Where have all the good sims gone?

[ctftwo]

I'm revealing my age a little bit but I started with Flight Sims back in the days of 236mb ram and motherboards running less than 1g. Battle Hawks 1942, F16 Combat simulator, Fleet Defender, EA's Battlefield Series, Falcon 3.0, and the Jane's series. All awesome, imersive, challenging, fun sims to play. Now, this is not to say there aren't some sims out there that aren't good. LOMAC appears to have been a good sim. All the CFS series sims were good to a point and the rest have been lack luster in my humble opinion. Having said all this it seems to me what we are left with is FSX and X Plane which have great flight modeling and detailed controls and such but to me what they lack is a campain oriented mission building like Falcon 3.0 and the Jane's series of sims had. Also I'd say to the creaters of the WWII era sims have been beaten to death. So I suppose what I'm reaching for is info on anything now or in the future that will revive the excitement of such planes like the A4, F4, F8, F14, F16, F/A18, Tornado, and the like, that would include the ability to create missions that will affect the outcome of the campaign? Is that sim out there or is there any hope for any like this in the future? Will any of the previously mentioned be modified to run in Windows 7 as I plan to upgrade my hardware soon? I confess my ignorance if this post reveals any lack of knowledge in this genre but my internet searches have all come up dry. Any info or contributions to this thread are welcome.

[ED_4]

Have you read anything ever posted about Falcon 4.0 and their mods like Benchmark Sims or FreeFalcon? The threads of those posts are one of the more recent posts here in the Military Flight Sims forum. Falcon 4 or any variant of it has it where the campaigns can get you immersed in the battle. And to this day, the folks behind the upgrading of Benchmark Sims and FreeFalcon has been constantly putting more and more new features to it.

The thing is there isn't a current combat flight simulator out there to match what the campaign engine of Falcon 4.0 has to offer. Just ask any previous user of Falcon 4.0 and their subsequent mods. They will tell you the same story I'm telling you or they are pretty dumb not to see it.

[ctftwo]

Thanks for the info. I'm sure I'll take a look at it. What I've found as of late looks really promising for me at least. Using the FSX platform there are some designers that have really knocked up the realism, far more than I've seen in many years. These are the products like "Super Bug" (F/A18 Super Hornet) put out by VRS Simulations and the DCS A-10. Both of these seem to ratchet up the realism. The other is a company called A2A simulations. They've come out with some really enticing desgns for the P-47, B-17 and the Spitfire. Again, realism is the attractive thing here. My problem will be aquiring the harware to run these highly detailed programs since my current set up is completely out of date. Here again what's lacking is campaigns for these products but I'm sure there may be some folks out there who may put something together so those of us looking for the thrill of combat can get our fix.
Now with Falcon 4 is there a way to run that in Windows 7? I'm certain any new computer I get will be loaded with that version vs XP. I certainly wont mind taking a look at it. Thanks for the info!

[johnan]

Thanks for the info. I'm sure I'll take a look at it. What I've found as of late looks really promising for me at least. Using the FSX platform there are some designers that have really knocked up the realism, far more than I've seen in many years. These are the products like "Super Bug" (F/A18 Super Hornet) put out by VRS Simulations and the DCS A-10. Both of these seem to ratchet up the realism. The other is a company called A2A simulations. They've come out with some really enticing desgns for the P-47, B-17 and the Spitfire. Again, realism is the attractive thing here. My problem will be aquiring the harware to run these highly detailed programs since my current set up is completely out of date. Here again what's lacking is campaigns for these products but I'm sure there may be some folks out there who may put something together so those of us looking for the thrill of combat can get our fix.
Now with Falcon 4 is there a way to run that in Windows 7? I'm certain any new computer I get will be loaded with that version vs XP. I certainly wont mind taking a look at it. Thanks for the info!

I'm sure Falcon4 and its upgrades will run in win7.

I used to love the sim "Tornado" many years ago. Although the graphics were poor by modern standards the immersion in planning low level bombing missions and letting the ground hugging radar take the aircraft to the target was wonderful.

Although the DCS sims, A10 and Black Hawk, are fantastic and very complex I am afraid the learning curve for me to master all the electronics and weapons systems is just too steep especially at my age (retired) and I am content to try to master the engine management,and flight dynamics, of the A2A range for FSX. It can be quite a challenge just to keep some of their aircraft in the air even without being shot at!

Thre is no substitute for as powerful a computer as you can get for enjoying flight sims.