MiG Alley (video game)

MiG Alley
Developer(s)	Rowan Software
Publisher(s)	Empire Interactive
Platforms	Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	November 30, 1999 (US)
Genre(s)	Combat flight simulator
Mode(s)	Single player

MiG Alley is a combat flight simulator game developed by Rowan Software and published by Empire Interactive in 1999. It is a historical simulation which focuses on early jet fighter combat in the Korean War - specifically, the so-called MiG Alley in northwestern North Korea, 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 and the F-86 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.

The game features customizeable enemy artificial intelligence, which at its higher settings, is very strong for a combat flight simulator. Although developed for Windows 98, with slight edits to setup files, the game can run on Windows XP, albeit with no official support for USB joysticks. It can also run on Windows Vista and Windows 7 without any edits.

The source code was later released with permission from Empire Interactive under the "Empire Interactive License", minus the textures and landscape detailing. This was done in the hope that the online open source community would make a Macintosh-compatible version of the game.

Following the source code release a group from the game's community, called BDG, took up the support and produced unofficial patches until 2004, the latest beta patch 0.85f2.

External links

• MiG Alley at MobyGames
• MiG Alley at rowansoftware.com (archived in 2000)
• Unofficial Patches (archived)