Thrustmaster have posted a detailed look at the training aspects of the sim with particular regard to the "Rod Machado's Ground School". Here's a snippet:
"The IFR is next, and once you have completed these lessons you can complete the Commercial Pilot rating. The IFR and Commercial ratings are plenty challenging. I flew the VOR approach near Seattle and found it a handful. The instructor will reduce your anxiety on training flights like this – he knows his stuff! The atmospherics are fantastic, and I can’t wait to try this one will full ATC."
Sturmovik Technika have posted details of a utility by Matt Thompson-Moltzen:
"'IL2 Stab' follows on from the popular 'EAW Stab' utility offering the user the ability to configure both documented and undocumented features of IL2 Sturmovik with a few simple mouse clicks. Options include Historical / Realism Options, Audio / Visual Options and Miscellaneous Options."
All the staff of Frugal's World would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas. Thank you all for your support throughout 2001, particularly those that helped with donations. This year has seen us go from 250,000 visitors per month in January to nearly 750,000 in December.
Our dream was for a site founded on mutual respect & friendship, devoid of flame wars, where people could come for help and know that they would receive it. You made our dream come true, we hope all your dreams come true in 2002.
Sim-News have posted their review of the game. Rob Yurystowski takes a look:
"The visual aspects of IL2 Sturmovik are a sight to behold! Resolutions up to 1280x960 are supported in both OpenGL and DirectX 8. Performance on an AMD Thunderbird 1.0Ghz with a GeForce 2 GTS machine is smooth as silk with all details on maximum. Lower end machines can be accommodated easily with a multitude of scalable graphics options. Terrain consists of varied elevations, clear textures and break-through 3D forest representations. The trees are the best yet in a combat simulation, looking good from all altitudes. Cities and towns are fully populated with trees, roads, houses, factories and railway stations. They are appropriately dark and somber looking, as Eastern European industrial cities were in this era. Airfields are populated with trucks, hangers and aircraft too."
Steve 'Bearracing' Cartwright at AVSim has posted a review of Victory Simulations air race sim. Here, Steve discusses the different flight modes:
"Besides the single race mode, you do have the choice of flying a full season, freeflight, and an interesting mode called Combat. The Combat is more like an air show demonstration of a two-plane dogfight, except you have real guns and you can shoot down your opponent. I only tried the combat mode once and I found it to be very difficult or next to impossible, because even though I was flying RareBear (the world's record holder for speed for a propeller driven aircraft), my opponent (Miss America, a P-51) was capable of at least 100 knots more speed then I could attain. No matter what I did, Miss America could pretty much sweep down on me at will and I was really nothing more than a target! Ugh!"
The following announcement has been released by Novalogic:
"NovaLogic releases multiplayer demo for Comanche 4 Calabasas, Ca (December 21, 2001) - Entertainment software developer and publisher NovaLogic, Inc. today released a multiplayer demo for their shooter in the sky, Comanche 4. The demo contains both a single and multiplayer level.
The multiplayer death match level, Cityscape, where up to 16 gamers can play against each other online via NovaWorld, has been designed to give gamers a taste of the multiplayer challenges that await them in the final version of the game. The single player level, Silver Strike, has been taken from the retail version of Comanche 4.
The demo can be downloaded from NovaLogic's web site: www.novalogic.com. The full version of Comanche 4 is in retail outlets now."
v1.5 is now availible as an auto update when the game is next launched. Chris "Mo" Sherland details the gameplay additions in the announcement newsgroup which includes a number of gameplay tweaks and new weapons. Here's a snippet:
"The Somua S-35, Blenheim MkI fighter, and the FlaK30 were all added, as well as some new in-game-map arrows for helping navigation. The central arrow shows your vector (which way you are pointing) the red arrow shows a steer for target (if you have a mission selected) and the blue arrow is a steer for home queue. More fortified capture buildings have been added, as well as stone walls for some army bases, making capture more, shall we say; “interesting” from time to time."
Kurt 'Froglips' Giesselman has posted the following announcedment over at the f4ut site:
"Falcon Pilots,
The Falcon 4 SuperPAK officially formed the Unified Team and began the SuperPAK project on September 1st, 2001. We have released SP1, the integration of RP5 and eFalcon v1.10, to broad acclaim and will release the next version of the SuperPAK exe, SP2, on or about Jan 5th. We would anticipate two patch releases with one at the end of January and the other at the beginning of March. The final exe release at the end of March will mark the end of phase one of the SuperPAK project. After that the team will have several enormous tasks in front of us that will not require exe changes but are still part and parcel to the SuperPAK project. Our next project will include adding the Theaters that the in game GUI drop down theater menu will access. We are busy getting all the hooks in the code but will not have time to actually add the Balkans, Middle East, Vietnam, or Afganistan theaters until after we finish getting the exe debugged. We have a tremendous back log of new artwork to add, new improvements to the flight models, new corrections to the weapons and vehicle data, new additions to the Tactical Reference, and a manual that will just knock your socks off.
The biggest news that I am pleased to report is that the SuperPAK management team has agreed to tackle the biggest nut in the Falcon forest, the campaign engine. We are adding a large number of new externalized variables to the campaign engine in the new SP2 release. We are discussing building, with G2i's blessing, a true Campaign Builder/Editor for Falcon 4.0 SP2+. The release of SP v2.0 is just the beginning or our work, not the end.
Kurt 'Froglips' Giesselman F4SP - Spokesperson RPG - bubbles, comms, general chaos F4Terrain - documentation and PR, Balkan Powderkeg froglips@indy.rr.com ICQ - 2968609"
Tim Admire of Sim-News has posted an in-depth review of the game. Here's a snippet:
"Comanche 4 models many of the weapons that the real RAH-66 Comanche helicopter can carry but with greatly limited realism, as I doubt the RAH-66’s cannon can make a 90-degree snap to lock and begin firing on a target in less than one second, nor can a Hellfire missile lock onto a human target—but these weapons are there and they look real, which is more than can be said for many other action games. Overall, I think the graphical details and the sound were the factors which drew me in most to Comanche 4, but let me explain."
The full review can be read HERE. Sim-News are also running a competition with chances to win a number of Comanche 4 goodies. Check it out
HERE
I have posted Chunx' latest logbook article entitled "The Bombcat Challenge" Here's a snippet:
"We didn’t have to wait long, as two closely spaced blips appeared on our Digital Display radar screens. We didn’t know if the Hornets had seen us on their own radars yet, but from their actions it was obvious they were being vectored towards us by their GCI controller. We informed our own GCI controller of the two contacts, their location off of bullseye and requested a threat declaration from him. The immediate response was that these two blips were enemies, and we were cleared to engage them with missiles. In one fluid motion our two Tomcats maneuvered into position for a beyond-visual-range missile engagement. With a “Fox 3” call from each jet, we fired a single, simulated AIM-54C+ Phoenix missile at our assigned bandit. Back at the TACTS relay station, the umpire would be the only one to see our missiles’ computer-simulated flight towards the adversary Hornets. But as “Weasel” and I watched our intercept unfold, our adversaries got wise to their impending doom and, like two fish sensing a hook inside the bait, they each made a rapid break turn towards the south, kinematically defeating our Phoenix missile shots."
"Hard-core flight-simer's will be disappointed - this is not for the types who fly London-Paris realtime in MS Flight Sim - if you're one of those people you'll have a coronary within three minutes of picking up Commanche 4. There really isn't any instrument fiddling, no aircraft controls you can tweak - just a big fire button to press, and for all of Novalogic's attempts to make the game complexity scalable so that both action gamers and traditional flight-simers can enjoy it, they've failed pretty poorly it has to be said - the game is action based make no mistake."
SimHQ have also posted a link to a review at Eurogamer and here's an extract:
"The enemy AI doesn't seem to quite understand trees either, and sometimes you will catch your foe trying to fire ground-to-air rockets through foliage, only for the missile to blow up in its face as it strikes a stray twig. Otherwise the AI does a reasonable job, although the focus seems to be more on numbers than brains when it comes to enemy forces. It's not unusual to find yourself going up against dozens of hostile troops single-handed, which can be highly satisfying, if not particularly realistic. Ammunition is often in short supply, but you can always return to base or find a forward resupply post to restock and repair at. Again, this isn't particularly realistic (your 'copter is restored to full ammo and health the second you touch down), but it does make some of the tougher missions that little bit more manageable."
"Merry Christmas Saitek Users..... This is FANTASTIC!!! Your Saitek X36/X45 controllers are now programmable under Win2k/XP!
Here's what's available:
- New Windows 2000/XP drivers for the Saitek X36/X45 controllers from Dhauzimmer! - X36 Programmer - a graphical programming interface for Windows 2000/XP from Smeghead! - HazardScript - a text based programming utility for Windows 2000/XP from HapHazard! - I have information - downloads - links and examples of all the above on my SaitekHelp Center web site. Be sure to check it out!
There is no longer any need to not operate Windows 2000/XP due to the limitations of your Saitek X36/X45 controllers!
Thanks to HapHazard, Smeghead and Dhauzimmer for all their work in making the Saitek X36/X45 controllers better and beating Saitek at their own game."
With a straight five stars, Steve Danielsson enthusiastically reviews the game over at Gamesdomain. Here's an extract:
"So it looks incredible, feels amazing and there's a bunch of planes to fly, but what of the actual game to play? First on offer is the Pilot Career (campaign) mode, which allows you to play the German side as a fighter pilot or the Russian side as bomber or fighter pilot. Unfortunately, the campaigns consist of straight scripted missions; if you fail the mission objectives you have to play it again - nothing fancy here. The missions themselves are interesting and diverse, ranging from mud moving attack missions, close air support, intercepts, escort and even torpedo attacks. The latter adds another interesting twist to this sim."
Doug "guod" Atkinson has posted a useful article over SimHQ for those who are taking the plunge with Windows XP. Here's a snippet:
"Why even bother with Windows XP if Windows 98SE is working fine? Different answers for different people, but for me, Windows XP provides the latest drivers, features, stability, smoothness and yes - solid gaming performance. This article will suggest "turning off" or "disabling" multiple items from the default install. After you achieve a "baseline" performance, try reactivating the features one-by-one to see the positive or negative effects on your system."
Len “Viking1” Hjalmarson continues his review at Thrustmaster, looking closely at the comms, views and padlock and the mission builder. Here's a snippet:
"IL-2 multiplayer is living up to the hype. I’ve seen up to eight players online, where two had 56K connections running at around 44K, and there was no lag in a dogfight mission. In another case we had four players, one of whom was running on a PII 450 in a coop mission. The frame rate for all of us was lower than we would expect. When the player with the weaker machine dropped out (his frame rate was hitting 4 fps) we all noticed an increase in performance. Unfortunately, weak links in terms of weak hardware can impact online play significantly."
Miguel Lousado has posted a review for Sim-News. Here's an extract:
"More realistic flight models (though the best is yet to come in SuperPAK 2.0) have been implemented in SuperPAK v1.0. Remember watching your enemies firing at you or simply jinking crazily away from your guns and missiles and doing unbelievable maneuvers? A number of airplanes featured in both 1.08i2 and eFalcon 1.10 showed, at times, unrealistic flight behavior, doing rolls and dives that defied both common sense and the laws of physics—these unrealistic maneuvers were at times too obvious to be ignored. Some models were less prone to showing these defects, others showed important deviations from known performances of their real world counterparts (F/A-18C’s with ridiculously low corner speeds, looking suspended in time and space in the occasional dogfight, etc.) and others were simply just so bad that they were funny to watch."
To further whet everybodies appetite, Thrustmaster have posted this article discussing progamming the HOTAS. Here's a snippet:
"The Cougar comes with powerful programming software, the main one being Foxy, and a whole multitude of supporting applications. But it's important to understand that you don't actually need to use Foxy at all with your controllers. When you plug them in, Windows will detect all the buttons and axes, and you can just go straight into your flight sim, and assign functions to the buttons and hats from within, providing it allows you to do so, and start flying. If you use the Cougar this way, then your controllers are in what's called Windows or DirectX mode. In this mode your game uses DirectX to control what each hat and button and axis will do."
The official site, il2sturmovik.com has posted the following details regarding the patch:
"AIRCRAFT UPDATE:
Added FW 190 A-5 as flyable. Modified FW 190 A-4 and FW 190 A-5 to comply with new weapon sets. Included 27 new weapon load outs for FW 190 A-4 and FW 190 A-5. OTHER UPDATES AND FIXES: Stall Warning will no longer appear when your aircraft is buffeted from bullet hits. Reworked Bf-109 series handling. Aircraft with dead engine will no longer attempt to stay in formation. Put back VSI instrument needle in Yak-9T and Yak-9K cockpits. Instrument needles will freeze when the instrument is damaged internally. Multi-engine bombers now open bay doors when emergency-releasing ordnance. When flying in a P-39, you won’t receive a “Gunner Killed” notification any more. Corrected torque effect direction on a number of aircraft. When flying in campaign mode, if you don’t have an appropriate rank, you cannot select weapon set or fuel load for your wing. In the previous versions, you could change the “Fuel” control in the arming screen, but to no effect. ADDITIONAL INFO: size of the patch: 14MB Selfextracting file you put in the IL-2 directory (document in English and German included) 4 additional single missions are also included (feat. the FW-190A5)"
John "Wily" Mollison of has interviewed the veteran ace, Gerald Brown. Here's a snippet:
"DF: So tell me: What memories of combat stand out as particularly vivid to you?
GB: Becoming an ace. I shot down two [Messerschmitt] 109s, two [Focke Wulf] 190s and a Heinkel 111K. The K model was an administrative version, I think...
The 38th FS, 55th FG went operational the fifteenth of October in 1943. We were only the sixth group to do so. We had large losses due to the strength of the Germans. By April of 1944, we had fifteen Fighter Groups in the 8th Air Force and fifteen Fighter Groups in the 9th Air Force and we took over air supremacy.
Each unit could put up fifty fighters every day and that was a total of 1,500 fighters to put up against the Germans."
SimHQ have posted a link to a review at helosim. Neal "Pappy" Stevens has also included some nice screenshots within the review. Here's a snippet:
"It is worth noting that Comanche 4 has some of the most engaging, interesting, and diverse missions of any simulation I've played. I really enjoyed completing one to see what was next on the Mission Impossible agenda. Yes, they are scripted but they are well-scripted. The missions vary from supporting amphibious attack operations, rescuing a yacht under attack by drug runners, shadowing a Cessna on its way to a drop, backing up Delta force during hostage rescues, attacking armored columns, and locating and destroying nerve gas plants."
Sim-News has posted a review of this air racing sim. Here's the intro:
"Air races have always been one of the most exciting parts of aviation. Watching tweaked out high-speed aircraft streaking across the sky in a tight pack is truly a one in a million experience, where one wrong move can mean disaster and one right move can mean victory. You may have watched an air race on television or even had the opportunity to see the world-renowned Reno Air Races up-close, but until you are behind the stick in a tight race, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!"
Frugal managed to drag himself away from flight sims that allow the player to "blow stuff up" for a few weeks and was so enthused about Microsoft's latest offering that he's posted this review. Here's a snippet:
"Whilst graphics do not a good sim make, it would be impossible to review FS2002 without talking about the fantastic graphics. This is the first thing that hits you when you get into the sim. FS2002 has some of the best visuals available in a sim. I have never been particularly interested in General Aviation sims, if you can’t blow stuff up I lose interest pretty quickly. FS2002 has changed all that, the graphics alone are enough to hold my attention. Some of the scenery can only be described as breathtaking. My first flight up the Himalayas in the Bell 209 was a real eye opener. I find myself often loading up fs2002 just to do some sightseeing around many of the worlds beauty spots."
The f4ut site has been updated with this report from Tom 'Saint' Launder. Here's the intro:
"I am sitting in the cockpit of the A-10. The flaps are set for takeoff. When I entered the cockpit, I could hear them lowering to takeoff position. I advance the throttles to military power and look down at the fuel flow. I'm showing 5600 and acceleration is smooth. I rotate around 130 knots and raise the gear to continue acceleration on climb out. Around 180 knots I raise the flaps to neutral. The aircraft feels solid and responsive. Today's flight is to test the new gun position. I spot the first target group and roll in. Lining up the first target, I squeeze the trigger and see tracer fire come from the center-bottom of the nose. Success! I pull up and off the target and A-10 bleeds speed smoothly. I cruise home and set myself up for landing. I slow to 250 and then begin to deploy the flaps. As the speed continues to slow and I turn toward final I lower the flaps to the full 20 degree deflection. I hear the flaps lower and the nose raises slightly. Gear down, lined up, I touch down."
Roger "Pvt.Roger" Hagerty of world-at-war.com has posted an enthusiastic and detailed review of the game. Here's the intro:
"The most difficult reviews I write are for those games I really like, and I make no bones about it, I really like this game. I think it’s more difficult because I’m worried that my review of the game will not do it justice, or maybe it’s because it’s easier to pick at a games problems than praise their accomplishments. It could be because I want to be impartial, and I fear my love for the game will come across as nothing more than a fan’s gushing praise, rather than an honest look at the games wondrous features as well as it’s nagging flaws (this game does has both). Whatever the reason, it has caused me to type and re-type just this part 5 times, and I am still not happy with it. I’ll let you know what the final count was at the end of this review."
One for the bookmarks. Frugal and myself had the pleasure of meeting Stephen at the recent FS Show where he generously presented Mark with a beautiful framed Falcon print. His site has been recently updated with a new gallery with pictures from the Paris Air Salon.
This guy's got some talent, check out the site
HERE
random irc quote: <_Coyote1> i like this quote .... "People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it is easier to pick on rich old ladies than biker gangs"
