Check this out (free flightsims)

Discussion in 'Warbirds International' started by heartc, Apr 3, 2008.

  1. heartc

    heartc Well-Known Member

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    http://www.taringa.net/posts/juegos/925203/Old-jet-sims.html

    Some crap there right next to some jewels.

    Absolute must-haves there are MiG Alley and A-10 Cuba! (real gem, and fun
    as hell - check out the damage model). And of course LB2, F-15, Flanker 2.5, but these are well known. Besides, F-15 has a dreaded random CTD bug in the campaigns with WinXP, and LB2 requires quite some tweaking to get running.
    Though MiG Alley and A-10 Cuba work excellent, at least for me.

    Really, if you get nothing else from there, get A-10 Cuba. Small download, and amazing and fun sim. Clickable pit (activate caps lock), highly detailed in functions/switchology (and advanced Warbirds 2D-like gfx to boot! ;))
    Set ripple modes, ripple intervals, gun rate high / low, CCRP, CCIP, bomb targets laser-designated by special forces etc. The physics model is damn close to the Su-25T in Lomac Flaming Cliffs, but it's from 1997! Only drawback is there are - aside from the training missions - only 12 missions to fly. But they are a lot of fun, even though (or because) some of them are not necessarily realistic (intercept Su-25s...), and often play out in different ways because the AI is highly unpredictable and seems almost human.
    It's really a fun game and joy to fly.

    And MiG Alley: Awesome dynamic campaign, excellent FMs, flame-outs, excellent AI putting up tough fights even just 1on1, yet over the Yalu it's gonna be 40 vs 40 more often! First glimpse you'll probably catch from the enemy are intermittent sunlight reflections on the canopy / silver finish, just as it is often described in pilot accounts (only flightsim I know of that has ever done that). Simple radar set in the F-86 locks nearest boresight target to automaticly adjust range for the gyro gunsight (or adjust manually). And best of all an actual trigger enabled gun camera, just like iRL, and when you watch the track afterwards it's gonna be in B/W!

    Really, the flightsims coming out today have yet to top the pinacle that was achieved in the mid / later 90s.

    P.S. In case you d/l from rapidshare, you can work around the download limit by deleting your cookies and resetting your connection (disable / enable internet in system tools). There are also other methods (google it), but this one worked for me.
     
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2008
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  2. heartc

    heartc Well-Known Member

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  3. Zembla JG13

    Zembla JG13 FH Beta Tester

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    Nifty!

    Some cool old titles I never got the chance to play on there. Gonna try some of 'm :)

    Shame they don't have Commanche Gold :)

    <Z>
     
  4. fatale

    fatale Well-Known Member

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  5. Red Ant

    Red Ant Well-Known Member

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    It's nice to remember those old games for nostalgia's sake, but I can't really get myself to actually play them any more.

    What was everybody's first air combat game? Mine was F/A-18 Interceptor on my trusty old Amiga 500. :) Besides being my first 'flight sim' it was also my second computer game (after Boulder Dash) ... gosh, I loved it, even though in hind sight it was probably a pretty crappy game, hehe.
     
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2008
  6. jotaceTOGA

    jotaceTOGA Well-Known Member

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    My first one was River Raid.
     
  7. fatale

    fatale Well-Known Member

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    "Sopwith" so this game is logically the best one for me :)
    Then I loved first "Red Baron" and F-15 Strike Eagle II.
     
  8. Zembla JG13

    Zembla JG13 FH Beta Tester

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    Flight. That's what it was called. Hardly a sim though :p

    But, what you say about bouts of nostalgia and not actually playing these games... not 100% true. If you look at the changes in system requirements, and then compare the difference in graphics, well, going from a Pentium 166 to a Core2Duo 2.66Ghz... it's like comparing the Benz patent car from the late 19th century to one of the jet-powered cars used to break the land speed barrier... but, comparatively, the jet-powered car would only do 50mph. If you catch my drift.

    I guess the filters take up more raw computational power than you'd imagine :)

    <Z>
     
  9. Red Ant

    Red Ant Well-Known Member

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    I just looked that up on Wikipedia. LOL at this excerpt:

    :D :D

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Raid
     
  10. Red Ant

    Red Ant Well-Known Member

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    I think what you're saying is that (with a few notable exceptions) many games have vastly improved eye candy wise, but not much has been added as far as gameplay is concerned?
     
  11. lucas261

    lucas261 Well-Known Member

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  12. Platy

    Platy Well-Known Member

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    Chuck Yeager Air Combat in 1991. Played that game over and over and over again...
     
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  13. Zembla JG13

    Zembla JG13 FH Beta Tester

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    A bit of both.

    Mainly what I was trying to say is, you now need a supercomputer to play today's games, but they hardly offer more than a game in the past would've.

    They have more eyecandy, but to make full use of that eyecandy, you need to have the aforementioned supercomputer. It's like they multiplied the requirements by 10, but only managed to squeeze 5x the graphical quality out of that.

    <Z>
     
  14. reuben

    reuben Well-Known Member

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    ...and we still play warbirds :)

    A wise man once said; GAMEPLAY, not graphics is what SHOULD matter.

    I can't recall if it was Sid Meier or me who said it, but it's darn right.
    Even though we sometimes are unhappy with the current state of WBFH, we still play it. A lot.

    :D
     
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  15. looseleaf

    looseleaf Well-Known Member

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    Nice collection.

    I remember some kind of US Navy jet sim where after a few successful missions player gets invited to the "top gun" school then as you gain points you go back to more combat missions.
    It was simple and fun. Each "top gun" mission had a recorded replay option so you could see how you won it or screwed the pooch.

    I'm still looking for some source to download the old Lucasfilm SWOTL/Air Combat Classics and Their Finest Hour.
     
  16. looseleaf

    looseleaf Well-Known Member

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    C64- "Mig Alley" it had 2 player split screen option. You could go one on one or two against the computer.
    There was a Pacific air combat sym too for C64.

    I also had the "B-17 Bomber" game on the Mattel "Intelivison" game console with the optional voice module.

    I have to say again. The best one IMHO over all is/was

    Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe/Air Combat Classics

    and Battle of Brittan, Their Finest Hour.

    The best game play ever with none of that high overhead crash-bang dazzle graphics and 32 track sound effects.
     
  17. reuben

    reuben Well-Known Member

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    looseleaf. IIRC
    'Home of the Underdogs' has SWOTL.
    Else search the 'abandonware ring'.

    I know I 've seen it quite recently. That is in the last 3 yrs or so----
    GL
     
  18. rudeboy

    rudeboy Well-Known Member

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    Oh jeez. EF2000v2.0
    I had that game ages ago. Had a pentium and a 'video accelerator' card with 2 megabytes of vram and jeez a 16 bit sound card and a subwooder and orbital two little not-subwoofers or whatever the fuck those are called.
    I had a ball with ef2000. Game was great. the fuckin su27 was the plane to beat. Ground pounding was a blast. NoA flying. Norway all the mountain ranges looked the same, hehe.
    I gotta download this super version and give er a try.
    Ah: Thanks for the mammaries:super:
     
  19. fatale

    fatale Well-Known Member

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    Great game was also Strike Commander, good sim with nice story :)
     
  20. heartc

    heartc Well-Known Member

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    Download "Tornado", made by Digital Integration, from some abandonware site. Run it in DosBox 0.65. Probably the best jet-flightsim ever made. And yes, I know F4, including the realism patches, SPs, Red Viper, Allied Force, etc.

    What "Tornado" accomplished was to actually have a really WORKING dynamic campaign, that actually made SENSE. Not some chaotic shit like in Falcon4, generating suicide missions half the time. In campaign mode, you were the one to make the ATO for your squadron of Tornados, including F3s. You decided if you first go after the SAMs, or if you rather take out the enemy airfields to get rid of the MiGs first, all the time cautiously planning the TOT of your different flights for the mission, so that it would all come together nicely. "Concentration in time, separation in space". Monitoring weather conditions which had influence on enemy air defense readiness, checking EWR floor height to find out which alt you gota fly to stay below EW rdr detection which would send MiGs up your tail, deploying the bombs via TIALD laser designation system, Lay-Down, or LOFT profile, ALARMS in direct or indirect mode. Have your autopilot fly 95% of the mission which you have carefully planned to the minute detail beforehand, set "ride height" 200 feet, only disengage for the target run, but be carefull of sudden terrain altitude changes which the AP might not be capable to deal with when wings are fully swept back into supersonic position, monitor your RWR for enemy rdr sites or bandits which might force you to disengage the AP and breakturn at 100 feet AGL *without* NVGs, and watch those AAA tracers streaking into your flightpath. The only sim which ever came close to this completeness was EF-2000 by DiD, but this one lacked in realism and detail compared to Tornado. Hell, even if you achieved the goal of your (self-planned) mission in Tornado, you still had to land the bird. Too high a sinkrate, your a/c will be up for maintenance or might be a write-off. Very unforgiving, you couldn't just splash it down like in most flightsim these days. Especially fun when you got hit by (great looking) AAA enroute, and your wings got stuck in fully backwards swept position for supersonic speeds. Awesome sim. In fact, clearly the best Jet-Sim ever, imho. If you've ever rode the Tornado in total darkness from the backseater office enroute your planned target, monitoring your TOT ("8 late", or "15 erly" [sic]), watching the TFR readout of those upcoming hills, and then suddenly have your RWR lighting up like a christmass tree with all kinds of enemy transmissions, then you will realize that Falcon 4 in fact is a game made for girls.
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2008