Before Aces High

[Nefarious]

Well if you want first flight sims....

That Sid Meier is a heckuva guy, lol.

[Oldman731]

Battlehawks 1942 back around 93 on a 286 and a monochrome video card started this addiction

SWOTL and other box sims followed

Same.  Signed onto AW4win when they realized that not everyone had Windows 95.  That would have been around October of 1995, I believe.  Once exposed, I ran right out and bought Win95.

There was a span of time when AOL was free.  I remember those nights dialing AOL, over and over again, getting the busy signal, hanging up, redialing until the connection was made.  Sometimes it took half an hour.  Sometimes it didn't happen at all.  Shows how important it was to us that we had a person v person WWII aviation combat sim.  As easy as the internet is these days, I don't believe you could recreate that level of dedication.

- oldman

[Arlo]

Back when I was on active duty a squadron mate of mine got 'Mig Alley Ace' for his Commodore 64. This was considered hot stuff in its day. We played it for hours on end. He could never seem to understand how I knew he was lining me up when I went all sorts of evasive.

[Guppy35]

Same.  Signed onto AW4win when they realized that not everyone had Windows 95.  That would have been around October of 1995, I believe.  Once exposed, I ran right out and bought Win95.

There was a span of time when AOL was free.  I remember those nights dialing AOL, over and over again, getting the busy signal, hanging up, redialing until the connection was made.  Sometimes it took half an hour.  Sometimes it didn't happen at all.  Shows how important it was to us that we had a person v person WWII aviation combat sim.  As easy as the internet is these days, I don't believe you could recreate that level of dedication.

- oldman

Same same.  I still feel like the best set up was the one in Airwarrior that limited the base capture, had the VoD for those who thought vulching was a way of life, and those fields that encouraged the air combat.  When winning the map took over, the air combat became secondary.  Those days when we started the "Nomads" squad for a bunch of us initially as a once a week shades squad, were a great time.  Pick a the country with lowest numbers and up doing dumb things like goony raids to see if you could drop enough troops to capture one of those coastal bases.  Yak sweeps, AW Jugs (which were awful) in a sweep to the VoD to hit the vulcher's base.  That and lots of fights in 38s   ahh the good old days

[Nefarious]

Ace of Aces - The first flight sim I ever played - I think I was probably 8 or 9.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnDJfq6CQ_0

[Arlo]

When you said 'Ace of Aces' I thought of this:



Played that in the navy, as well. More than once when in flight to various bases.

[Eagler]

If we got that at kind of graphical improvement in 25 years, what will the next 25 bring?

My guess it will be bringing monitor resolution to VR and improving it so the FOV is not the periscope view it is now

Eagler

[icepac]

Add an electric shock seat cover to simulate combat wounds.

[Fencer51]

In Airwarrior by Kesmai, Hitech made a viewer where you could analyze your dogfights.  It might have been the first film recorder in the game.  If I remember correctly it had a in cockpit view and an exterior view which you could move around.  It was wire based graphics and I believe that you could actually fly your plane, changing its path etc, at any point but the other planes never changed from their actual recorded paths.

[The Fugitive]

In Airwarrior by Kesmai, Hitech made a viewer where you could analyze your dogfights.  It might have been the first film recorder in the game.  If I remember correctly it had a in cockpit view and an exterior view which you could move around.  It was wire based graphics and I believe that you could actually fly your plane, changing its path etc, at any point but the other planes never changed from their actual recorded paths.

I dont remember Hitech doing any programming in AW.....other than rumors of possible hacking  But yes the film viewer was cool. You could take control of your plane in the film and fight the fight again. The other plane wouldnt react to your "new moves" and would continue the fight as it was run originally.

[Volron]

My first is well known by a few, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe.  F-15 Strike Eagle II, Red Baron, Aces of the Pacific, Aces Over Europe and Their Finest Hour: Battle of Britain followed.  I also played the hell out of the DOS version B-17 Flying Fortress.

Oddly enough, one of the ads that HiTech ran on the Discovery Channel is what got me into Aces High.  Not right away mind you, as I looked it up then sidelined it for a small while before finally giving it a go; Primarily because I forgot...   I honestly remember fuel being "pork-able" to 25% and "zone strats" when I first started...   But score page says I started after that. *shrugs*

What is funny, I had a 350+ kill career in both Red Baron and B-17. The Iron Cross kill marks in B-17 got pretty big.    Course it was extremely easy to get very high kill careers in B-17 since you were the only bomber that shot back.  The others were just for more ords and to draw fire.

[guncrasher]

I dont remember Hitech doing any programming in AW.....other than rumors of possible hacking  But yes the film viewer was cool. You could take control of your plane in the film and fight the fight again. The other plane wouldnt react to your "new moves" and would continue the fight as it was run originally.

used to practice gunning in my b17's that way.  I got pretty good at it.


semp

[Brooke]

How many of you remember when this was new and amazing?

[Brooke]

[oops, Arlo beat me to it]

As a vast improvement over this:

[turt21]

Anyone ever played Secret weapons of the luftwaffe  or F22 flight sim. ??  havent heard those mentioned. Cut my teeth on one of the original Microsoft Flight Sims then graduated to these. I remember being pleased when I made my first landing. MAny years back...