Combat Flight Simulator 2 Review - By William "BBall" Ball Page 2 of 3
I've downloaded the files
that enable you to fly the "un-flyable" TBF Avenger, the SBD Dauntless,
and the TBD1 Devastator, and they're tons of fun ( http//thehanger.dogfighter.com
). The thrill of dropping that "good ol' made in the U.S.A." Mk-1 torpedo
in the water headed for the Jap carrier is right up there with seeing
Ashley Judd naked (well, maybe not quite as good, but it's good nonetheless).
How about the Mission Builder? It's quite easy to use, and in the span
of about thirty minutes, I constructed a very cool sortie to launch from
the boat, form up with some Army P-38s, and take out some enemy tanks.
Can you say flying a B-17 into Pearl the morning of December 7th , and
seeing all those Japanese planes attacking? It's gonna happen. With the
add-on files available, and a good Mission Builder, one might get the
impression that you can modify, adjust and configure this thing to within
an inch of it's life. One might be right.
O.K. how about those big buttons? Free Flight is just that…. fly around
on what would be called in the real world an "orientation flight". You
can select the type aircraft, the location (you can choose from a list
of airports, or even type in the Lat/Long…cool), the time of day, and
the weather for your little joy ride. While on the subject of selecting
aircraft, the "flyable" (from the folks at Microsoft) machines in this
sim are: the A6M2 "Zeke", the later version of this, the A6M5 "Zeke",
the N1K2-J "George", the F4F-4 Wildcat, the F6F-3 Hellcat, the P-38F
Lightning, and the F4U-1A Corsair. They all come with very different
flying qualities, and yes the Japanese cockpits are labeled in Japanese.
I did a hop in the P-38F on a day with thunderstorms, winds at 36 gusting
to 54 knots and moderate turbulence…I felt like a drunk rodeo cowboy
on the back of "Widow Maker"! Try it; it's a ton of fun…. I did get it
back on the runway, but the rollout was UGLY. I would suggest getting
used to the different machines in this environment…. for in the real
world the pilot's new to the AO always got a few orientation rides, and
for good reason.
Training Missions give you the option to "train" as an American or Japanese
pilot, and except for flying different aircraft (you can change them,
but the default are the A6M2 Zero and the F4F-4 Wildcat), you get the
same menu of 10 missions. They are fairly rudimentary…ranging from things
like: Training 01- Takeoff, to Training 05- Split S, and ending with
Training 10- Carrier Approach and Landing. They are voiced over, but
as in ALL the comms in this sim, it sounds a bit "tinny" (god knows the
radios in those days probably sounded just like that). I was really happy
that they put the text at the top of the screen, for I seem to have just
the slightest bit of a problem understanding what is being said. Oh,
and one small little item to mention…. raise your hand if you're not
fluent in Japanese (waving my hand all over the place). Don't expect
to be strapped in the George or a Zero and hear some good ol' Texas drawl….
you got it, all the Japanese comms are in Japanese! Novel idea…. I love
little touches like that (and printed text at the top of the screen…hehe).
O.K you've proven that you are "ichiban" (number one) in all the Training
Missions, now you're ready to go out and get some scalps right? I would
suggest maybe trying your skill in the Quick Combat world first. Here
you can select the aircraft, load the ordinance and fuel you like, select
a location, the weather, the enemy AI level, and then give it a whirl.
You can choose your enemies to be bombers, fighters, or a mix. Fly against
any and all types of the aircraft available (flyable or not) in the sim.
and you can decide the number of enemies waves, and whether or not they
"respawn" after you've kicked all their butts. You do get wingman here
also; so it's a good spot to get used to the wingman commands. Speaking
of, you basically get only four: Attack, Split, Rejoin and Help. They're
pretty sparse, and I've seen a really mixed bag here in regard to their
results. They seem to really be found of getting on the six of an enemy
aircraft and then not taking the shot sometimes. And sometimes when you
call for "Help", all you get are a quick, "I can't make it" when the
bafoon is right on your wing! Me thinks they need a little work in this
area. The enemy AI is pretty darn good, with the pilots flying to the
strengths of their respective aircraft. Only one caution about the Quick
Combat world…it can be pretty addictive, for the accuracy and the "feeling"
of aerial combat in this sim is INCREDIBLE. Don't sit down to do "just
a few minutes" of Quick Combat before bed…you'll look up and wonder what
that glow on the horizon is.
In the Single Mission world, one gets to fly some "real world" missions
from the PTO. For the IJN, you get to pick from seven missions and for
the U.S, you have eight (plus you have two more entitled Carrier Approach
and Landing, and Carrier Take-off). You are provided with a brief explanation
of each mission, and they are mirrors of some of the more "famous" missions
of the Pacific war (example; Butch O'Hare's mission of 20 Feb, 1942,
where he as much as single handedly saved the task force), and before
you fly one, you can select the "Difficulty level" of your opponents
(Easy, Medium, Hard and Random). These are truly a lot of fun, but I
have one big bone to pick with the designer of this part of the sim.
You start and finish in the air (ala Hasbro's Gunship!), and I've NEVER
been a fan of that. In all the missions you fly, you are provided with
an option to "Jump to the next Action Point" by pressing the "X" key,
so why not start us on the ground with this option available after take-off?
Also, be sure to read the "Advanced info" under the briefing for each
mission (applies to the Campaign missions also), to see what your "goals"
are. Unfortunately while flying around kicking some ass, once you attain
your "goals" (destroy X number of aircraft, etc), the mission ends all
by itself…. kind of maddening. The single missions are great, but again
I just think this area would've shown even brighter had we been able
to start and finish at an airport (or carrier).
The meat of any flight sim has to be its Campaign environment… so let's
see what CFS II offers us. First of all, let's get this out of the way…NO,
it's not a dynamic campaign…it's a branching, scripted type thing (I've
read that it consists of roughly 140 missions). I personally don't give
a rat's ass how they do the campaign, as long as it's good…. and this
one is. When first clicking on the button, you start by choosing your
nationality (you'll notice you see British and German here too…. old
CFS I stuff for doing the import thing I guess). Next you'll find yourself
selecting a pilot, giving him (or her) a name, setting the Campaign difficulty,
and finally deciding at what point in the war you'll be starting your
campaign (lot's of time frames to choose from). I've started from the
"Beginning of campaign" (early 1942 with the battle around Wake Is),
and I've also started toward the end of the war with the battle of Saipan….
either way is superb. The missions are well scripted with an eye on their
historical accuracy, and are plenty challenging. They are more than varied
with attacks against shipping, airfields, vehicles, bomber formations,
and of course against other pursuit types. One interesting note; while
flying for the Japanese late in the war, I was dealing out some grief
in the N1K2-J, but after downing my fifth U.S. aircraft, I was "retired"
and sent back to the homeland to be an instructor. Cool, but I wasn't
quite ready to retire…oh well, I guess the High Command knows best, right?
FYI, if you don't do quite so well, or get your plane shot out from under
you, you can hit the "Fly Again" button and give it another shot. So
from what I've seen so far of the "Campaign", I've been very impressed
(although again, do check you "mission goals" before each flight, sometimes
they seem a bit strange, i.e., attacking some shipping BUT you have to
down a certain number of aircraft too…. I guess the mission designers
REALLY didn't want us to forget that this is a dog fighting sim). I haven't
seen any bad weather yet, but I would hope that they throw it in somewhere.
The last big button to talk about is the Multiplayer choice. Here we
get the usual Serial, Modem, IPX and TCP/IP choices. This is probably
one of my biggest gripes about this entire effort. You get to fly in
the Multiplayer world in only two environments…. Dogfight and Team Dogfight….
that's it, NO co-op multiplayer. You can kind of "shake and bake" some
coop missions by doing the team thing (only it won't allow you in without
at least one person on the "other" team), but with "guns only" as the
only ordinance option, and no way to put things in to attack, you'd be
left with gunning some airfields and I think that's about it. Not that
the Dogfight or Team Dogfight isn't fun…it's LOTS of fun, but after being
around simmers for several years now, coop multiplay just seems to be
high on damn near everyone's list. I've spent about 3 plus hours in the
multiplay arena, both in an IP connection and on the MS Zone, and it
was a tremendous amount of fun. I noticed a few small things that weren't
exactly right, like after smacking into the ground, sometimes the aircraft
just seemed to "hover" above the ground at 50' or so (it wasn't an illusion
of sorts…. I tried flying through one and I blew up too). Also, sometimes
when on the IP connections (cable modem), when very close to the other
machine, some stuttering was evident…. I didn't see it on the Zone. But,
save these few things, I thought the multiplayer was easy to connect,
easy to navigate, and plenty of fun. But with all that said, I still
don't understand making a decision to have a multiplayer aspect in a
sim these days and not have coop (probably the same person that doesn't
like keycards).
O.K. enough of the "tangibles", tell us what the sim is actually like!
Graphics? Flight Model? Atmosphere? You know, the "intangibles". First,
all my experience with this is on a homebuilt PIII 800, 256 PC-133 sdram
machine running a 64 mb Voodoo 5 5500. I'm running it at 1200 X 1600
16 bit, with all of the options maxed out (except for visibility at 40
miles). To talk about the graphics, one is compelled to pull out a thesaurus
to try and use adjectives other than "stunning", "incredible", etc….
they are simply that good. The flyable machines will bring a tear to
your eye (O.K., so I'm in touch with my feminine side), and the non-flyable
aircraft, the ships and etc. are all wonderfully nice looking too. Hit
F 4 to go to a "Chase View", then punch the "Tab" key to view the other
airplanes, etc. in the mission and you'll be amazed at how beautiful
they are…the SBDs, the Vals, B-24s, Carriers, Cruisers etc. ALL the crates
look weathered, worn, and very authentic. But again, it's the little
things that sometime really endear me to the overall "atmosphere" of
a flight sim, and here are just a few examples of what I mean: while
taxiing on the "unimproved" airstrip and you'll see the landing gear
struts compressing and extending, Shft C and the canopy opens or closes
(can be seen from INSIDE the cockpit too), Shft W and the wings fold
for close carrier storage, lower the landing gear in the SBD and the
rear gunner stows his gun and closes his canopy, the display of damage
on the aircraft is VERY real looking (catch a wingtip on fire and it
may spread to the fuel tanks and explode, or the AI may put himself into
a dive and blow it out….btw, the aircraft explosions are fantastic),
when in the cockpit exercising the propeller (on the engine run-up) the
prop RPM falls and the manifold pressure correspondingly rises (as it
should), ….I could go on and on….but I won't, just suffice to say, there
are TONS of little things that I'm impressed by, and some big ones too
(like the cockpits).
random irc quote: <DrFreud> care to talk about it? <eRAZOR> haha <DrFreud> we were discussing you, not me <eRAZOR> back off psycho <DrFreud> Care to elaborate?
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