What they say about AH

[PanosGR]

Ok, its a rather looooong post but since there is a lot of talking going on these days about how AHII is good or bad I thought why not make a small
Search in other games forums to see how they see our game. Good or bad.  I collect -only- some of them.

FORUM A

Part I)

- Alright, I used to play Aces High II so I am very familiar with fighter combat.Hopefully when I get this game I fit in alright.

- Watch out...Aces High II is a "game." This is more like a "sim." There is quite a learning curve. You'll need to practice a fair bit before you hit anything online.

- So what is this like? (he means Aces High)  It's graphics look very similar to Il-2 somehow...

- Tried it and did not like anything about it. The graphics dont even come close to IL2's or anything else for that matter. Just my opinion, others may differ.


- The only thing I really don't like about AH2 is that in the general arenas all aircraft and armor are available to all 3 countries. Also, things like auto trim are allowed.
On a not so important scale, the cockpits are a bit generalized and every aircraft has all 3 axes of trim.
In some areas AH2 is superior to IL-2, most notably low speed high angle of attack. For example, I can land 3 point and nose high in a full stall. I can't do that in IL-2.
The combined arms capability in AH2 is unsurpassed. Add to that the strategic and tactical goals such as capturing towns/airfields ... Don't forget the ability to fully crew up bombers and tanks.
If all you're looking for is better graphics, more accurate systems modeling, and detailed cockpits, then IL-2 beats it.

- I agree about the problem with IL2 concerning the 3-point landings. Hard to do in any aircraft without a wing dropping at the last second. This is not realistic and few, if any aircraft would do this in RL.

- I Can't agree with that. When was the last time you blew an engine in AH?
I sure wasn't able to kill one in three years of playing it. Actually the damage model is much more simple in AH. Everything is failsafe. You can't overrev it, you can't overheat it.
(If running too long on wep and full power the game will automatically turn the wep off and keep going. Engines without wep run for ever on full power. That's why you can't catch heavy bombers at high altitude. The all day full speed heavy bombers is one of the most ridiculous things of the game.
There's no penalty for bad flying or mishandling the engine. There's automatic constant trim in all main arenas. You don't even have to take off the plane. You select the plane, select the weapons, choose the direction, hit full power and let it take off and climb by itself while you go do your laundry. When you come back you are 20000ft and can go kill some bad guys.

Part II)

- The game is just too arcadish. many planes in WW2 were hard to fly, some were complicated, some were temperamental, some pulled hard to right other to left. Some needed a lot of trimming to make them fly good.
All this is almost nonexistent in AH. that's what keeps me away from it. There's no penality for bad flying and no reward for good flying.

- I loved the gameplay ,missions and the general massive multiplayer part of it. But the 1990 look and arcadish FM's keeps me away from it.


Part III)

- See heres the thing... I'm not making this a war between games here, so no one tkae this the wrong way. Everyone on their side of the fence claims their FM's ARE better than IL2, as everyone on our side says IL2 has better FMing. They have provided charts and statistics proving why there FM react the way they do (still in my opinion VERY fast) All I have ever seen here in IL2's defense is we are a full blown Flight Sim not an MMO so we have better and more realistic FMing...

- I`ve also tried AH2 briefly - it went down as a sucker for me quickly, odd FM, 'gamey' solutions like autoclimb etc.. the gunnery is a joke compared to Il-2 (in comparison WW2OL is quite good in this respect, DM/Ballistics is it`s strong side), the graphics are no better than WW2OL, ground combat is there, but it ain`t a big thing. And with equipment available to all sides, it`s really just a Red vs Blue stuff without any historical flavour to it.

- I prefer Aces High II's system...you use the hat to look backwards, and you can place your "head" wherver you want it. ....Its saves your view for every respective aircraft, much like a "personal view" profile.
Its perfect, and IL2 is in desperate need of it

Part IV)

Sorry but coming from aces high to forgotten battles and finding the planes flying the same is rather odd.

I played aces high for years, since 2001. I just stopped paying for it last year, but I still have a current copy.
In aces high the game does everything for you. If you run the engine hard for a while it will cut the boost for you. It pulls the flaps back in if you go too fast with any plane,trims the plane for you, does most of the bombsight calibration for you. Got the idea?

Here if you don't know and watch how you run the engine you'll cook it rather quick. You can blow your engine in so many ways in this game. and in every plane for a different reason. You'll over rev it in 109 if you play with the manual prop pitch and you don't know how. in other 109's you can blow it on the ground if you engage the water methanol boost at over 100% throttle. You can blow the engine on the 109E-7Z if you engage the GM1 boost at lower then 6500m. Of course, you can over heat it, can get your prop pitch shot up, your throttle cables shotup and so on.


- In gameplay AH is way better then this thing because of the massive multiplayer thing. You just can't beat that 100 bomber mission to HQ or the GV wars in tank town.  
 

Part V)

- I downloaded ACES to try it out. Fantastic viewing. But what I don't get is how can anybody fly that sim? Tell me I'm doing something wrong -- it doesn't feel natural. The nose of the ac bounces all over the place. I don't get it.

- Aces High is a great game. Old but still great. That is the only place where you can see huge 100+ aircraft missions (flown by humans).
I'm not playing it online for some times now but sure is a great game.

FORUM B

PART I)

- Yea but TW is the best at realism I've seen so far. I've heard that AH is better now, but I'd have to see that first hand after being chased down by spitfire mk16's which are able to outrun a Hawker Tempest and keep up with a ME262.

- Last time I was in AH was before they shutdown H2H (which makes me laugh btw) But anyway, I was in a f6f5 at 25,000 feet, had been for a while going back to my base with 1/4 tank of gas, and no ammo, when up from the base below me comes a spitfire mk16 straight up i the air shoots me down and then called me a dweeb. that was the last time I ever darkened AH's site, games or anything else. .


PART II)

I don't agree that IL-2 requires better gunnery skills, either. I feel they're about on the same par as Targetware's, and superior to either Warbirds or AH. And, with the "features" they have built in such that just about any shot destroys some sort of control cable or oils the windscreen (depending on which bird you're flying), I don't quite think it's all that great either. Just in terms of damage effectiveness, I think gunnery in IL-2 is as bad as Aces High. Of course, we now know ours could stand a bit of improvement, too... but I'll take TW's damage model over many others.


PART III)

- Yea I saw your avatar over there, I don't even have the game anymore, but I still read their BBs when I need to remember why I don't have the game installed anymore.
And judging from the ones I see on their BB, I think I might never have AH installed again.
( yea you can tell them I said that )

- LOL, i had a bad night in AH, chasing a Spit in my F4F, my plane engine's RPM just drops like a rock. the manifold pressure was still up, i thought i somehow did my "blow up teh engine" stunt in TW in AH. asked my teammate for help as i attempted to disengage and get awat from the spit.
teammate try to helped but the spit caught me
i didnt know you could blow up engines in AH


Part IV)

- Thats right ****, I'm a refugee from Aces High.Thanks for the welcome I like it better here. I told everybody over there I was just taking a break from the temp fest they seem to have in every room, but after playing this one I might never type on their board again.

- HO's by three Tempests at a time??? ROFL. Par for the course at Aces Hobbled. No player controls, and thus plenty of opportunities for dweebery to run wild. But what do you expect from designers that don't respect history?

- They have a few planes now where the controls on the cockpit actually move when you move the stick, but the f6f5 Hellcat, ( my favorite plane) is so unrealistic looking inside its pathetic, they just got most of the f4u's looking somewhat descent though
I'm still having a little trouble hitting the target, but I had that problem in Aces High too, hopefully I can get as good in a bf109 as I was in a hellcat


- ya you got a few more layers of flight modeling detail to process, but once you get a feel fore TW's 6 point floating model you will never go back to 4 point models, like the one AH has. Heck it only had 2 floating points in ah1. I have been told this is largely why TW has such a unique feel.

[Rebel]

Interesting read, thanks for sharing.

[Krusty]

You can't pull things from forums without dates.

Some of that is just sour grapes. For example, an f6f at 20k ignores a spit with higher E zooming up at him and he quits the game forever. Perhaps he doesn't understand how zoom climbs work. Or how acceleration works. A spit16 can catch a tempest and a 262 on the deck if it's faster than both, to start with, or if it dives on them, etc. Sour grapes mixed with ignorance.

[EDIT: Definitely sour grapes on the part of folks leaving the HTH scene and going to other games because they can't pay for a subscription]

Also, AH1 gunnery was really suspect. Ah2 gunnery is many many times better. How old are these posts talking about "bad gunnery"?



And on the other hand, certain communities cop certain attitudes about their own game. IL2 folks claim to have the best FM and get all defensive about it. TW folks claim to have the most accurate and most realistic sim ever, despite huge glaring game engine models which negate this very idea. On top of that TW goes out of its way to make even the simplist of things hard. It's nearly impossible to land some aircraft, and this is from a many-years, many-games veteran, I've never had trouble landing in any sim ever made up til trying TW. It's a highly flawed and artificially complicated system that's subpar to IL2 and WB in realistic flight, let alone AH2.

You may call me biased if you like. I've flown them all over different periods of time. There's a reason I'm still flying AH but not those other games.

[Simaril]

What is TW?

[Rebel]

TargetWare

[rabbidrabbit]

Originally posted by Simaril
What is TW?

Target ware

[Latrobe]

Some of these people have to realize that the only place you can get 100% realistic looking graphics, damage modeling, and everything else is in the real world. No game will ever be 100% accurate on everything.

[rabbidrabbit]

Agree Krusty.

Beyond that there are legit pros and legit cons stated.

Its great to see some of the graphics being updated and it would be great to see much better variety in the damage modeling for example.  A rethink of the strats system would add a lot more purpose to the game as well.  I think most of the FM gripes are not valid.

[FrodeMk3]

Originally posted by Krusty
You can't pull things from forums without dates.

Some of that is just sour grapes. For example, an f6f at 20k ignores a spit with higher E zooming up at him and he quits the game forever. Perhaps he doesn't understand how zoom climbs work. Or how acceleration works. A spit16 can catch a tempest and a 262 on the deck if it's faster than both, to start with, or if it dives on them, etc. Sour grapes mixed with ignorance.

[EDIT: Definitely sour grapes on the part of folks leaving the HTH scene and going to other games because they can't pay for a subscription]

Also, AH1 gunnery was really suspect. Ah2 gunnery is many many times better. How old are these posts talking about "bad gunnery"?



And on the other hand, certain communities cop certain attitudes about their own game. IL2 folks claim to have the best FM and get all defensive about it. TW folks claim to have the most accurate and most realistic sim ever, despite huge glaring game engine models which negate this very idea. On top of that TW goes out of its way to make even the simplist of things hard. It's nearly impossible to land some aircraft, and this is from a many-years, many-games veteran, I've never had trouble landing in any sim ever made up til trying TW. It's a highly flawed and artificially complicated system that's subpar to IL2 and WB in realistic flight, let alone AH2.

You may call me biased if you like. I've flown them all over different periods of time. There's a reason I'm still flying AH but not those other games.

I would add, that TW is like an eternal work in progress. It's literally been in Beta for  half a decade, or more. And, while it does have space for over 100 players' on a server, It can't have something like even our Titanic Tuesdays', with 400 or more. It's not really a MMOG.

TW does extend it's venue to Korea and WWI, however. That is kind of neat.

[BaldEagl]

To each their own.

[humble]

I'm always facinated by the FM/"realism" arguements...

There is no question that in many ways AH is "dumbed down" in the interests of better game play. Personally I've never found the IL-2 FM to be superior in any way (FB)...in fact I've felt that all the planes fly to much the same and that over/under modelling is more biased then here. No question that the damage model is more intricate but in my limited experience it awards to much damage...after all planes returned all the time with holes and no sustained significant damage...seems like IL-2 every hit does something.

From the little I gathered IL-2 seems to be attracting alot of the ACM deficient based on the comments on "good flying" linked to trim or engine management. Trim has no effect of any kind on aircraft handling just on pilot workload. A trimmed out plane requires no control inputs unless you change something but the performance envelope does not alter at all due to trim settings.

As for engine management, no question its simplified in AH for playability. To me that puts more focus on SA, Tactics and ACM....right were it belongs and less on...uh...I can run at 2400rpm, 54 lb MP and overheat him in a 2500 ft/min sustained climb...

I would love to see more runway prop, pitch, throttle cable type damage at somepoint....even shot up gauges in cockpit:)...

[Denholm]

I'd rather stick around and see what HTC pumps out next. They're improving, slowly but surely.

Originally posted by humble
...I would love to see more runway prop, pitch, throttle cable type damage at somepoint....even shot up gauges in cockpit:)...

Definitely! Perhaps even hydraulic failures.

[FireDrgn]

I don't care what other people think. I have a fantastic time playing AH..

Most of the comments read squeker like....

[Castedo]

Damn Greeks.

[Clifra Jones]

Installed TW and never could get the controls setup correctly. (i have full CH setup). Upped a Zeke and continuously rolled to the left and pitched up. Never could get trim to work properly either.  After 3 days I gave up.

Conversely, it took all of 20 minutes to steup aces high and program my CH gear. I have some fairly complex programming

Plus, they talk about trim yet there is no trim indicators in the cockpit. Now some might say "a lot of planes didn't have them' Well that is true but you also could "feel" your trim on the stick, you can't do that in a game. (honestly, i don't look at them all that much as I'm getting used to how the planes "virtually feel")

I see the trim features in AH and a convenience in a GAME that isn't real. I do not use combat trim as I am used to trimming my planes from other sims but I do use the auto trims for just that convenience sake. I can trim my plane into a clime, dive or a slow turn all manually but why bother if all I want is to put my plane into 20 degree climb so I can look at the map.

What many don't realise is that the game is the way it is due to the creator's many years of experience in the genra. Challenging for the experienced, playable for the noobs, and this keeps our pastime here and viable.

Just my thoughts.