A good flight game.

[super_rip]

Hey I currently have a joystick and flight simulator 2004 from microsoft. I want to use that joystick more and so I was wondering if there is any good "action packed" airplane game? ( I would like a relatively new game )

[Jaggannath]

Do you want a flight sim or a fighter jet game??

[Reaper]

There is only one sim worth flying atm,,thats il2 pacific fighters,,,Check out our site if u wish,,http://www.jg11.com/jg1 great flight sim,,strong communitiy,,plenty of online action,,regards III/JG11_Reaper

[super_rip]

I'm looking for like a jet fighter/airplane combat. It doesn't have to be real. I've looked into Crimson skies and microsoft combat flight sim, and before buying anything I just wanted to ask ppl if they knew of anything better or really good.

[arthur666]

Reaper is right. IL2/Forgotten Battles/Pacific Fighters is the best ever. Quick action mode for instant battles and a dynamic campaign for more involved play, awsome graphics with the best terrain detail i've ever seen. Awsome sense of speed when flying low.

[Jaggannath]

Aces Over the Pacific is my all time favourite fighter game... can't play it any more though

[tomster2300]

Which is the best looking air combat game out right now?

[arthur666]

Lock-On has wonderful graphics, but runs a little slow on my 5600 Ultra. I got the demo. Super realistic, not a good fun action game. No dynamic campaign keeps me from purchasing this one.

[Reaper]

As before IL2fbpf is the only game if you want to test your skills in the air,,graphics ,,campain,its got it all,,even some jets for the jet jockeys

[tomster2300]

Originally Posted by Reaper As before IL2fbpf is the only game if you want to test your skills in the air,,graphics ,,campain,its got it all,,even some jets for the jet jockeys

Do those three come packaged together, or do I have to buy them separately? The last ones are expansion packs, correct? How many expansions are there and is it worth buying them?

[arthur666]

All 3 can stand alone, but I would just get FB and PF. IL2 is basically the first version of FB with no Dynamic campaign and far fewer aircraft and maps. If you have FB and PF, you can combine them and fly all the aircraft in the same game. I would get FB first because flying over land is much nicer looking than flying over the empty ocean. Plus FB has all of the weird soviet WWII aircraft that I'd never heard of. Most of them are way cool and better than the US and German craft I've known since I was a kid.

[3sc4p3]

I have Combat Flight Simulator 4 Battle for Europe and its good.

[tomster2300]

That looks good, I think I'm going to go pick up the Forgotten Battles one. Now, what is the best game which includes modern jets? I remember the old Jane's games...are they still around?

Plus, though this may sound stupid, can you do things like refuel in mid-air in the Forgotten Battles game? (Or did that not exist back then).

Thanks for all the help so far.

[Reaper]

um,,i havent come across it yet in FB,,However the best jet sim i have ever flown and still do is Falcon 4.0,,missions,,Campain,,Mid air refuel,,Not for the faint hearted though. Full real is mind blowing,,the manual is as thick as my leg

[tomster2300]

Lol, the funny thing is that I have Falcon 4.0 but never played it. I bought it long time ago while on vacation and found out that that my old computer could not run it when I got home. You're not kidding when you say the manual is huge, cause it's enormous. I guess I ought to dig it back up and give it another try. Isn't it kind of outdated now though?

One more thing -- is there a game (Falcon 4.0 perhaps?) where you can see the battle going on below you while you're flying overhead? Not a game like battlefield 1942, but a true flight sim.

[arthur666]

Yeah, Falcon has a HUGE dynamic campaign with ground units advancing all over the Korean Peninsula. Make sure you find the latest patch from one of the many Falcon sites and fire that baby up. It works fine with Windows XP. It takes a while to learn how to play the game effectively, but the payoff is worth it. Graphics are outdated though not bad. Falcon 5 anyone?

[tomster2300]

So you can actually look down and see the soldiers and vehicles fighting beneath you? That would be awesome -- you have to remember that the last true flight sim I played was that F-22 game...I dont even remember what it's called.

[arthur666]

Not exactly. Falcon is realistic. In an F-16 at a few thousand feet you can't see a human. Flying real low you can see vehicles and there dust trails, and the fire and missles coming from armored vehicles, which lets you know a big battle is going on. The soldiers are more like groups of dots.

[tomster2300]

So you think it's still the best true fighter sim out there?

[arthur666]

As far as the realistic ones go, yes. The best sims ever, in my humble opinion are Longbow 2, Falcon 4, and the IL2 series. But I still have Jane's fighter anthology on my harddrive for laughs and quick action. More like a video game than a simulator. Maybe its just the nostalgia... It would be cool to have some all inclusive war game with a dynamic campaign, soldiers on the ground, moderately realistic air combat, command and control, etc... Battlefield2 and Flashpoint have a baby and splice in some real-time strategy and sim genes. It could happen, 10 years from now maybe. Or maybe Battlefield2 will be it.

[tomster2300]

Hopefully it'll come soon. I think right now the closest thing would be Battlefield 1942, although the planes have a very arcadish feel to them. I don't believe Battlefield 2 will take the concept any furthur, I think it will only overhaul the originial game's graphics. There will be changes, but I doubt anything drastic. For now I think I'm going to dig out Falcon 4.0 and give it a whirl. The problem I had before (besides that it wouldnt run on my old emachines) was that there was no way for it to be uninstalled, some type of bug or something which probably was fixed in a patch. At the time I had dial-up and also the Falcon website had been shutdown, so I was kind of out of luck.

I'll look around and tell you what I can find on it.

[Reaper]

there are many updates for falcon 4.0,,graphic fixes and the like,,I cant belive you even look at 1942,,however if thats what your looking at,,i think you had better give Falcon 4.0 and il2 a miss,,they are real flight sims,,1942 ,hehehhaha,,lol,,not even close to a real flight sim,,belongs in arcades.

[tomster2300]

Originally Posted by Reaper there are many updates for falcon 4.0,,graphic fixes and the like,,I cant belive you even look at 1942,,however if thats what your looking at,,i think you had better give Falcon 4.0 and il2 a miss,,they are real flight sims,,1942 ,hehehhaha,,lol,,not even close to a real flight sim,,belongs in arcades.

I think you missed the point Reaper. We were only referring to Battlefield 1942 as the only game we could think of which combined air battles along with simultaneous ground battles -- something which you could look down and see occuring below you.

Originally Posted by tomster2300 Hopefully it'll come soon. I think right now the closest thing would be Battlefield 1942, although the planes have a very arcadish feel to them.

I even mentioned that the planes had an arcadish feel to them. Put that quote back in context and it makes sense.

[tomster2300]

I installed the game and its final patch, but when I click play it comes up and says that it cannot find glide2x.dll -- I did a search on this and found it was a file for old voodoo cards, so it's not affecting me. The game continues to run and just bypasses this message so I'm fine, right?

This is a dumb question I know.

[arthur666]

Yeah, should be fine. BTW, my favorite detail in Forgotten Battles:
When you strafe truck convoys, the drivers dive out the door and start running away like mad.

[tomster2300]

I think I'm going to go pick up Forgotten Battles even while trying to learn Falcon 4.0 -- I have one term paper left in high school and it's due Monday then it's smooth sailing til college in the fall I'm so happy (and I'll be even happier Monday morning).

[arthur666]

Check this out

http://www.gamershell.com/news/21657.html

[tomster2300]

That sure sounds good, but what do you think?

[arthur666]

Looks good. I'll see what Simhq.com says when it comes out. There are some high quality add-ons for Falcon, but this might be much more content than those in one package.

[tomster2300]

So they already have add-ons for the current Falcon game? What do they do, just upgrade the game graphically and what not?

Could you show me a few?