What has been your progress through WW2 flight simulation?
 

Looking to see how things have panned out for other 'players'.

My first ever WW2 flight Sim (I'll use the word 'Sim' for all these) was
Jane's WW2 Fighters, but I was really a novice then and although my PC ran it very well, I only dipped my toes in there...but thoroughly enjoyed it (though never played online with a 33k modem!!!)

http://youtu.be/rCcujM9glIY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFg-EZ19_Z8

Next (for me) came European Air War, my first true 'Sim'. The lighting effects were great, I could forgive the 2d sprite pilot and there was nothing better than getting above 7000m and watching the condensation trails start to form behind the flight. I loved this software.

http://youtu.be/Eu1p-DIQIZA

Then finally the legend that was Il2 Sturmovik. This hooked me and I have bought various packs including the Complete version and now 1946. As-well as that I had the Ostfront, Battle over Europe (best ever add-on IMHO), The Last Days and Combat over Europe. This for me is still the best simulation I have ever owned and I can't see a day when it will be installed off my Computer, having such a huge range of skins, missions, maps and now modifications.

http://youtu.be/-p7JxX554ZE

I then tried out Combat Flight Simulator 3. I enjoyed this but once I installed the Firepower add-on the game really became immersive. Rain, smoke, bomb effects, shock waves in water explosions...wow!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_osHdm6jBk

Next came Battle of Britain: Wings of Victory 2.

Although I don't find it graphically as pleasing as IL2, the particle engine for damage effects and the weather was particularly impressive. The sunset effects are probably the most accurate that can still be seen in any game?

However the absolute star of the show was the Artificial Intelligence of the enemy aircraft. WOW! Even now I get a smile on my face thinking of the combat I have fought in that game. Rolling Scissors, B 'n' Z, just amazing for AI. Un-matched on anything I have played before or since!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lPmkkBFT8M

I then bought Wings of Prey and although not in the same league as IL2, the Graphics engine is just incredible creating realistic water drops, oil droplets (making the canopy of your aircraft almost impossible to see through when chasing a wounded aircraft), cloud cover and convincing overcast and excellent looking terrain.

http://youtu.be/8WrpnY5wkVc

Then came CloD, no point in discussing it as it's still in Beta, but I have hopes for it (MY OPINION) and time will tell if we can reach the greatness of it's predecessor.

Take your pick of these excellent videos that give hope for the future!

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=28505

Finally I am involved with the beta test of War Thunder. Not really my cup of tea but each to their own ;)

http://youtu.be/XLnMrKmeqok

I should add that my hobby has taken me around the world making movies (Checkertails) and using IL2 to create specific battle scenes in it. I have also invested in Rudder Pedals, Track IR (3 and 4), Thrustmaster Cougar (fully modded with hall Sensors and Gimbals), along with (before that) and X-52, X-52 pro, Saitek Cyborg and myriad other bits and pieces.

Of-course unrelated to WW2 I have dabbled with FSX, Lockon Flaming Cliffs, F-22 Lightining 3 and a few others, but as for WW2, that has pretty much been my route.

Anyone else fancy taking up the challenge and charting their progress?

Cheers, MP

My path was different to yours.

Not just WW2 for the first difference.

I started on the Atari ST for the second difference.

First there was Anco's Jump Jet. It was so horrible I formatted the floppy it came on. I've often wished I hadn't, just so I had a benchmark of how horrible a horrible flight sim could be.

Then there was Falcon. Which was difficult, but good.

Then F16 Combat Pilot.

Somewhere in between the start of Falcon and the end of F16 combat pilot somebody bought me a game called something like "Snowflight" as a gift, it turned out not to be interesting to me, it was about flying an F14 with strange looking tailfins to shoot up cocaine fields.

Domark's MiG 29 (somebody else also made a MiG 29 on the ST, I don't know anything about that, the one I had was the Domark one). It ran terribly if you ran it from floppy disk, because it accessed the disk all the time. So, I installed it on a ram disk, and ran it from there with the floppy in the disk drive for the copy protection routine to find. Then it flew very nicely. I was very fond of that simulation.

The colour monitor I bought for my ST died, then I bought a monochrome monitor, and didn't use my ST so much for games anymore.

Later, I bought a second hand PC, and played Fighting Falcon F16, it wasn't great but it was a lot better than not "flying".

Then, I got MS CFS, and flew that for quite a long time. Then came MS CFS two, and I flew that for a long time too.

Then came IL*2.

Then MS CFS three, and against IL*2 (or maybe by that time it was Forgotten Battles? or Pacific Fighters?) CFS three just wasn't competitive, in my eyes.

There was a long time I spent looking for the Aces Expansion Pack, and not finding it, then eventually the all in one pack came out, and fairly quickly after that, 1946.

Then there was a fairly long wait for Storm of War: Battle of Britain, which eventually arrived as Cliffs of Dover.

I'm probably going to fly more 1946 than CloD in the coming weeks.

Microsoft CFS1 - boyhood dream come true - Single player only.

Birds of Prey - Xbox - this brought me into the world of Multiplayer and I then purchased a PC and purchased Wings of Prey and Il1946 at the same time.

I sold the Xbox, did very liitle with WOP as IL946 was an awesome title. It took a long time before I felt able to compete in the MP arena.

CLoD came along and I prefer this as a MP experience despite the flaws. I still enjoy 1946 as a SP title and the occaisional MP sortie when I want to jockey something different and in a different theatre.

My First WWII air combat would have been

Lucas arts Secret weapons of the Luftwaffe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eosVhMLr1A

Closely followed by Chuck Yeagers Air Combat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbXZhPbh6tE

There were other sims before that.


Janes WWII Fighters was a good blend of gameplay, eyecandy and performace. Even after I got into IL2 in a bit way, I still kept WWII fighters installed for multiplayer over a lan with my younger Nephews. Good airquake fun!

Interesting thread indeed,

for me I was interested in flying games since child.
first flying game I remember was from chinese 8 bit console games, there were one game that shoots in 3rd person view in wwii I think it was corsair but at that time I didn't know which plane it was anyway :)

Generally I'm into wwii and made toy models myself like t34, fighters russian (didn't know indivual types so my model was universal more like La similar to russian) and bf109, russian late war commercial plane An-2. ...etc

later I in search for fight games and found free FighterAce.. on internet.
This is the first combat flight game I've ever tried.

Then interested and looked for another but this time i bought Desert Storm I don't remember exactly cause back those days I play with keyboards :( gameplay was terrible for me and I'm not into jets

Then I search for best games on interent and found IL2 reviews so I moved on since then I'm an IL2 series fan but when I found it was already 1946 then.

Now I have Clod and gonna buy all series regardless of current states of this game :cool:

yes i've tried wings of prey and rof. but all I want is IL2s

WW2 only:

CFS3
Luftwaffe Commander
B17 - Mighty 8th
Il2 1946
Il2 CoD
DCS P51

Aces of the Pacific
Janes WW2 fighters
IL2
IL2+Mods
CoD
IL2+Mods.

Janes WW2 fighters
EAW
CFS 2 + 3
IL2 1946
CloD

CFS was the very first flight sim i ever saw, didn't know what it was though
Air warrior 3 was the next one i played
I got into some cheesy one on msn gaming zone for a while
then into the ones like aces high and warbirds and ones like them
then i got into the original red baron for quite a while, fun game...
then i discovered IL2FB, never looked back for about 10 years pretty much lived for that game...
and now i've been playing mostly all the DCS games,rise of flight, still playing FB, and ofcoarse cliffs.

I played janes WW2 fighters and CFS 2 and 3, but by the time i got a chance to try them they were already past their prime, replaced by il2

WW2 only:

Amiga 500:

- Lucas Arts "Their Finest Hour, the Battle of Britain", I rember playing it at the beginning with no sound because I had only 512Ko of RAM. I had to to spend nearly 100 bucks to buy 512 more to be able to have the sounds in-game :-P

- Rowan's Reach for the Skies, another BOB sim.

PC:

- European Air WAr

- Fighting Squadron: Screaming Demons Over Europe (awesome physics for its time, a flyable Lancaster too !!)

- Rowan's BOB (the original one)

- Il-2

- Cliffs Of Dover