Is that correct from CFS3? Never tried it, but sounds so "right"
CFS 3 : Tactical Air Combat Over Europe!
A Ron Schrader Review
Without a doubt the leader in the civilian flight-simulator market, Microsoft has also had considerable success with its Combat Flight Simulator (CFS) series. Both CFS and CFS 2 were solid, enjoyable sims that played well and looked good doing it. CFS 3 is the newest and most ambitious game in the series, featuring a dynamic campaign and an all-new engine written from the ground up for combat flying. In an interesting take on the air war, CFS 3 departs from the usual focus on strategic bombing and focuses on the tactical war; ground-pounding and CAS (Close Air Support) are heavily featured on both sides of the campaign. The end result however, is a disappointment. CFS 3 is one of those games you really want to like. It's predecessors have been good and hey, it’s got a dynamic campaign! Unfortunately, this title seems to have strayed onto the low road of software development, with corners cut and seemingly been pushed out the door before it was ready.
The Experience:
Unquestionably, CFS 3’s biggest redeeming feature is its dynamic campaign. A rare enough sight in any sim, this one feature almost makes up for the shortcomings of the flight engine. The player selects a frontline sector from the map, which then provides a set of available missions that affect that sector. Player performance directly affects the course of the war in that area, including having some control over the ground war. As the front lines move back and forth, it becomes possible to deviate from history and shorten or extend the war. If it lasts long enough, new aircraft that were historically in the design stages when the war ended become available. This all sounds good, but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. The immersion of the dynamic campaign experience is spoiled by the frustration of actually trying to fly the missions. Even ignoring the stuttering problems for a moment, missions seem to be scored as successes or failures based on arbitrary thresholds that don't always make sense. AI bandits don’t even ditch their drop tanks under fire – meanwhile, your wingmen won’t hesitate to shoot through your plane to get to a bad guy. Apparently the “don’t kill the flight leader” code got left out.
With all Microsoft’s experience in flight sims, we’re surprised at how weird the flight modelling in this title turned out to be. The aircraft are surprisingly difficult to keep in level flight, but even harder to stall or spin. When they do stall, they tend toward weird behaviours like climbing through several thousand feet while stalled. We once watched in disbelief as the shattered, wingless hulk of our Spitfire held altitude for several minutes after colliding with a Me 109, soaring, looping, and rolling like Patty Wagstaff on a bad acid trip. Amazingly, some of the worst points of CFS 2’s damage model have been carried forward as well. Case in point: flak damage. Even slight damage from flak is usually enough to damage aileron cables and take away almost all roll control. This is a mission-killer right there – you can’t fly and fight when the airplane suddenly turns into a lead brick the first time you get shot at.
The Graphics :
Graphically, this sim looks really good at the top end. We mean really, really good. Nice, fluffy volumetric clouds, great terrain, beautiful particulate effects in fire and explosions, and great use of reflection-mapping on shiny surfaces. It’s really too bad that nobody’s got enough machine to run it well with everything cranked. Turn it down enough to run decently on the average gaming rig, and it looks like every other WWII flight sim from the last three years. There are some nice post-mission animations of your pilot walking away from the airplane, etc., but we have to wonder if limited development time really pays off when spent on things that don’t enhance gameplay.
Sound effects are, well, limp. Engine and gun sounds should be impressive – very few things can match the crackling, spitting roar of a big radial engine pushed to the limit. As is all too common in flight sims, CFS 3’s sound effects fill the bill but don’t trigger any adrenaline rushes. There are a few nice touches – the whine of falling bombs or airflow suddenly whistling over a damaged airframe, for example, but they’re the exception.
The Good : Nice aircraft variety, dynamic campaign, interesting tactical focus, and some fun “what if?” possibilities. The graphics when cranked do look very good.
The Bad : Stuttering, CTDs on select machines*, poor damage modelling, fratricidal AI, and bizarre physics.
The Downright Ugly : See “stuttering” above. This sim jerks and jitters like a bunch of Republicans getting down at a church social. You can cut down on it by scaling back the graphics, but it ain’t pretty.
Conclusion :
In the end, CFS 3 is one of those games that get many things right, but get a few things wrong enough to break the deal. We could live with the mediocre AI, the poor performance, the weird flight physics, or the sub-par damage modelling. What we can’t live with is the combination of all these things in one sim, especially a title from an experienced team that has done excellent work in the past. In contrast to Microsoft’s civillian sims or previous CFS endeavours, CFS 3 seems rushed, unpolished, and just plain slipshod. Unless the Aces team patches this one up quickly, one might be best served going back to IL-2 Sturmovik for their WWII needs.
