team sought to avoid in the sequel. Instead of removing textures that exceed the draw distance, the new engine uses mipmapping to lower the polygon count of distant terrain. This increases the viewable area and allowed the team to use fog as an atmospheric effect, rather than as a "crutch". The team's goal was to create the "best, most realistic civilian flight simulator", which would provide an immersive world for the player. Radio communications between ATCs, AI planes and the player occur in real-time: a "sophisticated audio splicing system" gathers pre-recorded voice fragments into contextually appropriate sentences. The team recorded the engine noise of each of the game's planes, and they designed cockpits more interactive than those in Flight Unlimited. Roughly 300 times more terrain area was included in Flight Unlimited II than in its predecessor. To generate the terrain, the team combined digital elevation maps with satellite imagery rendered at four square meters per pixel. The images were taken at 9:30 am, because the long shadows provided an illusion of depth. 3D models were used for all buildings taller than nine stories. Because of the terrain detail, the game was the first to allow players to follow VFR. Initially, the team planned to include only VFR flight, but they later enabled IFR to "ease navigation". The team hoped to add more terrain and planes and a multiplayer feature after the game's release. The game was shown at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June 1997, alongside Thief: The Dark Project. At the show, the team detailed early plans to include missions. The game was well received, and Combatsim praised it as "the next level in civilian flight sims". Denny Atkin of Computer Gaming World liked the game, but he questioned Looking Glass's decision to compete in the civilian rather than the combat flight simulators market. That August, Looking Glass merged with Intermetrics, a technology company that hoped to branch into the video game industry. The merger came amid financial difficulties; a large portion of the Looking Glass staff was laid off during the middle of 1997. Looking Glass's Tim Stellmach and Paul Neurath described the merger as amicable, and the former noted that "through the whole deal everyone was really psyched about both The Dark Project and Flight Unlimited II". In September, Eidos took over publishing duties on Flight Unlimited II, as a result of Looking Glass's new business model