With all the different sims out it's hard to keep track of them
all but these are some of our current favorites.
Maddox Games/UbiSoft's IL2:
Wow! That's all we can say about this gem. The Russians are coming! The Russians are
coming! All I can say is thank god they did. This is THE BEST flight sim EVER. Hyperbole?
We don't think so. Il2 has leapt to the front of all prior sims with a stunning
combination of flight modeling, beautiful graphics, great game play and heart. Yes I said
heart. This is a work of love by one Oleg Maddox and friends and it shows. Attention to
detail is rampant throughout this fine sim. For the uninitiated Il2 models the Eastern
Front side of air operations during World War II. You can fly for either the Russians or
Germans in a dizzying array of aircraft. Several versions of the Me109, FW190, Yak3, Il2
(of course!) and others. In addition there are several other flyable aircraft in the
pipeline like the Stuka.
At our last netmeet with some reservations about yet another wannabe sim we installed Il2.
17 hours later we ended the meet after an almost nonstop Il2 marathon. It's multiplayer
was almost rock solid. We flew mostly cooperative missions and had a blast. Right now Il2
is the one to beat. A hearty Skyscraper endorsement. BUY THIS SIM!!!
Bohemia Interactive's Operation Flashpoint:
This latest offering has been a staple at the last few netmeets. While generally
preferring aircraft sims this product has generated a lot of interest in the Skyscrapers
lately. In short it has something for everyone. Ya wanna run around and machine gun yer
enemies? Go right ahead. Feel like flying? Fine, pop into an Apache, A-10, AH-1, UH60,
Su25, Mi 17, or Mi 24 Hind! Pilot or gunner! Well maybe the wild blue yonder is not yer
cup o tea? OK then hop into armored beasts like the Abrams and T80s! Sheesh there is
nothing you cant drive in this sim. Yes I said sim. While suffering the obvious problems
of trying to model so many different weapons platforms OFP as a whole is THE best
BATTLEFIELD SIM ever. Bar none. OFP has its faults but the overall feel coupled with it's
awesome multiplayer qualities make OFP almost unbeatable.
When we first fired this up at a netmeet we were hooked. You really feel as if you
are in the middle of a battlefield. The atmosphere is terrific. rounds whizzing by your
head, the roar of armored vehicles that can be even more ominous when they are unseen,
gunships flying overhead searching for targets, an almost dizzying array of weapons and
vehicles almost everyone of which are capable of being driven fired, reloaded, flown and
interacted with combine to make OFP incredibly immersive. The last mission of that first
meet we used OFP had us on the edge of our seats, hearts pounding, throats hoarse from
shouting with the intense activity of the mission.
With it's rather open architecture, powerful mission editor and rabid mod-making
fan base, OFP should be a fixture at our lan meets for the foreseeable future. Highly
recommended.
Jane's F/A-18:
Currently the best overall study sim out right now. Anchored by the usual exacting attention to detail that Janes is famous for, this sim also earns kudos for its almost flawless multiplayer performance. Easy, no nonsense connects just make F-18 so easy to like. While the terrain graphics are OK, the sky graphics are the best of any sim bar none. Puffy clouds, beautiful sunsets, stunning twilight, truly dark nights and the best sun effects of any sim ever just make this sim a delight to fly. White knuckle carrier traps, cool weather effects and good mission design combine to make F-18 the sim of choice for the wing at present. The powerful mission editor will also help keep it there long after the default campaigns have been played through.
Updated 30 JUL 2000:
A little update is in order here. So far F18 has not proved
to be the main sim for the 718th the last few meets. What has killed it for most of
the wing is the lack of a dynamic campaign. Also the amount of missions found on the net
has proven to be rather small and of dubious quality. Coupled with the lack of time and
where withal to design new missions ahs given F18 surprisingly short legs sim wise. On top
of this you need a pretty good PC to run it the way it should be and this has slowed
things down too.
Microprose's Falcon 4.0:
The very close contender first place in the Skyscrapers affections is the very ambitious, long awaited sequel to the magnificent Falcon 3.0, the sim that most of the 718th TFW cut their teeth on. When it is working well, this sim has no competition. It is simply THE best sim out there. The caveat is that this very ambitiousness is also Falcon 4's achilles heel. Numerous CTDs, both fatal and non-fatal bugs conspired to hold it from first place at our meets. With a valiant effort before being laid off by the pin headed bean counters at Hasbro, the development team managed to release one final patch that addressed most of the glaring deficiencies in F4. This finally did make F4 fairly stable, by and large quieting most of the complaints leveled at F4. But there still remain some niggling problems that just team up to keep it just out the #1 slot at the 718th.
Updated 30 JUL 2000:
Well things have changed a bit, mostly for the better, since we posted the above. After Hasbro's questionable decision to abandon Falcon 4, the flight sim community has stepped in to fill the void left by Hasbro's flight from sims. First, the crew of F4 enthusiasts at iBeta has continually updated the F4 executable with various tweaks and hacked their way through the V 1.08 F4 code (legally, more on this later). They have produced "Realism patches" that fix things like force feedback, flight modeling, ordnance effects, RWR, avionics and a host of other problems that are too numerous to mention here. What they have done is make Falcon into the game it should have been when first released. What is more amazing is the user support that has also sprung up. There are many cockpit variants available now such as wide angle view, illuminated panels for night flight, and others, all designed by lovers of Falcon 4. Their efforts are breathing new life into what looked to be a moribund sim. Along with the cockpits there are mods to fly any plane, fix RWR tweaks, campaign bubbles (serious hacking there) and countless other fixes. Frankly Falcon 4 has now evolved far past what one could reasonably have expected for the original sim and moved to what it should have become had MPS been able to continue the series. And it is only getting bigger as we write this. All the flight models of the various aircraft now flyable are being tweaked to better represent their real life counterparts including their own cockpits! Falcon is now more like a much improved Fighter's Anthology with a dynamic campaign. Can't beat that with a stick.
Another thing happened to Falcon 4 that is newsworthy. This is still being debated by all and sundry but the long and short of it is that someone at MPS leaked the Falcon 4 source code. While we stand on the fence about the correctness of this action the ramifications are huge and now just beginning to bear fruit. Basically F4 has become, in effect, open source. While debating the morals of the action itself there's no question that this can be very good for the F4 community at large. Even though based on the earlier 1.07 code, there are now a few mods out that are bringing it up to the stability of the 1.08 version. While it has gone underground since the release there are still efforts to use this source to make a better sim.
In conclusion Falcon is a whole new sim. It's still got some holes but all in all it's turning out to be the sim of choice for our meets.
Here are some links for sources of Falcon mods and such:
iBeta, The best of the best
http://www.ibeta.com/html/ibeta_f4_RP_downloads.htm
Falcon40.Com, Good source for links to the various mods:
http://www.falcon40.com/default.htm
Joel Bierling's F4 page, Go here to get a patching program that makes it easy to add or delete mods to F4. A must have:
http://www.bierling.net/joel/index.htm?http://www.bierling.net/joel/pages/falcon4/falcon4.htm
Sylvain's page of stuff, More files, cockpits and some files already linked to. Good source:
http://members.xoom.com/sylvaing1/
Frugal's World. Here is a very good site for Falcon 4 files and info. In
addition there are other sims represented on this site also. Lot's of good stuff:
http://www.frugalsworld.com/falcon4.html
European Air War:
This gem while not played much lately, is also one of the wing's favorites. Now we are a bit biased in that we were very fortunate to be asked to beta test it for LAN play. But with good flight models, wonderful atmosphere and great multiplayer, EAW just rocks. In addition the fantastic add-ons created by a few unsung heroes of the sim world, have combined to make EAW a simply awesome sim. A 718th TFW must buy. EAW is proving to have long legs within the hard core flight sim community and should continue for quite some time.
Jane's World War II Fighters:
Next to EAW this is the WW2 sim to beat. It is simply one of the most beautiful sims to fly. While not the best in terms of flight modeling, it's near the top and the overall feel of and look of WW2 Fighters is second to none. When flying over the frozen Ardennes you really feel cold! What makes this a keeper for the 718th is again the flawless implementation of the multiplay. Comms are very good. In addition, WW2 Fighters great mission creator provides many great new user created missions for the 718th to fly.
Here some of the other sims the 718th has "flown" in the past:
Fighters Anthology for the millennium. Too light to fight. But good multiplay. Eclipsed by
Falcon4 and F/A-18
So close but so far, What killed it was no cooperative play. Had it been there we'd still
be flying F15 today.
Awesome survey sim. Great multiplay. Easy to use mission creator. Still slow with all
graphics up!
See above. Flying above the 'Nam. What more can we say?
One of the best. The first with a dynamic cooperative campaign. Looking forward to EF2000
V3
Arguably the best designed sim ever. If only other sims, fixed wing or otherwise, did it
as well.
SCREENSHOTS!
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