I don't have FSX but fly it often when visiting a friend. While a lot of what you guys say and despise about it is true, i'll just say that it's enjoyable to me on a different level.
Sure it's buggy, heavy on the PC and expensive to bring to a decent standard.
On the flip side, the so-called DLC is not actual DLC furnished by microsoft, but add-ons mabe by small studios of hobbyists who for the most part are honest aviation enthusiasts. On my current amount of disposable income i'd be nuts to pay $20 for a single airport. On the other hand, the amount of data that needs to be bought by the add-on makers to make some of these packages is usually expensive, as it mostly comes from satellite photos and elevation data. So, while FSX is a product of microsoft, the 3rd party industry that revolves around it is not a plot by some greedy capitalists to dominate the software market. It's just a bunch of graphic designers, amateur or professional pilots and engineers that model planes as a hobby on their PC. If the resources needed to deliver a certain quality are expensive, then the add-on becomes payware and often enough expensive payware. There are however free add-ons that are still better than the stock FSX aircraft.
It has no DM, in many cases it doesn't even model what it can model (eg, some 3rd party aircraft have full complex engine management with consequences, some others simply state what to do but there's no consequence for straying from the operating limits) and the stock FMs are highly inferior to IL2. On the other hand, if i have access to 2-3 well modelled 3rd party add-on aircraft with corrected FMs and a localized scenery pack i can fly over my home town and the neighboring areas and it does look like it. Sure, houses are randomly placed and what not, but having flown a Piper Cub at 500 feet over one of the highway exits leading outside my hometown, i could instantly recognize the shape and contours of roads, hills and mountains. Of course that terrain add-on was payware and i didn't expect it not be, when the guys obviously paid for such high accuracy satellite elevation maps, even if they didn't want to turn a profit they would have to charge something just to break even.
At the end of the day, it depends on what i'm in the mood for. If i want to immerse myself in WWII history or even a fix of quick and dirty combat flying i'll fire up IL2. If i want to pretend i'm a millionaire with my own private seaplane, taking off from the local airport, landing in the harbor in front of the city's most regonzibale landmark to pick up my friends and take off again for a weekend on the Greek islands, i'll call my buddy, ask him if he's in the mood for a co-pilot on a cross country flight, get a few beers and pay him a visit. It's the kind of virtual experience and role-playing scenario that you have in mind at the given time that decides this for the most part and truth be told, sometimes i want to take a break from being a pretend WWII veteran and be a pretend rich guy with lots of time to spend on vacation trips with friends. I actually find that i alternate between the two and almost never fly both during the same stretch of time, FSX is simply for relaxing from combat while occupying myself with other things that are no less equally challenging sometimes. Sometimes it's easier for me to dogfight P51s in a Fw190 at 10km, than flying a DME-arc approach on one of the local airports at night with bad weather. It's just the old apples and oranges comparison
I don't own FSX but that's because i've been spoiled by what i've seen and the cost of suddenly bringing a stock installation to that level would be way too much. If it was a more well-rounded product out of the box, i had more money to spare on add-ons or i could get a bundle deal on some add-ons (yes, some really are that good to have because the stock game is in fact problematic in many regards) i would probably be flying it on my own PC about half the time i'm spending on IL2.
To make it short, FSX in general is not crap. Stock FSX is crap because MS released a buggy and unfinished product. A modded FSX with a reasonable collection of free and payware add-ons however, while not excellent, can be quite good and certainly above average and if you are picky about what to install it won't break your piggy-bank either. For example, my buddy uses some freeware mods that improve the look of Greek coastlines since we mostly fly island hopping in small aircraft, there's a 40Gb add-on depicting the entire country of Netherlands and it's totally free and so on.
That's why i'm excited to see what kind of capabilities SoW will have in regards to drawing in the civilian sim crowd. For every 10 payware add-ons and 10 low quality freeware ones, there's usually a couple of high quality freeware packages that are equal to or better than the payware ones. Since FSX is now an unsupported platform, it would be silly to let whatever 3rd party talent there is to go to waste. Much better to draw them in and have them working on SoW.
08-31-2010, 01:19 AM
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