In VGA I really love Red Baron from Dynamix. It's an easy game to get into. More arcade...

And there is also Strike Commander. Great music (Roland), good graphics and digital speech.

MAN THOSE GAMES ARE BORING go play Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. the REAL flight game with the best graphics of them all. your not a man until you hawx. its the halo of flight sims and u know halo is one of the best games of all time and u know it.

haha just kidding go play su-27 flanker and lock-on. 😀

🤣 agree the games I mentioned are quite the arcade games... Think of Wing Commander just with Planes

ratfink wrote:

I'm feeling like I've missed out on a whole area of gaming, so I'm wondering if anyone could recommend some flight sims. Mostly doesn't matter what era either in terms of game world or PC hardware it runs on.

What do you want from a flight sim? Graphics? Gameplay? Realism? Dynamic campaign? Strategic involvements? These are some suggestion, but what you choose is based on your preferences and playing style.

Their Finest Hour

This one is a DOS flightsim. The graphics are not much, the "flight model" is arcadish, and the sound is even worse. But the action is fast, furious, and exciting, the friendly AI is reasonably smart, and when you're flying aircraft with multiple gun stations (such as bomber), you can turn on the automatic gunner mode which is pretty helpful when you're busy dodging the enemy fighters.

But the best of all is the strategic decisions. In a campaign, you decide your own mission, which target to attack (in case of Germany), which target to defend (in case of Britain), and how the campaign will be affected by your performance. I love this game the same reason I love old Microprose games like Sword of the Samurai or Sid Meier's Pirates!; exciting action encapsulated by strategic decisions.

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe

Has all the goodness of Their Finest Hour, but with better graphics and sound. Plus, you get the novelty of flying German experimental aircraft like Me-163 Komet or Gotha Go 229 flying wing.

Strike Commander

Again, the flight model is arcadish. The campaign is non-dynamic, and the closest thing to "strategic decisions" in this game is being such a hot-shot with guns in order to avoid buying too many missiles.

But still, one does not play Origin games for dynamic campaign or strategic elements (although Wing Commander Armada is a pretty decent attempt); one plays Origin games for excellent storyline, memorable characters, and (in some cases) fast and furious action. And Strike Commander really delivers.

F-16 Multirole Fighter

Along with its cousin, MiG-29 Fulcrum, this represents typical NovaLogic "flightsim". The flight model is dubious, but the action is exciting. The campaign is linear, but the graphics are gorgeous for its time. And just like NovaLogic's Delta Force, both F-16 MRF and MiG-29 Fulcrum provide pretty much believable atmosphere to make up their lack of realism.

The downside is you need a Voodoo to enjoy its 3D accelerated graphics, but even its software-rendered graphics are still very good, and run pretty fast on 1.4GHz Pentium 4.

Total Air War

This is one of my most favorite flight sim. Not only the game has dynamic campaign, but it also simulates an entire air war according to the Warden's Five Rings model. And while the flight model and avionics are pretty much realistic, they are not as punishing as those in, say, Flanker 2.0.

Those alone put the game on top of my praise list, but what excites me even more is the AWACS mission! Yep, you control the aerial engagements from inside an AWACS plane, vectoring friendly fighters to destroy important targets or intercept hostiles. And the best of it, you can jump into the cockpit of an F-22 at whim. This is the game that gives you most the good things of Falcon 4.0 while not being overly complex, and that's the reason why I love it so much.

The game also supports Direct3D, so you don't really have to build a legacy system to play this one. However, there is a downside: the graphics display odd artifacts when you activate FSAA.

Falcon 3.0

Yes, it is an old DOS game running in low-res 320x200 VGA graphics, but if you prefer realism than fancy graphics, the game is definitely for you. And the fact that the game is low-res means that it runs pretty well in DOSBOX without demanding hardware. Also, it is arguably the first flight sim that features dynamic battlefield (although I beg to differ).

Anyway, this game really demands HOTAS controller and rudder pedals. I think it is a good thing DOSBOX supports multiple axis.

Hehe, if you want *true* "flight simulation", Microsoft Flight Simulator of course (any version), or NomiSoft's Airline Simulator 2 😀

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Falcon 3.0

Yes, it is an old DOS game running in low-res 320x200 VGA graphics, but if you prefer realism than fancy graphics, the game is definitely for you. And the fact that the game is low-res means that it runs pretty well in DOSBOX without demanding hardware. Also, it is arguably the first flight sim that features dynamic battlefield (although I beg to differ).

Anyway, this game really demands HOTAS controller and rudder pedals. I think it is a good thing DOSBOX supports multiple axis.

Funny you should mention F3, as just yesterday I was fooling around with my F3 Gold CD (I have the Gold CD, as well as the floppy versions of F3/Mig-29/Hornet)... hadn't fired that one up in EONS (used to play it on my old 286).

Of F3 notable mention, the core program and flight dynamics were the same that the US military used for their full-motion F-16 simulators back in the day... they used a modified version of F3 to power the simulators.

Heh, what got me to messing around with F3 again:

I recently installed the MUNT Windows driver, and had remembered that F3 natively supported the Roland MT-32 for it's sound effects and music playback. Back in the day I (and still today) I had a Wave Blaster (1); which could be configured to simulate the MT-32 as far as the MIDI music instrument mappings.

Of course though, the WB didn't support all of the special sysex dumps that the MT-32 did, which F3 used to make the sound effects in the game sound proper with the MT-32 (jet engine sound, missle firing, target lock, etc...).

On a WB configured as an MT-32 the music sounded fine, but the sound effects were all WHACKED (strange Piano sounds for machine gun firing, weird Cello sounds for the jet engine sound effects, etc... <LOL>!). Hence, even though I had a decent wavetable daughterboard back in the day, I could NOT use it for F3... had to settle for Adlib within the game; so that the sound effects sounded proper, but the Adlib music was piss-poor (as I was used to my WB for most games' music that supported General MIDI).

Enter MUNT:

I installed the MUNT Windows driver, installed F3 Gold, and fired the game up in DOSBox... the music was great, and the MT-32 sound effects were perfect 😀 Gotta say too, the F3 soundtrack when played on an MT-32 was quite an impressive thing as well 😀

P.S. -> http://www.cmoo.com/snor/weeds/weeds_computer_room_1.jpg (top-right pic in the collage, all of the way to the right <grin>) 😀

P.P.S. Quite cool watching those "Art of the Kill" instructional videos again that were included on the F3 Gold CD 😀

Anyhow, enough rambling <grin>...

1. F-15 Strike Eagle III. An overall realistic flight sim.

2. F-117A Nighthawk.

3. F-19 Stealth Fighter
- Realistic approximation of the vague data available at that time regarding the F-117A, which was realized in the F-117A Nighthawk (a.k.a. F-19 2.0).

Both the F-19 & F-117A provided nice stealth bombing and night raids action.

4. F-29 Retaliator - Not so realistic but fun to play. It's also one of the most accessible flight sims with very smooth play even on a 286. Missions are varied. But this game also has the most unforgiving, brutally frustrating landing sequence : Landing gears are so fragile, any increase in speed beyond the designated limit will damage them. Damaged tyres are converted to instant death on touchdown.

5. Back To Baghdad. Ultra realistic F-16 simulator. Provides option to use a second monitor solely for the radar display. Contains actual satellite imagery of the landscapes. DIfficulty level - Hardcore. Not easy to come across.

5. Domark's Mig-29 Fulcrum.
Quite realistic during the 286 era. Sits somewhere between arcade and realistic category.

6. Jetfighter II. Quite nice representation of the yet-released F-22 at that time I think. Nice FM music.
Smooth Gameplay.

From the list given by everyone above, other than Falcon 3.0, I highly recommend the SU-27 Flanker by SSI.

I'm not very familiar with the newer sims, though. And I don't play much of Helicopter sims other than Commanche, Gunship & Gunship 2000.

I did drop my jaw when I first saw 7. Commanche. A good arcade game.

8. Gunship 2000. Another classic.

Nothing from my list will make you admire the scenery though. 😀

I had most fun with the three below, But then it may be because of my interest in military history and machinery. Also I prefer "survey sims", which allow one to fly different aircraft instead of just one.

Janes Fighters Anthology and its prequels (1994..1998).
The first is for windows, but the series started in Dos. Light combat sims with an incredible amount of military content and info. covers Vietnam to fictional future scenarios. Nominated for the best game user interface 😉.

Third Wire Strike Fighters series (2002..future)
One of the few modern combat flight sims still in development, although the programming is just a one man effort. Covers 1948 to 1980 air combat (P-51D to F-16A). Not so strong in tactical stuff, but a very good game for dogfighting with guns and missiles. Aircraft are modeled very well, terrain is a little boring, Israel looks good though. Nominated for the best moddability, the file structure is almost... perfect.

IL-2 Sturmovik series (2001..2009).
Evolved as the most comprehensive WWII combat flight sim. Focuses on the eastern front (germany vs russia), but has a pacific and a western front addon too. Has an incredible amount of often (flyable) planes. May seem hardcore, but at easy settings it is very suitable for the casual dogfighting.

Other than Jetfighter II previously mentioned above (man, I sure had a ball with that one back in the day, as well as JF1!), another oldie that I thoroughly enjoyed was Chuck Yeager's Air Combat 😀

Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer was my first flight sim, and got me hooked on both flight sims and real airplanes. (Because of that sim, my goal was to fly the SR-71 one day. Sadly, it was retired while I was in Air Force ROTC...)

You can't expect too much scenery from anything pre Pentium II. There are some limited exceptions, but you tend to get EITHER lots of polygons OR lots of textures.

Flight Unlimited was about as good as it got pre-P2 for a general sim.

As others have said, Red Baron (and Aces Over the Pacific / Aces Over Europe,) were good.

The Janes Fighters series was pretty decent, but essentially requires a good HOTAS setup. ("Hands On Throttle And Stick", aka joystick full of buttons plus throttle full of buttons.) Falcon 3.0 is similar, and, if anything, even *MORE* control-necessary.

Comanche's use of "voxels" made it unique, in being a very blocky but well-defined 3D, use of texture/color made it feel a lot more advanced than some of its contemporaries.

leileilol wrote:

MAN THOSE GAMES ARE BORING go play Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. the REAL flight game with the best graphics of them all. your not a man until you hawx. its the halo of flight sims and u know halo is one of the best games of all time and u know it.

LMAO. 🤣 🤣 🤣

That game is the Rogue Squadron of flight sims. It's too simple. Thankfully it only cost me $6.

I ran across a used copy of Falcon 4 at a nearby store recently. Gotta love the BINDER that it comes in with all 1000 pages of knowledge. 😳 Reminded me of the old Computer Gaming World review of it that was written by an F-16 pilot. 😁 Now there was a review worth reading!

that binder is the thing of legend, and it makes the gaming gods very happy

I have MS Flight Simulator 98 (Manual, strategy guide, big box) if you're interested.

I have been a flight simmer for years starting off with Knights of the sky, Gunship 2000, F-15 series on the amiga in the 90's. I would recommend any of those but depending on what era... Rise of flight for WW1, great graphics, sound and gameplay. IL2 series for WW2, Falcon Allied Assault for modern day. If your hardware isnt up to the likes of Rise of flight then try First Eagles 1 or 2.

Nobody liked TFX? The sequel, EF2000 had a Voodoo patch.

TFX was good, Total Air War was much better mostly due to the dynamic campaign. Janes Longbow 1 and 2 were excellent.

I remember really getting into F15 Strike Eagle. It was the 2nd game in the series I believe.

The PC speaker engine sound was really something. Missiles where quite easy to get rid off (drop a flare, turn 90). Landing was quite tricky though...

Whatever you do, stay away from Microprose B-17 Flying Fortress.