What is your favorite Combat Flight Sim?
I'm surprized that someone hasn't made a thread like this so here goes.
For me I'd have to say that Rise of Flight has top be one of my faves. Its realistic, the AI tend to be as skilled as the player, great graphics and multiplayer,tons of aircraft to fly and is in a very overlooked period as combat flight sims go. A very close second would be CFS3, while not the greatest in terms of graphics it has a true dynamic campaign where the players action do effect the course of the war, damage modelling is great, highly moddable, and the player can change certian pilot skills like how much Gs the players pilot can take. Third is IL-2 1946, it has great graphics, good multiplayer, and a great selection of aircraft. But theres a lot of things that in my opinion need to be fixed,updated and added to make IL-2 my most favorite CFS. So what are your fave CFS's? |
Good choices!
I think mine will forever have to be Falcon 4.0, in its latter-day modded state. No game has ever even attempted a dynamic campaign on the same scale (10s of thousands of ground units, hundreds of air units constantly engaged in real-time 3D battlespace? Integrated command and air defense systems? Supply, infrastructure and logistics having real effects? Yes sir!), and the fidelity of the simulation is still second to none, even 14 years after release. When you combine those two things, the immersion factor is unbeatable. You really feel like a small part of a big war. Similar things could be said for Battle of Britain II, which I heartily recommend to everyone. It's often overlooked against IL-2 and CFS 3, especially for lack of its multiplayer, but its newer versions are absolutely outstanding. It has some of the best flight modeling, and by far the best AI out of the current WWII flight sims. Its campaign is also brilliant and more truly dynamic than its direct competitors - and you can even play it as purely a strategy game, controlling the whole air war if you want to and jumping in to participate at any time. And finally, a worthy game to this day is B-17 II, which no other can still touch all these years later as far as bomber sims. It is very much the SHIII of flight sims, with its immersive crew and squadron management features, and near-suicidal difficulty - the real challenge, as in SHIII, is to survive. And to this day, it has some of the best sound design in any game. Of all flight sims, it's the one I would most like to see a true sequel to. |
Birds of Steel
Birds of Steel. World of Planes as it is called on PC. The amount of customization, levels and planes make it the undisputed king of flight sims.
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Yup, The Mighty Eighth is the subtitle I believe. Still got it installed. It's kind of a shame there hadn't been more mods etc. for the game - it definitely does have its limits, weaknesses and glitches. If it ever got the same level of community support and mods as, say, the other two sims I mentioned, it would've been amazing.
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For CFS's I find it hard to say anything wrong about Rise of Flight, it's amazing and the dev team is probably one of the most motivated and dedicated I've ever seen!
But, I have IL-2 1946 with the HSFX mod 4.1 (apologies if theres still something against posting IL-2 mods) and the amount of offline campaigns is amazing, I'm flying in the White Sun-Blue Sky campaign that focusses solely on the Flying Tigers (Which I have some strange attachment to) with all the settings set to hyper realistic. that being said, I feel great for having 15 kills and counting :up: DCS World looks to outdo anything on the market in terms of depth and playability though, I like the module options and I put in my pre-order for the Mig-21 Fishbed module |
IL-2 1946 and CFS3 by far. I do enjoy Jetfighter V too.
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IL2 1946 for its online quality
BOBII:WOV for its offline quality A-10c/BS for its complexity Rise of Flight for its beauty Freefalcon for its community added content Wings over Europe for its theatre and eras (We need more Cold War Gone Hot Combat Flight Sims set in Germany) Comanche vs Hokum for Nostalgia |
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Played my share of the original CFS, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe and other Combat Flight sims on the DOS and Pentium I PC back in the day, I think where I spend the most time in is IL2 1946 playing online.
Can't really name a favorite as I like all of them for their qualities and what they have to offer in gameplay but there are also things I don't like about them. Example: I hate IL2's AI and non-existent campaign that makes the game interesting to play offline or co-op for a long period of time as it becomes rather repetitive and don't offer that much variety. Wings of Victory II: Battle of Britain on the other hand does but doesn't offer multiplayer support to play it coop with friends but iirc they said they where working on a Multiplayer but not sure how far that has gotten so far and it begs that this idea of a campaign and AI was implemented into other Theathers of operations. And I can go on and on for ages about this subject what I like and dislike about the Combat Flightsims. I like them all for what they have to offer and I enjoy(ed) playing them. And that's for me what it is all about. HunterICX |
Yup, can't really pick one, or even two. :hmmm:
Can echo what Oberon said with one addition: European Air War :yep: |
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The key mark of a simulator is realism, i.e. how well it recreates "what really happened" or "being there". On that point, BoB II may not be the most fun, challenging or good-looking - but it's really as close as anyone so far has got to recreating that conflict in a game. Personally I'm not really hung up on realism or anything, but I think there's a real difference between true simulators, sim-lite, and flight games. They might share the subject (flying airplanes) in common, but the actual gameplay and appeal of these games couldn't be more different from each other. |
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F-104s, Phantoms, Lightnings, Sabres (inc. Super) - the list of wanted aircraft goes on and on. :yeah: |
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That's the primary reason I like Wings Over Europe. In terms of simulation...well...it's not going to challenge DCS any time soon, but you have Germany and if you install NATO Fighters modpack then you get a whole load of toys to play with, including the Frightening. :yep: But, I would love someone like DCS to take a run at a 1985ish era scenario, although admittedly dogfighting over the West German front in the first two days of the war would be a little bit like sticking your arm into a blender, but it would be spectacular. I used to have a lovely print of a painting of a Harrier taking off from inside a wood, no idea where it went, sadly the frame was knackered. Was very atmospheric though. :yep: |
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That's a fair enough opinion as console flight sims don't tend to be as good as PC games. However, I found that birds of steel actually goes out of its way in visual accuracy. All of the fighters and one engined bombers have gloriously detailed cockpits, and is the only game I can think of which has the pilot's character model respond to the buttons pressed in first person mode. I guess that in the end it's all just personal preference! Good luck in BoB II! |
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