Flight Sims Good and Bad

[KG_AirborneBob]

I am currently hooked on IL-2 Forgotten Battles.....and was wondering who else could name a Flight Sim they particulary enjoy (and are addicted too)

[liuzg150181]

IL-2 Forgotten Battles X2.:D

[Patrocles]

Falcon4: Allied Force - the king of the jet sims! see the sticky above for more info.

[gobeavs]

I played my fair share of MS Combat Flight Simulator......:cheeky:

I know, I must be missing out on a lot.

[Leftie]

Ahh man do I love Flight Sims. Too bad I don't get a chance to play much anymore.


Ok for my favorites.

IL2 Forgotten Battles Ace Expansion- One if not my ALL TIME favorite WWII sim. Great graphics, great flight model and good multiplayer support

Aces High- A sort of MMO Flight Sim that is a bit simpler in FM than IL2 but great for a good furball

Warbirds- Doesn't have nearly the amount of players as Aces High but I like the flight model for this sim better. Nothing like going one on one for a dogfight here.

WWII Online- Not a dedicated flight sim per say but definitely white knuckled flying action to be had here. Limited plane set but fairly realistic flight model and not knowing how you died only adds to the paranoia.

Fighter Ace- Used to be run by Microsoft back in the 90s but Jaleco took over control. Not the best graphics and most people play in the arcade servers but it is still fun for a little mindless furballing on occassion.

X Plane- A civilian plane sim but pretty cool none the less. You can make your own planes and there are a buttload freely downloadable on the web. Multiplayer is a pain in the ass and it takes a bit more pc knowledge to implement addons than it's counterpart listed below.

Flight 2004- Microsoft is still the King of civilian flight sims. Nothing like running a virtual airline with a bunch of friends and hopping all around the globe. If you get your kicks flying Boeing Jets than this is the sim for you.

[MountainMan]

I confess to being addicted to several when they came out:

The original Red Baron. I really appreciated the ability to place the persona of known pilots aboard enemy and friendly aircraft, and the zepellin hunts were very tricky.

The F117 sim. Action and hi-tech intrigue.

Aces Over Europe, which I played endlessly, usually as a German pilot, trying to figure out how to alter the course of the air war.

LucasArt's Secret Weapons of the Third Reich, which let the player fly some amazing aircraft such as the Volksjager, the Go225, the Do335 and others.

Apache: with it's multiple environments from the tropics to the desert to the Arctic, and missions involving land, sea and air targets, and the opportunity to fly choppers ranging from OH53's to prototype Cheyenne recon and gunships, this thing was a lot of fun. and nap-of-the-earth chopper flying is hard to master!

I have always favored the prop-driven fighters over the jets,I guess because you get a slower and more technically involved air-to-air combat where manueverability and the ability to wring the most out of the aircraft are major factors.

Played one for awhile that let me fly a Warthog which was a blast since the aircraft carries a massive ordnance load and you flew into a target-richj environment.


I did fly a few jet sims, but wasn't overall as impressed with them, although they seemed well done.

[Priest]

I used to love flying prop jobs, MSFS I & II, BOB, B - 17 and European Air War. Now days I fly the fast movers F-4:AF, SFP1, WOV, FA/18 and USAF. The other current popular flight sim is LO:MAC. What can I say...I like doing it at Mach 2 :laugh: .

[Rockhopper]

I'm not mentioning anything that hasn't already been mentioned, but I will throw in my votes anyways. :laugh:

Props: IL-2 Forgotten Battles - a CLASSIC!

Jets: Falcon 4 Allied Force - a CLASSIC... made BETTER!

Civ: Microsoft Flight Sim 2004 - Great out of the box, but becomes fantastic with a few add-ons. I own the LDS 767, which is topnotch, the PMDG 737NG which is also great but a few years old. I plan on getting their new 747 sometime soon.

[Napoleon]

Never played anything but Microsoft Flight Simluators. Loved every single one of them. :D Just seeing this thread has made me consider either buying that IL2 thing or loading up CFS3 and shooting down some Allied bombers.

[gobeavs]

For those that have MS Combat Flight Sim 3, the "Firepower" expansion seems to be a good buy. My flight-sim-fanatic friend has it and likes it.

Check out Gamespot's review (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/sim/firepower/index.html?q=comat%20flight%20simulator%203).

FirePower is what Combat Flight Simulator 3 should have been in the first place, and it is a must-have expansion for current or potential owners of that sim.

[Leftie]

Never played anything but Microsoft Flight Simluators. Loved every single one of them. :D Just seeing this thread has made me consider either buying that IL2 thing or loading up CFS3 and shooting down some Allied bombers.

Napoleon,

You have my personal guarantee that if you enjoy WWII flight sims, you will definitely like the IL2 line. You can pick up the IL2 Forgotten Battles plus the Ace Expansion for around 30 bucks. Huge plane set and great Flight model. I never really played the campaigns too much but the Online play is great. I used to fly JU-87s in some of our battles. Ohh man talk about exhilarating!


Ben

[freightshaker]

I'm still playing Jane's Longbow 2 although it can be challenging since it doesn't react well with most newer vid cards. I have an update install that adds 3D support but it still crashes every once in awhile.

[liuzg150181]

Speaking of IL2 Forgotten Battles one of the things which i dont like is the lack of a hands-on tutorials like those in Silent Hunter 3 in which there is a friendly environment for you to man your machine of destruction........So i use the missions and campaigns as practise,by shooting on friendly targets!

[Pirimeister]

A great flight sim that I think deserves an update is Tornado, from DiD (if I'm not wrong).

The flight model was great (at least for the time, 92/93) it had a fabulous mission planning tool, that I believe was adopted -after some improvements- by the british military and the action was trully seat-of-you-pants stuff.

It was one of the few games that could drag me into consecutive all-nighters, just to fly that next mission.

Since it combined both Tornado variants, you could choose from several missions types, AA or AG, and the canned mission wher great fun in themselves. But the big fun was playing the dynamic campaign and planning and airfild strike where you and 5 other Tornados would execute a perfect, simultaneous, Time-on-Target attack and all hell breaked loose with the POL tanks blowing up, the Durandals riping the runway to pieces and the aircraft shelters flattened; all this while going at 550+ kts, a mere 30m above the ground and with 23mm shells coming at you and your RWR looked like the proverbial christmas tree...

Never found another game that was as fun and intense as this one. :cry: I bough Jane's F-15, but for some reason never really got into it - maybe because I didn't have the proper graphics card to run it at its best.

I've tried LOMAC, but being a fan of ground-pounding at high speed, the planes they had on offer came a bit short. And you never got that "gritty" feeling that you got playing Tornado.

[Cheo]

A great flight sim that I think deserves an update is Tornado
Totally agree.
In my opinion, there haven't been a flight sim like Tornado. The dinamic campaign was absolutely amazing, and it's the only flight sim that made me feel I was actually giving close air support to my ground troops.
In addition, the planning mission room was so immersive, that it was a game in itself (I remember trying to find a way throw radar gaps and setting 200 feet height waypoints throw the valleys)
Yes, definitelty the best flight sim ever.