Stormovik: SU-25 Soviet Attack Fighter

Stormovik: SU-25 Soviet Attack Fighter is a video game in the simulation genre developed by Electronic Arts, Inc. and published by Electronic Arts, Inc. originally released in 1990. It is currently playable on DOS.

Every now and then, some designers seem to have the guts to do something different. Exceptional technical achievements aside (the Falcon series and the Flanker come to mind), in the world of flight simulators this translates into modeling some 'unsexy', 'unglamorous' or simply 'little known' aircraft, simulating an obscure war or combining other 'non-symbolic' elements in a flight simulator.

Su-25 Stormovik (or Sturmovik in the correct Russian spelling) is a simulator that attempts to simulate a little-known strike fighter, the Su-25, from a uniquely Russian perspective during the troubled early 1990s era. The Su-25 (NATO callsign Frogfoot) is the closest Russian equivalent to the American A-10 Thunderbolt II. It is also interesting that its shape closely resembles the YA-9, the losing competitor to the YA-10 (which eventually became the A-10) in the USAF competition for a new attack aircraft. This heavily armored and fearsomely armed aircraft has proven itself in many combat scenarios, most recently in Chechnya.

This Electronic Arts simulator puts you in the shoes of a Russian pilot in the early 1990s, flying missions that will gradually unravel the Russian government's gruesome plot. Being an attack aircraft, your missions are mostly reconnaissance and ground attack and are quite interesting. The flight model is quite convincing for its time. Perhaps, not at Falcon 3.0 standard, but definitely better than average.

However, the control scheme is a bit questionable. Flying with the keyboard or mouse is very difficult because the game follows a rather different control scheme than usual. Playing with a joystick is the way to go here, although many feel that it is a bit too sensitive to joystick input. The graphics look a lot like Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, which is to say they're pretty good, if poor by today's standards.

Overall, it's a good simulator to play while waiting for the upcoming Su-25 simulator that will (hopefully) be included in the next installments of SSI's Su-27 Flanker series (Flanker 2.5? Flanker Attack?). Note, however, that if you have anything better than a Pentium, you have to use Moslo to play this game. Otherwise, you won't be able to take off!

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.