Combat Flight Simulator 3 Preview
We go hands-on with the next game in Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator series.
Slowly but surely, Microsoft is getting it right. Successive forays into the combat side of flight simulators have produced solid products with great expandability and solid simulation credentials. After a trip to the Pacific in Combat Flight Simulator 2, the series is returning to the skies of Europe in the third installment. Europe is almost a default location for this kind of game, and Combat Flight Simulator 3 is actually not even the first European air war sim in the series, since this WWII theater of operations was modeled in the very first Combat Flight Simulator in 1998. Still, it's amazing to see how Europe has changed in four years.
We've played a fairly complete version of Combat Flight Simulator 3, with most of its core features (like flight models and graphics) complete or almost so. The campaign wasn't quite done, and the game is being constantly revised, so the issues discussed here may be addressed before the final version is released. Still, what we saw looks like an improvement on the previous Combat Flight Simulator in many respects, and it has the potential to set a new standard in European theater flight sims.
Terrain graphics are the Achilles' heel of flight sims. Almost anything can be made to look good from 20,000 feet, but the hard part is making "down low" graphics that look good and don't cripple your frame rate. The preview material makes a big deal out of CFS3's "low-altitude air combat," which is almost certainly meant to draw attention to the new graphics engine featured in the game. The CFS3 graphics engine maintains high resolution down to 120 meters, allowing for high detail even when flying at treetop level. Some of the graphics are quite well done, while some of the snow and other inclement weather textures are a bit less so. The game does a nice job of automatically generating terrain features as you fly down low so the terrain looks random and even reacts to your actions if you, for example, fly too far out of your way and stray over an enemy airfield that wasn't part of your original mission.
One of the really outstanding aspects of the new graphics engine is the way it handles clouds, which look incredible and truly "volumetric," as advertised. Having realistic clouds not only makes the game look great, but it also opens up several interesting combat tactics, as you can duck into cloud cover to shake an attacker or hide in or behind cloud banks to ambush unsuspecting enemies. The fog and weather effects aren't quite up to this standard, but in general the graphics are several leaps ahead of any other European-theater flight sim, and as with the previous game, the aircraft models and textures are top-notch. The cockpits are as good as in the previous game, and the HUD is even customizable (you can drag the instruments to various locations on your screen) for those who value convenience over historical accuracy.
Combat Flight Simulator releases traditionally haven't had many flyable aircraft. CFS3 addresses this issue by including 18 base aircraft types, with enough variants to bring the final count to 34 flyable aircraft. Each country (Germany, USA, Great Britain) has six basic types. All the standard European air war models are included, such as the Me-109, the Focke-Wulf 190, the Me-262, the Spitfire, the P-38 Lightning, the P-47 Thunderbolt, and the P-51 Mustang. There are quite a few unusual aircraft as well, including the British de Havilland Vampire (Britain's second and more unusual-looking jet), the American P-80 Shooting Star and Curtiss P-55 Ascender (the latter of which was abandoned before it reached production), and the German Dornier Do-335 turboprop and Gotha Go-229 flying wing (also known as the Horten Ho-IX). None of these exotic aircraft actually saw combat in World War II, but you can fly them in the game.
- GameSpot Score7.0good
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Combat Flight Simulator 3 Movie 7
A P-51 hunts a German fighter.
- Sep 17, 2002
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- Microsoft Game Studios
- WWII Flight Sim
- Release: Oct 25, 2002 »
- ESRB: Everyone
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