Flight sim question

Vinda-Lou · Post by **Vinda-Lou** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 4:37 pm

What's the best, available-in-stores, flight sim? I just got a new joystick (do we still call them that?) and wanted to pick up a new game. I'd prefer WWII, but am open to almost anything with guns. A good manual would be a plus, as I am pretty new to this genre. Thanks for your help.

MeSlayer · Post by **MeSlayer** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 5:05 pm

if you are looking for ww2 then depending on the theatre you want either il-2 forgotten battles (Eastern Front) or pacific fighters (... pacific!)

or both, they are each excellent sims - and can work in conjunction with each other from what I hear

I own both but I lack the space to install both at the same time, and keep playing the stuff I always do. But PF did ask me during the install (i think) if I already had FB installed so I would assume you can have a 40's russo japanese air war if you wanted.

Kratz · Post by **Kratz** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 5:59 pm

I believe this question gets asked once a week:

http://www.octopusoverlords.com/phpBB2/ ... php?t=3329

Essentially, pacific fighters is the latest and greatest WWII flight sim.

Zekester · Post by **Zekester** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 7:47 pm

I'll be the sole disagree-er on IL2

I prefer Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator's 2 & 3 to IL2.

Although it doesn't have guns, MS Flight Simulator '04 is on sale starting Sunday at CompUSA for $10.
That's a helluv a deal for a flight sim.

Another excellent, fun game is Crimson Skies, but it's more of a 'fantasy-based' game.

Then there's some of the value games that are really good....like Extreme Air Racing: Redline (I think thats the name) and Dogfight!

Hrdina · Post by **Hrdina** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 8:15 pm

Zekester wrote:I'll be the sole disagree-er on IL2

I prefer Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator's 2 & 3 to IL2.

I have to half-agree with you.

I absolutely love flying Flight Sim 2002, and I'm planning to upgrade to 2004 shortly (because I can do it cheaply). I enjoy flying light GA aircraft and sightseeing in places I know.

However, I recently acquired IL-2 and think it is terrific. I have an on-again off-again relationship with combat sims, so it seems like I'm getting into my on-again phase. So much so that I am planning to buy a TrackIR 3, and possibly to upgrade my machine, which is a 3-year-old 1400 MHz AMD.

I've never played CFS, so I can't really comment on it other than to say that most people I know who've played it think that it pales in comparison to CFS2.

Vinda-Lou · Post by **Vinda-Lou** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 8:45 pm

Thanks for the info guys. I'll probably go for whichever is cheaper, although I know IL-2 is scalable in terms of sim or arcade. Which game mods better? I would think CFS 3 is quite moddable, but I don't know about IL-2. I guess it's time for some research.

Hrdina · Post by **Hrdina** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 11:41 pm

Vinda-Lou wrote:Thanks for the info guys. I'll probably go for whichever is cheaper, although I know IL-2 is scalable in terms of sim or arcade. Which game mods better? I would think CFS 3 is quite moddable, but I don't know about IL-2. I guess it's time for some research.

If CFS is anything like Flight Sim, it will be very moddable.

I am not really into modding, but I don't think IL-2 et al is as moddable. It seems that there are a number of user-submitted campaigns available, but I don't think you can introduce new aircraft (although I might be wrong about that). There have been a lot of complaints in the Pacific Fighters community about a certain Japanese aircraft being missing from the game despite being promised on the box by the Ubisoft marketing drones. If it were possible to add aircraft, I would suspect that the talent in the user community would have corrected this by now.

Kratz · Post by **Kratz** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 2:31 am

You aren't going to get shit for ongoing support and addition from CFS compared to Il2/Pacific Fighters... Maddox is constantly adding new aircraft to Il2/PA in patches... in addition there are user campaigns, etc. that you can download too... not much more to mod beyond that... the combined Il2/PA game has a truly staggering number of aircraft.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 11:11 am

Agreed. Although I don't have Pacific Fighters, I do have the IL2 series. There are so many planes already in the game - probably 100 already, compared to 18 in CFS3 - that there isn't much that really needs to be modded in. Add Pacific Fighters to the mix and you have (according to what I have read) more than 150 flyable aircraft. While I don't believe there are many (or any) community aircraft to add to that, there are hundreds of skins available for those aircraft, and there are hundreds of missions and campaigns.

Zekester · Post by **Zekester** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 11:37 am

Actually, I was refering to CFS2 more than 3, and a quick look over at avsim.com showed 200+ aircraft available for download.

Out-of-the-box CFS2 is in better shape than IL2 IMO, and is cheaper to boot.

Truthfully though, i've just never been a big fan of the IL2 games.
There's just something not quite 'right' about them.

Greggy_D · Post by **Greggy_D** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 8:25 pm

If you get CFS3, definitely buy the Firepower addon.

WheelMan · Post by **WheelMan** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 11:48 pm

I think one big difference is that most of those CFS planes are user mods. The IL2 planes are 100% built by professonials to the same standars as the planes that come in the box. Personally, I don't have the foggests idea how one could prefer CFS, the Maddox games have it beat every-which way.

Vinda-Lou · Post by **Vinda-Lou** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 8:44 pm

I went with Pacific Fighters, as it was the only sim in stock

. Barely tried it yet.

I would love a flight sim where you could zoom over a WWII ground battle, destroying tanks and shooting infantry. I don't know yet if PF has that.

Also, how was the older game, Battle of Britain(?). It was a flight sim, but you had to figure out where and when to send fighters to fend off the nazis. Is there a more modern game, (maybe CFS 3) that has this campaign?

em2nought · Post by **em2nought** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:16 pm

Vinda-Lou wrote:I would love a flight sim where you could zoom over a WWII ground battle, destroying tanks and shooting infantry. I don't know yet if PF has that.

Also, how was the older game, Battle of Britain(?). It was a flight sim, but you had to figure out where and when to send fighters to fend off the nazis. Is there a more modern game, (maybe CFS 3) that has this campaign?

IL2 is pretty nice for destroying moving tanks, little men will bale out of trucks when you attack them also. There aren't any infantry to shoot at though. You'll have to go back to Red Baron II or Rowan's Mig Alley to get decent infantry to shoot at.

Rowan's Battle of Britain has been acquired by GMX media and is being revised by Shockwave(makers of Firepower for CFS3) for new release early in 2005. They also acquired Microprose B-17II.

Kratz · Post by **Kratz** » Tue Dec 21, 2004 2:03 am

Zekester wrote:Actually, I was refering to CFS2 more than 3, and a quick look over at avsim.com showed 200+ aircraft available for download.

Out-of-the-box CFS2 is in better shape than IL2 IMO, and is cheaper to boot.

This makes no sense at all. CFS2 is a pile of crap compared to Il2 - flight and damage modeling, graphics, scale... watch what happens the next time your plane gets shot in CFS2... the same thing that happened the last time your plane got shot in CFS2. The damage modeling is pathetic...

Zekester wrote: Truthfully though, i've just never been a big fan of the IL2 games.
There's just something not quite 'right' about them.

Maybe you dislike realism and quality?

Vinda-Lou wrote:I went with Pacific Fighters, as it was the only sim in stock . Barely tried it yet.

I would love a flight sim where you could zoom over a WWII ground battle, destroying tanks and shooting infantry. I don't know yet if PF has that.

Also, how was the older game, Battle of Britain(?). It was a flight sim, but you had to figure out where and when to send fighters to fend off the nazis. Is there a more modern game, (maybe CFS 3) that has this campaign?

CFS3 is the worst of the bunch, so don't even bother... goes further from true combat flight sim. BoB has some issues... you can get a total rework mod that fixes up the graphics and views and stuff, but it still has issues.

You can attack ground forces in Il2/PA... no infantry, but tanks and convoys and trains and stuff... LOMAC actually has some big ground battles playing out beneath you.

WheelMan wrote:I don't have the foggests idea how one could prefer CFS, the Maddox games have it beat every-which way.

Exactly.