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By: - 2nd July 2004 at 17:46 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
the first one i had was harrier jump jet on a commodore 16 ! i thoughtr it was so brilliant, this tiny square blocky thing zig zagging across the screen.! i still played it for hours though.
i then found a copy of flt sim on a computer at work and never looked back and have upgraded every time .
i enjoyed pc version of fa18 superhornet and still fire it up every now and then SU27 was a good one as well. i use strike fighters and lock on along with many addons for fs 9
what was that one on the playstation that you earned more money to buy planes ?
that was ok
the only one i ever regreted buying was that bloody eurofighter thing, you spend so much time watching videos !!
By: - 2nd July 2004 at 18:16 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I started with a game called Battle of Britain which was a pre-historic combat flightsim for my schneider computer and that was around 1986.
The combat FS that I used the most in the past have been Aces over the pacific, Aces over Europe, Red Baron, European Air War, IL2, ...
Later I converted to general FS (I Think around 1993/1995) FS5, FS98, FS2000, FS2002 and now FS2004.
These are only the sims I used frequently and There are a lot more I used on a irregular base. But I won't type a complete book here. :p
Greets,
J.V.
By: - 3rd July 2004 at 08:17 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I started on the Commodore 64, and then the Commodore 128 games. Microprose's F-19 Stealth Fighter, Gunship, and others were classics. I still have a few old WIN95/98 games too.
By: - 6th July 2004 at 13:48 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I still have a copy of FS1
If anybody is using a Tandy TRS80 to read the forum they can have a copy (It's probably out of copyright by now) :o
Moggy
By: - 6th July 2004 at 13:49 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Remember the Chuck Yeager one where you could slaughter the WW2 Luftwaffe with an F4 Phantom?
Moggy
By: - 7th July 2004 at 10:28 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
How about Merlin, you had to land the helo on the back of the boat at various difficulty levels, then it gave a score at the end. Great fun at the time. I'll try and dig it out, can't remember if it was PC or Amiga, think it was PC, it was on 1 3.5" disk :eek: Those were the days!!!!
By: - 12th July 2004 at 01:31 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Anyone remeber 'Aviator' for the BBC micro? That was the first 'sim' I ever used, (supposedly a 'Spitfire' sim) Wire-frame graphics and mono at that. Landing was virtually impossible due to lack of ground references, still fun to use. It was loaded via cassette tape, not CD! - ('Floppies' had just been invented for domestice use, and actually were floppy).
The next time I got to use a sim was FS5.1, that fitted on one floppy disk and was (I thought) pretty damn good for its time. I soon lost use of that due to lack of drive space on the work's PC, harddrive space was tight then, it had 120mb drive and that was considered big!
By: - 18th July 2004 at 21:05 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I still have a copy of FS1If anybody is using a Tandy TRS80 to read the forum they can have a copy (It's probably out of copyright by now) :o
Moggy
Hey Moggy, you should be well familiar with the first screenshot below then! I did own a Tandy Color Computer in those days, but played FS1 on my dad's Apple IIe (in green monochrome!). The second screenshot is from FS2, also on the Apple, but in color this time.
If anyone wants to relive those days, I've got an Apple emulator that runs under XP and the needed disk images!
By: - 18th July 2004 at 21:50 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Great topic! Time for a flashback...
My first encounter with computer flight sims was when I borrowed a Commodore 128 from a friend. With the computer came a game called Ace of Aces.
In 1989 I got my first own computer (briefly owned a VIC-20 in the 80s but I won't count that!) - a used Amiga 500 - and shortly thereafter I was flying F/A-18 Interceptor (remember that horrid code wheel?) and Sub Logic Flight Simulator II (it's been patched a few times since then, the current version is 'FS9' ;) ). F/A-18 Interceptor is still a decent simulator, I think, a bit hard to define but it has something no other computer sim has.
Over the years, names such as Fighter Bomber, Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain, B-17 Flying Fortress, Gunship, Chuck Yeager's Air Combat and last but not least Thalion's Airbus A320 simulator in which I gathered several hundred hours flying across Europe. Meanwhile, I dreamt about the new Tornado fighter bomber sim, but my computer wasn't powerful enough for it.
Apparently the old A320 sim is still being updated by Mr Rainer Bopf... graphics are a tad better than on the Amiga, it seems, but not much!
In 1995, I retired the Amiga and converted to the PC world, mainly to be able to use Flight Simulator 4. During a visit to London that year, I bought FS5.1 together with some add-on sceneries and a "strategies" book which actually lived until last month when I threw it away.
After FS5 came FS95, FS98, FS2000, FS2002 and finally FS2004. For a few years (FS5-FS2000) I did some repaints, mostly of Scandinavian carriers. I think I have 500 hours or so in Microsoft's simulators, but got tired of the constant fighting in the FS forum community where designer groups with 'CEOs' in charge split up one day and got together again the next, of huge egos, and last but not least the poor stability of the software.
Got to keep review copies of FS2002 and FS2004 after I'd written reviews of them for a Swedish computer magazine. I seldom use FS2004 but sometimes it's nice to start up and look at the great visuals. I've been away from the FS hobby for several years now might take it up again now with the Captain Sim 707 soon coming...
Another reason I quit computer sims is that I work with real ones every day.
Maybe one should download an Amiga emulator and go back...
By: - 19th July 2004 at 10:14 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Hey Moggy, you should be well familiar with the first screenshot below then! I did own a Tandy Color Computer in those days, but played FS1 on my dad's Apple IIe (in green monochrome!).If anyone wants to relive those days, I've got an Apple emulator that runs under XP and the needed disk images!
That's the one!! So realistic. There was even a combat option as I recall, which I never succeeded in mastering.
Does it run faster under XP or is it still jerk-o-vision?
Moggy
By: - 19th July 2004 at 14:20 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
The emulator runs at normal Apple IIe speeds, but as the software doesn't need anything more it's pretty smooth. If you want to have a go yourself, PM me an e-mail address, I think it all fits into a medium-sized message.
If I can find out how to do screenshots from FS3 to FS5 I'll post those too, it'll be fun to see the whole collection together!
Don't think I ever mastered the combat option either. I recall that you only had to press one key to 'declare war', and then you had these little specs that came at you but didn't really do anything more. You could bomb the enemy base too, but I've never seen any damage done. :D
By: - 19th July 2004 at 14:49 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Well I found my copy of Tornado last night, I'll try and get a few screenshots for you guys to reminisce.
By: - 19th July 2004 at 16:02 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I've got two more: FS3.0 and FS4.0, they look almost exactly the same at first, but the differences are subtle. Image 3 shows the main menu of FS3 while the fourth image shows the same menu but then for FS4 with a few add-ons installed, such as the aircraft and scenery editors and the adventure factory. Another bonus in FS4 (I think it came with the aircraft editor) was the 747 that was included with a true 'glass cockpit'! :D
Also I think that FS4 was the first version that supported sound cards.
The external models in FS4 were a bit better too, the gear actually moved instead of dissappeared, and there was a registration on the fuselage. (images 6 and 7). The fun bit of course was adding other aircraft and scenery, such as this Red Arrows Hawk at Eindhoven Airbase (image 8). ;)
By: - 19th July 2004 at 17:21 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Amazing!
And to think that wasn't that long ago!! :eek: :D
By: - 30th July 2004 at 13:10 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Hmmm....
Had loads of early sims on the Spectrum 48K and Amstrad CPC464.
My favourite was Tornado ECR - basically an arcade shoot-em-up where you flew a Tornado OR Spitfire or Hurricane through swarms of Luftwaffe and Italian aircraft, blasting them all to smithereens! :D Great fun!
Then there was Spitfire 40, Spitfire (which you can actually get to run on the PC, and I know because I tried), Top Gun, Sky-High Stuntman (more arcade sillyness - but great fun), 1942 and 1943, Harrier Attack (quality! :D), Arcade Flight Simulator... those are the ones I can think of on that format.
On the Playstation (old one), I have WingOver - an arcade-style shoot-em-up which is a bit more like Premiership Manager in that you get four planes and, the more matches you win, the better armaments/engines/armour etc you can get, and better pilots to fly them. Great fun pitting a Spitfire against an F/A-18! There was also Air Combat, the first (I think) flight "sim" on the PSX. There was also WingOver 2 which was more like a sim than the first one, but still with an arcade-style feel to it.
On PS2, I've got Secret Weapons over Normandy - QUALITY! I love this one. Five minutes of scrapping with Me109s before I go to work really sets me up for the day! There's another one, the front cover of the box I can see in my head, but the name escapes me....
On PC - CFS1 and 2, Red Baron 3D (pretty good - with rocket-firing Nieuports! :D), Dawn Patrol, Attack Squadron, Fighter Squadron: Screamin' Demons Over Europe, Luftwaffe Commander, and I'm sure I've got a few others.
One which really should have come out on console was Airfix Dogfighter - I love that one! Might not be cutting edge or realistic, but it's great fun nonetheless.
By: - 30th July 2004 at 21:07 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I remember Tornado, but played it on a mate's computer as I never had one. The first serious PC sim I owned was DID's EF2000 Evolution in DOS. What a great sim that was, shame the last version "Eurofighter Typoon" (DID/Rage) didn't live up to the earlier versions! :rolleyes:
By: - 30th July 2004 at 21:21 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
my first sim on the PC was strike commander :)
By: - 2nd August 2004 at 11:15 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Strike Commander was brilliant, it was my first PC game on the 486sx 25 my dad bought for £1,700, it had an amazing 8MB RAM and a 700 MB HD:eek:
I even bought the speech addon pack for SC, once I had saved my pocket money for a SB16 and proper analogue joystick, in fact the stick is still going after 12 years.
some screen shots from http://www.thelegacy.de
By: - 2nd August 2004 at 22:20 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Ace of Aces on a Commodore da64 was my first flight sim
couldn't put it down once i started i especially liked the inflight refueller
Unfortunately my Fs2002 and Fs 2004 aren't working on this computer at the moment but hoping to get a better one with more memory possibly 512mb ram bigger Hard drive maybe between 80 and 120GIG before christmas and faster CPU.
Any of you guys in the UK reccommend anything of a reasonable price please get in touch
Cheers
Posts: 781
By: danohagan - 2nd July 2004 at 17:15
OK lets go back in time, what sims have you enjoyed playing over the years?
The first one I had was on the Spectrum - Fighter Bomber. From memory you could fly a Saab Viggen, a Tornado, a Phantom or a MiG-27. Graphics were monochrome, but bloody ambitious for an 8-bit home computer. Worst sim I've ever played was Biggles on the Speccy. Dire.
Then I upgraded to the Amiga. Some cracking sims on that. F/A-18 Interceptor was awesome for its day, Fighter Bomber on the Amiga was slow, but not bad, B-17 Flying Fortress was an excellent sim and probably my favourite.
On the PC my first sim was European Air War. Tremendous game. More arcadey than more modern sims, but terrific fun to attack the big formations of bombers! Since then I've played and enjoyed Falcon 4.0 (still the best modern combat sim), B-17 II (a poor, buggy sequel), Battle of Britain, MiG Alley (Rowan made some brilliant sims), CFS2, FS2000 and currently FS2004 and IL2 Forgotten Battles.