Is the combat flight sim genre really dead?

One of my first computer games was Dynamix's Red Baron. Loved it. Then spent hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hours playing Aces of the Pacific. For the past decade, I've been playing the IL-2 Sturmovik games, culminating in the 1946 package.

But since the mid 2000s, there's been really nothing out there. The loooooooong-awaited IL-2 successor, has been torn apart by reviewers as so buggy as to be nearly unplayable, and generally half-baked. DCS: Warthog and DCS: Black Shark are, as far as I understand, oriented solely at people who want to sink hundreds of dollars into having their own cockpit in their home office, playing with 100% realism, but just aren't well suited to the sorts of people who like to play with about 75% realism, with a keyboard, mouse, and joystick.

Is there ANYTHING like Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator, IL-2 Sturmovik, or Aces of the Pacific coming? Ever? Or is this genre really dead and gone?

 

No... Some people still play...not many but some...

 

But what do they play? 5+ year old games? The DCS sims? By "dead," I meant on the development side (i.e., new games); I wasn't talking about whether people are still playing flight sims that were released 5-10 years ago.

 

Wasn't HawX a flight sim? I think that's pretty new.

 

Flight sims in 2011 | Community | The Royal Aeronautical Society

There seem to be plenty on this list, but I dunno much about them because I don't have a working joystick since 2004 :/

The last two videos look the best IMO.

 

Janes Fighters Anthology and IL-2 are the only good combat sims AFAIC. The space combat sim genre is LONG gone unfortunately. *clings to Freespace 1 and 2 discs with dear life*

 

I see that more of an arcade shooting game with a flying theme. There's no attempt, as far as I can tell, to model real flight characteristics at all. When I'm talking about 70% realism, I'm talking about a sim with real flight characteristics and weapons behavior, but some simplifications in engine management (prop pitch, radiator opening, etc) to account for the keyboard-and-joystick input instead of a full cockpit, and perhaps some simplifications in viewing to account for the fact that real pilots have peripheral vision and the ability to turn their head instead of a 15" field of vision. But there's a big difference between IL-2 or Aces of the Pacific at 70% realism and a flying-themed arcade game like HAWX or the 8-bit Nintendo game "Top Gun." That's not a knock against flying-themed arcade games, just a differentiation that I think can be made.

 

Look what I discovered--there's an unadvertised mode in DCS: A-10 Warthog, "game mode," that offers realistic flight models but a simplified user interface, much like 70% realism in IL-2 and games like that. It might be just what I'm looking for.

SimHQ Review - DCS: A-10C Warthog (skip to the heading "game mode" for a comparison of that mode and the main mode)

It sounds like DCS Black Shark had a "game mode" as well...a simplified user control setup, but still more realism than arcade. DCS: Black Shark Review - PC Review at IGN

Anyone have any first-hand experience with either DCS game who might want to comment on these "game modes" and how satisfying they are?

 

try rise of flight. i you loved red baron, youre gonna love this.

and biplanes beat the s!@t out of jets- real planes, real men during those days

 

Looking through videos and reviews of Rise of Flight, it definitely looks worth a shot.

Personally, my favorite era for combat flight sims is WWII. I prefer WWII over WWI because of speed of the aircraft and because I feel like what you're doing actually matters in the bigger picture. But it's still got solely direct-fire weapons, which require you to maneuver right on someone's tail to get a kill, thus bringing in all the dogfighting strategy and techniques. I respect the technology of radar and missiles and the like, but it's not as viscerally satisfying for me.

 

I remember Red Baron, such an awesome game. I think i still have my joystick somewhere but i dont think my computer has that joystick port anymore.

 

As a total package Rise of Flight takes a back seat to "Over Flanders Fields Between Heaven and Hell" or affectionately referred to as OFF Phase 3. It does require Combat Flight Sim 3 but it because a totally different WWI Flight Sim with a dynamic campaign and tough AI.

OFF Phase 4 is currently in progress. Btw I have RoF Iron Cross Edition and OFF 3.

Still to this day Falcon 4.0 is still a gem and is also a study sim just like the DCS products.

 

Heh, I wish they'd make freespace 3, lol. I've played 1, 2 and a bunch of the mods to death.

 

If they make it, I will buy it.

 

I think a lot of people would, even if it wasn't great graphically by today's standards because it's been so long since this type of game has been created that even a dx10 overhaul would look awesome and be fun. Not to mention if they added in some real physics.

There's some innovation for ya, without even having to be all that innovative.

 

Actually, it'd be a "sequel" with "possibly better graphics," last time I checked

 

There's an MMO in the works that looks like it might be a flight sim called World of Planes. The website has screenshots of the cockpits in game so it might have some promise. News | World of Planes - Gaijin Entertainment

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There was a guy who had posted at the old Volition forums years ago (the makers of the Freespace franchise), that had been hired on at Volition, and talked to some of the developers. There was originally an idea for the FS3 plot, that another jump gate was found to be open, which led to the Shivan homeworld, and the plot was that the GTVA would fight their way to the Shivan homeworld, destroy it and all Shivans once and for all, at the same time the jump gate to earth would have been repaired (by the tech that was recovered in FS2), and the ending sequence would have been the GTVA fleet finally returning to earth.
Everyone wanted a Freespace 3, but unfortunately Interplay had went belly up and Volition shifted their focus on other projects, and it never got off the ground. Atleast they were nice enough to release the FS2 source code.

 

There's also a space combat flight sim (sort of) mmo, Black prophecies. It was a little too intense for my lowely M11x, but if it didn't lag it seemed like it would have been fun. It's also F2P.

 

I remember back in the day, before I went completely to civil aviation, I used to play lotsa Il-2. I started with the original Il-2 Sturmovik in 2001, then I built my way to Il-2 FB, which was even better than the original. There were a lot of expansions for it and I liked the thing that I could combine them all, and make Il-2 FB into a WW2 sim which pretty much covered all of the fronts. I had FB+Aces expansion pack+game which was titled in Russian as just "Pearl Harbor".
As for modern combat sims, I played Flanker 2.0 and 2.5 and later on Lock-On. Really great games, but not very to my liking. I'm like the OP who likes to get to the enemy's tail and fire up the guns.
Also I tried some helicopter combat sims, but they were really hard for me control wise.

 

Please, just give us X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter updated for dx10/11 with the ability to make our own missions like the old game had. Instant buy.

I have Freespace 2 somewhere, but I've never played it. The Descent series by the same company was excellent though, countless hours of my younger years were dedicated to it.

 

Go to gog.com, buy Enemy Engaged: Apache v. Havoc and Enemy Engaged: Comanche v. Hokum. Then go to simhq and download arneh's mod pack. The resulting game strikes the perfect balance of realism and simplification in flying a combat helicopter. There's enough depth for you to get into the unusual physics of it, but it's not the sort of thing that leaves you toggling switches for twenty minutes trying to get the damn thing off the ground.

And as a bonus, Arneh's mods added the Mi-24 Hind as a flyable aircraft:

Hind returns - YouTube

EE also includes a really good pdf manual that not only explains game controls, but the actual physics of flying a helicopter and the tactics (sniping and slashing). Kind of like how the old Dynamix manuals explained maneuvers and tactics and physics instead of just game controls.

 

I have this one lol, put somewhere deep in the shelf. Back in the day then I was a real n00b it was sooooo hard, after that I unfortunately gave up heli-sims. Not that I care about 'em. I consider myself a plane loving geek Although heli-sims also have their niche.

 

Unmodded, it WAS too hard. There were too many "fast movers" (fixed-wing aircraft), and you really couldn't do jack if a fast mover stumbled upon you. It was pure luck whether you'd be able to complete a mission without running into fixed-wing aircraft. With the mods, it's basically helicopters and ground vehicles, which is a lot more balanced and entertaining.

Also, the flight physics have really been improved. You can "feel" what the vehicle is doing much better. It really is one of the best mod packs I've ever seen. Moved the game forward 5+ years easily. I don't know arneh and have no connection with his work; I'm just a huge fan of it.

The number one thing that will help you fly; quit thinking of it like a fixed-wing flight sim and start thinking of it as a cover-based FPS. Seriously. Dash from cover to cover, peek out and fire and hide again, even circle-strafing (in the Ka-52)...it all applies to helicopter combat.

 

for ww2 you could try wings of prey. from the same developers as il-2, it isnt as hardcore as il-2, but the flight models are good and the graphics and missions are quite viceral.
in fact ive never seen a ww2 air war movie that looks as good as wings of prey.
they also made a more realistic version of wop, i think its called over dover field or something, but i think its scope is just too limited.

try out wop and its dlc. i think they are on sale in steam.

 

i agree re off. but youre actually buying 2 games to play one so to me rof iron cross is a better choice money-wise. plus i like the developers of rof. theyre sort of a mom and pop shop, and they do respond to fans and do a lot of extra work/expansions for rof.

 

I'll check out Wings of Prey.

Cliffs of Dover was supposed to be the next-generation IL-2. It's thoroughly half-baked and nearly unplayable. It got a 4 out of 10 from GameSpot, and its rating on Steam is similarly bad.

IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover, IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover PC - GameSpot.com

 

Definitely, I am with you.

 

I wish someone would come out with a successor to the Janes AH-64D Longbow / Longbow 2 series.

 

Yes, PLEASE.

 

That's going offtopic, since those games just mentioned are arcade flight games. Nowhere close to being sims.

But I thought there was some warthog sim game released recently. HTWingNut I thought was excited about some new flight sim game.

 

DCS:A10 is the warthog sim... great sim, highly recommend