I guess I'm late to this thread. I played AW since the Genie days with old CGA graphics. I was "RfDog" from C-land. You may remember shooting me down again and again.
I recently reinstalled AW3 on my childrens PC because my daughter is always asking for permission to fly and shoot down planes, but with the language in the MA there is no way I'm letting a 4 year old go online.
Anyway... After the install, I was amazed, I had to ask "did I really play this game all the time?" The pong pong pong flash kerpow red screen kills, the older than dirt graphics, and so on. What really amazed me was how little development $ EA put into the game and yet how devoted the community was to it.
Anyway, my assessment? No comparison, AH is a quantum leap forward. The only thing AW really had going for it was the user community but compared to even contemporary games, the engine and graphics were dragging. The only thing I can think of that I might consider a slight advantage over AH was:
A) The ability to turn off a country's ability to generate Spit 9s
B) The ability to easily get the range to the nearest friendly base
C) Multiple gunners on buffs (I'll still take 3 buffs over multiple gunners however)
I expect to get flamed for the above [bYou r teh wr0ng, AW is the k00lest evar game[/b]), but thats just the way I see it, as time continues its going to be more and more like comparing ATARI 2600 Barnstorming to the latest model of Microsoft Flight Sim.
- SEAGOON