First flight sim (if you can call it that) I ever flew was an old Nintendo game back when ninetendo first came out. It was a stealth fighter game from back when they thought the stealth fighter was called the F-19. I played it at a friends house and was hooked on flight sims forever. Then Top Gun, the same wire frame one the others were talking about.
First flight sim I owned was the old Battle of Britain. After that as near as I can remember the progression includes:
Falcon AT
Jetfighter 2
Secret weapons of the Luftwaffe
Aces of the Pacific
F-117 2.0
F-15E III
Comanche MO
Falcon 3.0
Combat Air Patrol
Red Baron
2 civilian flight sims and 1 WW1 sim that I cant remember the names of right now
Flight Unlimited II
Hind
Comanche 3
Janes Fighters Anthology
Janes Fighter Legends
Janes F-15
Janes Longbow II
Janes USAF
Falcon 4.0
Luftwaffe Commander
Red Baron 3d
European Air War
Microsoft Flight Sim 2000
Mig Alley
In addition, I also have played at least a dozen other major sims at other peoples houses or as demos.
After playing all these boxed single player sims since I was in grade school I finally got the chance to play an online sim in college back in 1997. It was the F-22 Raptor demo that Novalogic allowed multiplayer access to online. That hooked me on multiplayer style flight sims. The one that I originally owned was Fighters Anthology. I played that one to death but it was hard to find people to play against there at college and I never could get the Janes site to work right in the lab computers. I tried Air Warrior III and Warbirds during this time period but they barely worked on the lab computers except offline which isnt much fun in either of those. After I graduated from college and got cable modem I wanted to get more involved in playing flight sims online. I tried playing EAW in the gaming zone but there was hardly ever anybody there. Then one day I read a glowing review on combatsim.com about AH. I came over in June I think it was, to check it out, and signed up for the free trial period. I loved it from the first flight. However, the 30 dollars a month initially kept me away. After the price dropped, I signed up immediately. I have to say that I was so addicted that I probably would have signed up eventually, even if price had remained the same. From my slight experience with Warbirds and Air Warrior (a few flights online only in each)I can say this is 100% superior. I have been playing AH for about 3 months now I think it is not counting the trial period and I love it more all the time.
[ 11-15-2001: Message edited by: Durr ]