I downloaded HSFX and tried it out for a few days. Mainly flew just German fighters and Russian attack aircraft so far...
Loved most of the cockpit work, especially those of the German machines, and the FW-190 cockpits in particular. Regarding the latter, I was quite surprised how much of an improvement they were, considering that the default cockpits for the 190s are already very good. Love the new instrumentation on all the aircraft I visited, especially the Revue Thommen clocks in the German fighters! I didn't like the re-textured cockpits for the IL-2 though, as I though they were disappointingly "over-textured", and went overboard on the wear and tear, dirt and grime look, especially on the instrument panel (though again, the instruments themselves look great). Honestly, it didn't look good, and I preferred the default cockpit over this one. The cockpits for the early Yaks and LaGGs were definite improvements, though.
The new MiG-3 visual model and the skins are incredible! Nice to finally see the split ailerons. Would have been nice to see the I-185's cockpit incorporated into the new MiG - with the necessary changes to the cockpit framing - instead of a re-textured, old default cockpit.
The new engine cowlings are great, and an essential "must-have", if you ask me. Especially on the FW-190s. Amazing how such a simple visual change makes such a drastic improvement on the overall appearance of the aircraft. Impressive. The new propeller hubs on the Russian fighters are nice, too, but almost to the point of drawing attention to itself , which is what you don't want. Yak-1 still needs a revised windscreen profile...
The effects are great, and done tastefully, thankfully avoiding the route of going overboard and turning the game into a Michael Bay gaseous explosion fest. Smoke and Flak bursts are rendered at long distances - Nice! Didn't like the Flak burst sounds, though. Often times you hear them and they sound like exploding tool sheds. Should have stuck with default sounds here.
Most of the other sounds are done well, though. Sounds are probably some of the hardest things to get right. Inside and out, the engine sounds for the 109s and 190s are quite well done, especially the low RPM sounds for the 109. They nailed the sounds for the FW-190. Brilliant! It's hard to gauge the sounds for the liquid engined Russian fighters as hardly anyone alive has ever heard an actual, WWII vintage Klimov or Mikulin running in an aircraft, with their respective exhaust systems. They sound convincing enough, though. However, it has to be said that the default sounds for the late model I-16s do a pretty good job of conveying what these little buggers actually sound like. The new mod sounds for them are good, but it's not what they sound like.
All the new and improved auxiliary aounds are a nice touch (canopy ejections, electrically and pneumatically articulated control surfaces and gear, wind buffeting for closed-canopy aircraft, airframe strain during high-G maneuvers 'before' something actually snaps or breaks, etc.)
I generally didn't like the changes to the environment. The new ground textures look good enough, but I do almost all of my flying over Russian steppes, and it was nowhere near as cultivated as the new textures make them appear, so I chose default. Frankly, I hated the work done to the clouds. I know that the default clouds aren't the greatest, but now we have default cumulus mixed with gigantic cotton balls pretending to be cumulonimbus, with their bottoms touching the ground. The default cirrus clouds shouldn't have been touched - they were already good. Instead, we now have cirrus clouds so densely rendered that the resultant repeating tile effect in the sky reminds me of a tiled ceiling more than anything else! "Clouds=0" brings the cumulus back to old-school values, but the tiled ceiling effect from the cirrus is still there...
The incorporation of 'Theater of War' objects to the ground objects roster was a nice touch, especially for the AFVs. Would like to see more of the "Summer Grey" scheme used on German AFV's, though, as well as the inclusion of the PzIII-F with the 37mm gun.
I was really impressed by 'some' of the maps, chiefly, Murmansk, the big version of the Channel map (what's the point of having a 1/3 scale map anyway...?), the Phillipines, Burma, and Borneo (wow!).
There's a ton more I could go over but this post would be far longer than it already is.
In summary, if I could only install parts of the mod that I like, and leave out parts that I don't like or want, I would be a happy camper indeed. But with HSFX 6.0 I have to take almost all the bad with the good, and honestly I rather not deal with that. It does offer some flexibility as far as choosing which mods you want and don't want, but even after exercising that, there was still a lot of stuff I noticed that I'd rather not have in the game. I'd rather pick and choose specific mods to use, instead than making wholesale changes with a mod-pack.
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