Anyone have any experiance with Flightsims ?

[Androo]

CFS3, to me, sucked in a way that can barely be described. Horrible from start to finish. A buggy, ugly letdown of tragic proportions.

Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience with it. When it was released it was a mess. I held off on getting it and now, heavily patched, it works great for me. Of course the minimum system requirements reflect Bill Gates personal sense of humour and are really very funny. In the same way that other commercial frauds are side-splittingly hilarious to those who are victimized by them. I would agree with PC Aviator's general policy of doubling the recommended requirements and considering those a more realistic minimum. As for "ugly", I find it to be almost as attractive as any screen shots of IL2 I have seen, but this is just a matter of personal taste.

I have stayed away from the IL2 series because of the near consensus of negative opinion I have heard and read in the mainstream press and flight sim community concerning its flight models (e.g. problematic or absent stalls, on landing sticking to carrier decks as though they were flypaper etc., etc.). However, I just did a quick check and both ign and Gamespot write glowingly about the accuracy of the flight modelling.

One thing I definitely don't like about the IL2 series is that the games are intentionally un-moddable (except for aircraft skins). Whereas CFS2 and CFS3 are getting better and better all the time, thanks to many dedicated modders. How long have you been waiting for that Mozzie?

As you know CFS2 maps the globe(!). With mods I believe CFS3 now covers North Africa, Korea and part of the front lines of the western front in WWI, plus the whole of Northern Europe which was covered in the original. I believe that in all the IL2 series, only small parts of Russia, Northern Europe and the Pacific are covered, though I stand to be corrected on that. When I am flying a cross-Channel raid, I want to fly across the Channel. And newly modded airfields are based on period photographs.... Modders are re-sculpting parts of the Dutch coastline and various Pacific islands to reflect not their present outlines but their forms sixty years ago... More and more 1% aircraft are available. For me anyway, I doubt either CFS2 or 3 can quite be beaten at the moment in terms of achieving an almost obsessive level of realism and accuracy. Definitely just IMHO!

On the other hand I am always up for something new! Thanks to this thread I have taken a second look at the IL2 series and I sure like what I see. 90 or 95% realism may be good enough for me. Anyway, I am definitely going to give 'em a spin! I'm blissed out- suddenly a bunch of new flight sims to try out!

Head over to ww2fighters.org. The forums are the the most polite and helpful on the web.

Except for the Arena, right?!?