This topic was spurred by Lancmans (No 12) post on the Defiant thread. I’d like to ask you flight simmers what is your preferred sim of choice, and why. I’m fairly new to the net and think I’ve struck gold with the one I use – but I’d like to read why you like yours.
I play Aces High, by Hightech Creations. It was available from http://www.Download.com when I got it in March. Free to install, you can fly all the dozens of models (fighters, bombers etc) off line (with no opponents), and go H2H with up to 8 players for free. After a trial period in the main arenas, you pay about £15 p.m. (H2H remains free), which can have up to 700 players. Scenery is representative of actual locations, and the allied and axis countries are represented. New updates are regularly downloaded with more types coming on every couple of months. You can use the radio by keyboard or mic.
Just as Lancman loves to jump into a Defiant Turret, I love doing the same in a bomber (esp JU88) with two computerised bombers accompanying me. I simply call the fighters in (“Lecter is game on!”) and marvel as the combined fire from us makes toast of them (sometimes!)
Oh yes, it’s a real laugh when you capture an enemy airfield with paratroops from your DC-3 (if you make it that far!). When they jump/deplane, they shout ‘GERONIMO!!’ and scuttle to the Stn War Room.
How about you?
By: Bluebird Mike - 28th September 2002 at 13:13
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
I think that if you want to sit at your PC for 5 hours and ‘fly’ a 747 to New York in real time, Microsoft Flight Sim is your choice, but otherwise, go elsewhere!
Just downloaded myself a lovely contra-prop Seafire, and I’ve been having good fun with a Tempest and Typhoon, too! Dumped my Stirling, though-flew like a brick!
By: Hatton - 28th September 2002 at 09:28
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
I must admit i did enjoy Microsoft Flight Simulator until my computer became too outdated 🙂 I had an RAF 80th anniversary add on kit but the aircraft did none of the “animated” things suggested here 🙂
best regards, steve
By: munnst - 28th September 2002 at 08:40
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
If it’s Beaufighters and Blenheims you want wait for Il2 Med.
Anti shipping anyone!
By: Bluebird Mike - 27th September 2002 at 21:18
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
I’ve just downloaded myself the beta-test version of the Wellington X-more good fun! I might lose a couple of my Beaufighter variants though, I don’t see the need for having four of them and it makes more room for the Wimpey files…ah, choices, choices!!!
By: Snapper - 27th September 2002 at 21:15
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
“getting a Gee Bee off the ground without killing myself, tight moves in a Spit, getting anywhere at all in a Defiant”
……….Strafing a heavily (flak) defended railway yard in a Lancaster (I just HAD to try!).
Perhaps tasteless, perhaps not. I fly a Typhoon 1B in the markings of R7752 PR-G (Paul Richey and then Roland Beamont’s Aircraft as S/Ldr of 609) and sent pictures of it to Bee via the 609 Association. If it makes it more alive to kids (I admit I am just farting around for the hell of it) then does that not make it justified just a leeeetle beet?
And Medal of Honor is brilliant. Until, that is, your computer screams in agony and refuses to play it anymore, it won’t uninstall, and you wife holds a knife to you throat / Mouse cable with threats of emasculation etc. Is not a war film tasteless by those parameters?
By: Bluebird Mike - 27th September 2002 at 17:06
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
I agree that some sims can have elements of tastelessness to them, though I don’t consider my personal favoured one to be one of these. For me, it’s more about the ‘flying’ anyway-getting a Gee Bee off the ground without killing myself, tight moves in a Spit, getting anywhere at all in a Defiant!
By: munnst - 27th September 2002 at 14:33
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
Medal of honour is a great game.
Most gamers realise it’s just a game.
Flight sims are great too.
When I fly online it is very good spirited and everybody enjoys the challenge.
BTW you don’t have to fly to fight, check out the air racing link above!
By: Hatton - 27th September 2002 at 10:07
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
Does anybody think that many of todays simulations, whether air based or land, can be pretty tasteless.
There is one “shoot-em-up” (medal of honour, it may be called) where you can take part in the d-day landings!!!
Im not a big fan of these kind of games, i think they trivialise the events they are meant to portray. I think the flight sims are a bit better but even some of these can be quite tasteless.
best regards, steve
By: munnst - 27th September 2002 at 09:47
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
You can even fly Black 6!
http://forums.ubi.com/messages/message_view-topic.asp?name=us_il2sturmo…
By: munnst - 26th September 2002 at 22:12
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
Air racing Il2 style!
By: Snapper - 26th September 2002 at 22:12
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
Microsoft CFS and CFS2. But not stock from the box. From various sites (mostly www.simviation.com ) I have downloaded extra campaigns, missions, planes, sounds, and other add-ons. Like massive amounts of flak, more realistic tracer, better gunsights, etc etc etc. SOOOOOOOO happy with my new Hawker Typhoon with Napier Sabre (real) Wav file and 8x 60lb RP’s. Had one of the Jane’s ones – great graphics, but didn’t really find it fun. Waiting now for CFS3 (and the add-ons people will come up with) in November.
And occasionally, I have some lunacy – last night I sank the US fleet at Pearl Harbor with the cannon in my F14………..
By: Moggy C - 26th September 2002 at 22:02
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
Online? I used to play Warbirds, specialised in Mosquito bombing, flak suppression in the fighters, esp Mk9 Spit and JU52 sneak attacks. But it all went to pieces about a year ago when they mucked about with the sim and my squadron broke up.
Offline. Just getting into the Mosquito Squadron add-on for CFS2. The noise they have given the two Merlins heard from within the cockpit has to be heard to be believed. Sounds a bit like some of the Lancaster full-power bits from the Dambusters film so must be fairly realistic.
Moggy
By: munnst - 26th September 2002 at 21:38
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
Got to be the state of the art simulation Il2 Sturmovik.
Not only does it model a theatre never modelled before – the Eastern front, but it simply has the best flight dynamics of any flight simulation ever!
It has a Ju87 which you can play pilot or gunner.
The Stuka comes complete with dive brakes, dive siren, altitude horn and automatic pull out on bomb release.
You could always fly the 109E-G models complete with cannon. Perhaps fly a `Jabo` with the 190.
Hop in an Il2 for tank busting, IL2T for anti shipping or I16 (gotta hand crank that u/c though!).
Mig’s, Yak’s are modelled. There’s a P2 biplane and the B1 rocket plane.
Oh and they are adding a Hurricane and Blenheim for the Finnish airforce (there’s a few fiats thrown in for good measure too). In all over 100 aircraft.
With the latest upgrade Forgotten Battles you have searchlights and balloons, not to mention flak!
For me I just love the shudder of cannon recoil and that grey tracer smoke, or maybe nursing that Il2 back with a rough engine and a hole in the wing big enougth to fall through.
Did I mention the P39?
Have a look!
By: Bluebird Mike - 26th September 2002 at 20:56
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
Yes, there’s a Ju87 in the downloads plane pack for the game, though it’s one I’ve personally not flown much so I can’t speak much for that one, or whether it screams or not!
I’ve just had a look, and ‘Fighter Squadron’ is currently only £8.99 on Amazon, which makes it even better for what you get for your money. Add to that an hour or so to download the (self installing) plane pack, and you will have probably the finest selection of WW2 aircraft you’ll ever see all in one sim! There are a couple of quibbles raised by reviewers on Amazon-one is that the online fraternity is a bit, well, up itself, and that I’d agree with-but the game can be made to be big enough, and has a good enough A.I, that you don’t need other people.
By: Seafuryfan - 26th September 2002 at 20:34
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
Thanks for that, Lancman. I am trying out dive bombing in the Dauntless (with those huge dive brakes) but Aces High does not model a Stuka at the moment.
Does fighter Sqaudron do a JU-87, and if so, does it scream in the dive?!
By: Bluebird Mike - 26th September 2002 at 20:23
RE: WWII Flight Sims – what’s yours?
Well, as I’ve said, it’s the older but still superb ‘Fighter Squadron’ for me. Subtitled ‘Screamin’ Daemons Over Europe’, it even has a picture on the cover of Lanc ‘Just Jane’ in the air from many moons ago!
The standard game as shipped is a damn good place to start, but once you’ve downloaded the latest pack of extras-plane pack 6 currently-you’re starting to get some seriously fun planes to fly around in! Imagine you’re on HMS Ark Royal, starting below decks on a lift in your wonderfully detailed Seafire. Up you come on deck, under a great overcast sky, and you start her up and launch yourself off the carrier for a mission…survive that, and then you can try and land back onboard!
Or how about some of the extra, extra planes that are out there-the aforementioned Defiant, or what about a Stirling, complete with its mind-boggling undercarriage?! A nice Beaufighter, anyone? Exquisite Hurricane? Standard Lanc? Grand Slam Lanc? Dams Lanc with bouncing bomb?
For the US enthusiast-Corsair, Wildcat, Lightning, B-17, Mustang, and many, many more…and for the Axis-minded amongst you, Me262, umpteen variants of 109, 190, Ju88, experimental jets…I could go on!
Highly, highly recommended!
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September 26, 2002 at 7:04 pm