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I grew up on this genre. Aces over the Pacific by Dynamix was the bread and butter of what got me into computers when I was a kid sporting a Compaq Persario with Windows 3.1
So it kind of sad to see that no one really makes flight simulation combat games like Dynamix did anymore. They used to be a dime a dozen, some good, some great. I'm not really sure when the genre took a nose dive but it seems like the more modern reiterations of this type of game are very childish and arcade like. Hawx (not sure if it was 1 or 2) was the first time I heard about a Dog Fighting game coming out again and I got excited, until I saw how much of an Arcade game it was, just really took all of the fun out of it.

So I can't really find a modern game in this genre that isn't for kids and is done to a high standard. I found IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover to be the newer of the options, but most reviews said it sucked. The graphics didn't look to striking either, although I noticed people making mention of the game improving a LOT after an update at the end of 2012.

Well, is this genre really dieing or dead, or have a missed a couple of great ones over the past years... or perhaps, there is something on the horizon that I hadn't heard about yet?

Warbirds is still going. It is a WW2 flight sim with ground aspects"tanks and other vehicals" it has good flight models for every plane of the day including bombers you can crew up with your friends. I played it for years and trained for them so I could fly for free. It was 1.95 a hr and when you are in a plane that climbs at 2500-3500ft a minute one flight could be 2 hrs if you are good and smart. Altitude is energy and energy is life,maneuverability and options. If your low and slow you are very vulnerable to high speed slashing attacks so you end up turning and burning.

If I was caught low and slow I would use what is called rolling scissors and hope a high speed attacker fixates on me and bleeds off too much energy and overshoots me placing me on there 6 oclk. Rollling scissors cand be dangerous when you are flying at half to 3/4 flaps and riding the bleeding edge of a stall under 5000ft. If you stall spin in and crash the person attacking you will get a manuver kill. Rolling scissors workc10 times better if you have a good wingman:)

Anyway it's online with 50-200.people in a arena split into 4 countries "that's the way it was when I last played in 2006. Also it went to a monthly billing of around 20-25 a month. When it was 1.95 a hr I used to have 400$ a month credit card bills until I became a trainer. Google warbirds and you should find so,e videos and the website. Also I believe there is another online game called aces high also a WW2 sim.

- Publishers don't feel like they can make a game unless it has state of the art graphics
- That's now so expensive that they have to sell 5m+ to break even (example: Resident Evil 6 lost money because it sold 5m but publishers planned for 7m)
- 5m+ sales can't be achieved by any game that isn't a shooter or made by Nintendo
- Aerial combat games fit neither of those descriptions
- Thus, they and many other less popular genres aren't made for

Hey mate,
Give Warthunder a go. Free to play and I've had great fun with it. The engine looks great and you can play in a historical mode (which is equally as popular as the arcade mode) and it has a fairly wide variety of planes. Its somewhat resistant to the spend to win problems that some free games suffer from and a lot of effort goes into it.
Best of all, for me, it supports trackir and I enjoy it in historical mode or external mouse control 3rd person view.
Give it a go, in the lower tiers the pilots aren't up to much but some good tactics are in place higher up the ladder.
Also they intend to implement a ground combat element eventually although I have no idea how that would work.
I ended up buying $4 worth of in game currency just to support the devs but I've played it for months and its not necessary to have fun. More than can be said for some AAA titles I own. Be sure to try historical battles.

There's a few newer study-ish sims in the Lock-On/Digital Combat Simulator series: http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/

The A-10 one in particular is supposed to be freakishly accurate - it's based on a product they sold the National Guard for pilot training, and IIRC the Ka-50 was the same for one of the former ComBloc nations.

Speaking of AOTP: synchronicity. I just dug up the manual for that a few days ago.

Yeah Ill put in a second vote for the DCS games, fairly hard though. I have the Warthog one and I've never wrapped my head around it. Take on Helicopters might be up your alley as well although I just like flying around Seattle in that one. I'm terrible at both but I have fun. DCS games come up for sale on steam periodically.
Am I the only one who likes it when a simulator is next to impossible?

I should add that at least the A-10 sim has a game mode if you don't feel like doing everything the actual Hog drivers do just to make it go.

dying ?

There's Wings of Prey (has some half decent solo missions etc. and online MP)
and now War Thunder (same devs, except this one's F2P).

Both are pretty fun.

Otherwise just find graphics overhauls for older games.

danny e. wrote:

dying ?

Deeee, yup. Posted early early in the morning in a rage mode for not being able to find a good flyer. It looks like there are some decent options out there, some of which sound a bit pricey though.

Ouch, $1.5 an hour? How long ago was that, I can't imagine any game could possibly think its self to be worth that. I can see that if your sitting in a physical simulator or you are getting hours that can be logged towards your pilots license. I have a family member who has been considering a start up of a flight school using Red Bird simulators. Hours that are logged in them are FAA approved to put towards a pilot license, something like .8 of an hour on the more advanced ones and .5 hours on some of the cheaper ones.

@ bthylafh - funny that you were just coming across the book, I had downloaded DOSBox awhile back and found the images to run AOTP on it. Got it up and working, but it just didn't feel the same. I used to play other games a few years after that when the Dynamix made other games like the Falcon series. Man those were the days.

@CityEater - No, I also like it to be challenging like your really in the aircraft. As much fun as I had playing Star Fox on N64, all of the "Flight" games these days feel like a re-incarnation of it. Its just too kiddy for me, that's why I'm in search of the real deal in flight combat sims.

I've been aware of Take on Helicopters, but its pretty much Arma II's engine, but improved for flight mechanics. Its also only choppers and not at all combat related. It looks like it would be some fun, but the combat part missing takes away a lot from it, something I thoroughly enjoyed in Arma II.

Would be cool to have a X-Wing / Tie Fighter game like back in the 90's but in a modern engine.

I loved Janes AH64 Longbow I spent countless hours on it.