Acer computers (lock-ups) and includes Bob Church's joystick fixes (controls better on faster machines). |
| 1.02 | 2nd Aug 1994 | Patched release. |
| ? | Sierra Originals re-release. |
Original Floppy Disk Contents
The floppy disks have no specific volume label. Here are each disk's contents:
v1.02 Disk 1 of 3 (3.5" 1.44 MB DS/HD):
Directory of A:\ ADL DRV 9,295 02-08-1994 1:02 |
|
v1.02 Disk 2 of 3 (3.5" 1.44 MB DS/HD):
Directory of A:\ RESOURCE 001 1,450,211 02-08-1994 1:02 |
|
v1.02 Disk 3 of 3 (3.5" 1.44 MB DS/HD):
Directory of A:\ DEMOBOMB VCR 4,988 02-08-1994 1:02 |
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Patch A Disk (3.5" 1.44 MB DS/HD):
Directory of A:\ AOEPAT EXE 71,631 27-12-1993 23:09 |
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Sierra Originals Release on CD-ROM:
Directory of D:\ |
|
Installed Directory Contents
Once installed, the following directory structure exists in the game directory:
Directory of C:\DYNAMIX\ACES |