Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The DID Digital Image Design Collection brings together three distinct flight and action experiences under a single roof, starting with EF 2000’s high-fidelity air combat simulation. Piloting the Eurofighter Typhoon in dynamic campaigns over Europe, players are challenged to master realistic flight physics, radar management, and weapons deployment. Missions range from patrols and interceptions to deep-strike sorties, with adjustable difficulty and real-time tactical pauses that help newcomers keep pace with the steep learning curve.

TFX: Tactical Fighter Experiment builds on the same flight sim pedigree but swaps modern jets for a broader arsenal of prototype and Cold War–era fighters. The gameplay here emphasizes a more varied mission structure, blending air-to-ground strikes, reconnaissance runs, and multi-aircraft engagements. Despite sharing the same control framework as EF 2000, TFX stands apart by offering more experimental weapon systems and a branching campaign that reacts to your mission outcomes.

Inferno: The Odyssey Continues diverges from the rigid cockpit sims, plunging you into an on-rails atmospheric shooter set beneath humanity’s last city. The pacing is relentless: you navigate winding corridors, blast mutated foes, and manage limited ammo pools in real time. While the gameplay loop is more linear than the flight titles, Inferno keeps tension high with environmental hazards, strategic ammo pickups, and boss encounters that demand quick reflexes.

Graphics

For a compilation originating in the mid-’90s, the visual presentation remains impressive, thanks largely to DID’s forward-thinking use of texture-mapped 3D models. EF 2000 renders rolling European landscapes and urban areas with respectable fidelity for its era, complete with dynamic lighting effects that enhance the sense of altitude and speed. Cockpit instrumentation is crisp, though pixel density can feel dated on modern displays without the help of resolution scaling or mods.

TFX ups the ante by introducing more varied terrain — from desert airstrips to frozen tundras — each with distinct color palettes that pop in contrast to earlier military sims of its time. Aircraft models sport clean edges and recognizable silhouettes, while special effects like missile trails and explosions bring each engagement to life. The compilation’s built-in graphics options allow tweaking of draw distances and detail levels, helping to mitigate pop-in and improve performance on current hardware.

Inferno’s engine, an evolution of the Descent series, offers fully textured tunnels, decaying industrial corridors, and flickering neon lights that reinforce its dystopian setting. Unlike DID’s flight sims, which favor open skies, Inferno uses tight environments and particle effects to create claustrophobic tension. While polygon counts are modest by today’s standards, the game’s art direction and ambient sound cues work in tandem to sell every shadowy corner.

Story

EF 2000 trades a traditional narrative for an open-ended campaign structure driven by mission briefs and dynamic world tensions. There’s no cinematic storyline per se, but situational snippets—weather alerts, enemy movements, and command chatter—immerse you in a plausible near-future conflict. This sandbox approach lets players carve their own drama through successes, defeats, and emergent air battles that unfold across Europe’s heartland.

TFX introduces more scripted events and mission debriefs, fleshing out a Cold War–adjacent scenario in which prototype jets tip the balance of power. Briefings detail political stakes and pilot rivalry, adding a thread of narrative motivation that ties disparate missions together. While it never reaches blockbuster storytelling, TFX manages to evoke the sense of a covert struggle for aerial supremacy through radio logs and post-mission reports.

Inferno: The Odyssey Continues picks up a more classic action-horror storyline. You play a marine sent to investigate a catastrophic breach in Earth’s subterranean defenses, only to discover mutated threats and corporate conspiracies lurking in the tunnels. Storytelling unfolds through digitized cutscenes and in-mission radio transmissions, offering moments of exposition between intense firefights. Though the plot can feel straightforward, it effectively drives you forward as new mysteries and enemies are revealed.

Overall Experience

The DID Digital Image Design Collection offers a compelling package for fans of ’90s military sims and atmospheric shooters. While each title has aged differently, the compilation’s unified launcher and updated compatibility settings make it far easier to dive in than hunting down individual DOS disks. The sense of authenticity in EF 2000 and TFX remains a highlight for flight sim enthusiasts, thanks to the detailed avionics and mission planning tools.

Inferno adds variety to the collection, breaking up high-altitude combat with claustrophobic, pulse-pounding action. Its inclusion showcases Digital Image Design’s versatility and provides a welcome change of pace between dogfights. Modern players may need to tweak control inputs and resolution settings to feel comfortable, but community patches and fan-made guides are plentiful.

Overall, the DID Digital Image Design Collection stands as both a time capsule and a robust compilation. It captures the ambition of mid-’90s game design—from sprawling, tactical air campaigns to grit-laden tunnel shootouts—while offering enough configurability to run smoothly on current PCs. For nostalgia seekers and genre newcomers alike, this collection delivers enduring thrills and a tangible slice of gaming history.