TFX (Tactical Fighter Experiment)

[1] Min. Requirements: AGA chipset, 2MB chipram, 68020 CPU, HD.
Recommended: AGA chipset, 2MB chip/4MB fastram, 68030/50MHz CPU or faster, HD.

[2] TFX was originally scheduled for release by Ocean in 1994, but was shelved indefinitely in 1995 when it was 95% finished and reviewed by several magazines in April/May of that year (see HERE). Many of the reviews stated that the game was unplayable on a standard A1200 due to the poor speed of screen updates (about 1fps on a 14Mhz 68020 CPU) and suffered generally because of the low-detailed graphics, reduced sound and frequent disk swapping, that owed somewhat to the machine's lack of memory on standard configurations (i.e. 2MB chipram/no fastram).

The magazines generally recommended minimum specs of an A1200/4000 with 68030 CPU and fastram to adequately play the game. Such high specs (they were for Amiga users back in 1995, at least) coupled with the uncertainty of the Amiga market resulted in Ocean indefinitely withholding the release of the game and eventually cancelling it in 1996.

Little more was heard about TFX until CU Amiga announced in their Apr 97 issue that it planned to show TFX exclusively on their stand at the World of Amiga (WOA) show. True to their word, they unveiled the game publicly for the first time to impressed Amiga enthusiasts at the WOA show in May 97. The general consensus at the time was that it ran reasonably well on the A1200 with 68030/50MHz CPU used, and that it was a great pity that Ocean had decided to shelve the Amiga release.

With the dearth of commercial Amiga game releases and much positive feedback from the WOA showing, CU Amiga entered negotiations with developers Digital Image Design (DID) and secured publication rights to TFX.

Subsequently, CU Amiga exclusively published the game on the CUCD15 coverdisc of the Oct 97 issue (CD edition). Readers who bought the Oct 97 issue (floppy edition) would not miss out, however, and were able to take advantage of a special offer to buy a 7 disk version of TFX for £4.00 (p&p inclusive) [see p4 contents HERE].

The CU Amiga release of TFX contained 3 executables:

(a) TFX_68000 (for AGA machines without FPU)
(b) TFX_FPU (for AGA machines with FPU)
(c) TFX_040 (for AGA machines with 68040/060 CPU)

[3] Unfortunately, due to TFX being only 95% complete when it was shelved by Ocean, several bugs were still present when the game was released by CU Amiga. Among other things, some Amiga users reported that the TFX_040 executable did not work on 040/060 machines and that the TFX_FPU executable produced graphical glitches.

In response to some of the bugs identified, TFX coder Charlie Wallace released updated BETA executables in Dec 1997. The TFX BETA execs are available for download from his website, but are not guaranteed to fix all the game's bugs nor work on all Amiga configurations:

(a) TFX_020 BETA exec(requires FPU)
(b) TFX_030 BETA exec(requires FPU)
(c) TFX_040 BETA exec(requires 68040/060 CPU)

[Source: Charlies Houze, website of TFX coder Charlie Wallace]

[4] TFX(Manual) is available for download HERE. [Source: CU Amiga (Oct 97), courtesy of the Amiga Magazine Rack(AMR)]

[5] TFX(Players Guide + Cheat) is available for download HERE. [Source: CU Amiga (Dec 97), courtesy of the Amiga Magazine Rack(AMR)]