Aces High vs Targetware

[5PointOh]

So...after reading a bunch of hipe in another thread about Targetware, I decided to check it out and make a personal comparison between it and AH.

WARNING: PEOPLE WITH WEAK STOMACH SHOULD SKIP TO THE NEXT THREAD

I venture over to the TW website, which is hardly user friendly, create an account and download the main version.  Next, I prepare for what I am assuming is going to be an average game by looks of the screenshots I seen. This is where it gets ugly.
I click begin or start...and receive a message that I must download a mod to even play. Download the mod (2hrs on my 20mps connection) Ok now where can I fly and participate in aerial combat.  Oh there’s nobody on. Hell it only 1am EST .  Ok, I’ll try the offline mode.  I pick a theater, and prepare to take a 51 up. Opps no 51, F4U, ect ect to take up.  After 10 min of searching for a mod that will allow me to fly my pony, success.

Wow. DISAPPONTMENT.  The graphics are utterly horrid!  The scenery is bland and very Atari like, no detail, no trees.  There were a couple of buildings but nothing spectacular.   Lets check out the exterior of the 51.   Wow.  AH must have all the talented skinners and “coadrs”. This is poo!

TW P-51


AH P-51


Ok, so now I’m off the ground, looking around, and I see water.  I fly to the water and it looks like someone painted it with MSPaint.  Disgusting.

TW Water


AH Water


This is where I was super disappointed.  Ok here is this engine management I’ve heard so much about. Supercharger position: Check, Mixture: Check, throttle: check.  Ok start the engine.  I’m rolling and up to speed to take off. WHAT IS THIS POO! There’s no feeling at all. This 51 seems so light and fluffy.  51s aren’t light and fluffy on takeoff. I pull back on my X-52p expecting some G effects. The pilot groaned. What no blacking out! Ok, how about an aileron roll?  Whoa. Is this thing modeled like a FSX Extra 300. No feeling or character to the plane.  This is the SIM that I’ve heard Stiglr talk so much about. So all of this “realistic” EM and the flight model is nerfed?  Ok maybe it’s just the 51.  So I look around and find a P-47D-40 (a heavy bird).  What the hell. It feels the same as the P-51.  Not very realistic. 

So here is my conclusion, there’s no place like home.  AH, AH Community, I salute you. TW…well let’s just say, you’ll be uninstalled after I post.

[Slash27]

It good to venture across the fence once and a while. Lets you appreciate what we have here.

[RTHolmes]

the TW 51 looks kinda ... stumpy

[Ack-Ack]

To be fair to TW, it is majority user created and using an older version of OpenGL (at least it used to when I played TW: Rabual) but I agree, it's pretty craptastic in the graphics department and despite the cries of the TW community, the flight model is not all that great.  The TW community thinks by being able to press another button it makes the game more 'realistic' and therefore a sim but how can it be realistic when the flight model is anything but?


ack-ack

[texastc316]

sounds kinda like my little field trip to Fighter Ace one day.

[Larry]

From the looks of it that game has good graphics for the kind of game it is.


For one the 3D in that picture looks equal if not better then AH's 3D model. IMO all it is missing is a hires skin and it could give AH planes a run for their money. As for the ground clutter I don't really think that game needs it seeing that they don't have GVs like AH. (or do they?) Lest the ground detail in that game looks good. Better then the graphics then what some of us have to use. But at the end of the day those are two different games and saying which one is 'better' is a matter of opinion. Just like trying to compare AH and IL2. It all comes down to what feels better or right to you.

[Scherf]

Sometime soon Stiglr will be along to grumble at us all.

[Anaxogoras]

Hmmmm...  I wouldn't call that an objective comparison.  In any case, your observation that there's no one to fight in TW is absolutely true.  I remember DL'ing it and kept checking their servers during prime-time and half of a Saturday, with no luck.  As for how a sim feels, after I fly Il-2, AH planes all feel pretty similar, just the way Il-2 planes feel similar when you go there from AH.  Each sim has its own distinct feel, and the perception that "all the planes are the same," is an effect of being acclimated to an individual flight model.

Don't start crowing too much about AH graphics; Il-2 still has the rights to the "prettiest" title.

[usvi]

Sometimes the grass ain't greener on the other side.

[moot]

No way do the planes in Il2 not feel worse than AH.  They're all the same.  And there's the oddities (tac maneuvering without a vstab) and clues that the FM is just many flight envelopes stitched together.   This isn't my acclimatization to AH.. It's my conclusion after almost a year playing only Il2.

[BnZs]

Honestly, I don't understand this vague talk of "feel" at all myself. All I "feel" is the spring tensions of my joystick. Roll rate, stall speed, etc. they are different from plane to plane in both AHII and Il.

Hmmmm...  I wouldn't call that an objective comparison.  In any case, your observation that there's no one to fight in TW is absolutely true.  I remember DL'ing it and kept checking their servers during prime-time and half of a Saturday, with no luck.  As for how a sim feels, after I fly Il-2, AH planes all feel pretty similar, just the way Il-2 planes feel similar when you go there from AH.  Each sim has its own distinct feel, and the perception that "all the planes are the same," is an effect of being acclimated to an individual flight model.

Don't start crowing too much about AH graphics; Il-2 still has the rights to the "prettiest" title.

(Image removed from quote.)

[moot]

Vague - Flog Il2's planes around departure, you'll see what we mean

[jdbecks]

I got IL2 just after I started playing AH2, as I wanted to fly an offline campaign mode, despite the good graphics, and good damage model two of my biggest gripes was the noise the guns makes   and that every plane felt the same to fly to me, from a p38 to a 109, its a shame as I would have really liked to play it more. Its not a difference in flight model between the two as when I fly ROF, each plane feels different to me

[BnZs]

Vague - Flog Il2's planes around departure, you'll see what we mean

I have and...what? Honk the all the way back in AHII, shudder and drop a wing, honk the stick all the way back in Il2, shudder and drop a wing...

[Reschke]

Having been a long time AH player since late in the beta and very small time contributor to the TW mod side when the TW: Hanoi mod was trying to get off the ground and flying around in TW: Rabaul...the two games AH and TW are VASTLY DIFFERENT and are only meant to be considered in the same genre because they are "desktop flight simulation GAMES"!

#1 No one short of building a several thousand dollar sim cockpit in ANY flight sim can get a "feel" for how a cartoon plane should perform.
#2 Every game is different and done slightly different to reach someone else.
#3 Finally this b($^&^(@ that one community does against another is just another reason that the flight sim genre is dying or dead but just doesn't realize it yet.

My $.02 here is that TW is an open development engine for a group of players to get together and put something specific into the flight sim community as a whole. Eventually they are going to go pay for play...maybe...but I doubt they will ever have more than a passing fancy as a place to go and scratch a specific itch like the WW1, Korea and hopefully Viet Nam planesets without having to buy 3 or more games.