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IGF 2002: Hands-onCombat Flight Simulator 3

We get some stick time in Microsoft's forthcoming World War II-themed flight simulator.

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One of the most visually impressive games at Microsoft's International Games Festival was undoubtedly Combat Flight Simulator 3. The game uses the Autogen scenery-generation system from Microsoft's own Flight Simulator 2002 in order to render hundreds of ground objects like trees, shrubbery, and buildings in great detail. According to several of the game's designers, this rendering system enables the game to dynamically draw these objects onscreen without having to store them into memory while loading each mission. The end result is terrain that looks markedly better than the fuzzy and blurry textures that fill the ground of nearly every other flight simulator--even flying at 30 feet above the deck, the terrain in Combat Flight Simulator 3 looks as detailed as it does at 10,000 feet.

But while the game's fast-paced, low-altitude bombing missions are being touted heavily by Microsoft, Combat Flight Simulator 3 is equally adept at handling high-altitude dogfights. In fact, the only thing more impressive than the game's Autogen system is the beautiful manner in which it renders clouds. We don't know the technical term for the way the clouds in Combat Flight Simulator 3 are generated, but suffice it to say that they look strikingly realistic--not like cotton balls bunched together. You'll be able to dive into these clouds to evade enemy fighters, though they'll often do the same to avoid you.

All 18 of the flyable aircraft in the game are meticulously re-created, featuring a striking amount of detail. The aluminum airframes reflect sunlight convincingly, and a close inspection of any airplane will reveal numerous rivets, individual panels of sheet metal, and various moving surfaces. Additionally, Combat Flight Simulator 3 will be the first Microsoft flight sim of any kind to feature a totally 3D cockpit. Every nook and cranny in the cockpit--including the various gauges on the instrument panel, the rudder pedals, the control stick, and the throttle control--all boast high-resolution textures and accurately convey the sense of sitting inside the aluminum belly of a vintage fighter.

But the game isn't all flash. Combat Flight Simulator 3 will feature an interesting character advancement system that seems more at home in a role-playing game than it does in a flight sim. Basically, your pilot will start the single-player campaign with a low number of prestige points and a relatively low level of stamina. As the campaign progresses, these statistics will gradually increase, so your character may, for instance, be able to withstand more G forces before blacking out. Likewise, the more kills you get, the more prestige points you receive. These points add to the amount of influence that your pilot will have back at the base. Pilots with more prestige may get spare parts for their planes first, and they'll have access to newer weapons and technology before other squadrons do.

As you might expect, the single-player campaign in the game will be completely dynamic, and depending on how you perform within each mission, the front line of the war will shift accordingly. Additionally, none of the individual missions will contain any scripted events, which means that you'll be able to replay the same mission multiple times and never have the same experience--you might encounter enemies coming in high and in the sun the first time you play a particular mission, whereas they'll be low and in a completely different location during a different attempt at the same mission.

Combat Flight Simulator 3 is currently scheduled to release later this fall. We'll have more news about the game as it becomes available.

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