5punk

well, it's general gaming! I suspect there aren't many 5punkers who like the uber nerdiness that seems prevalent in the flight sim crowd. And by flight sim I mean full on, everything simulated to the minutest detail study sim, with big fat manuals that made you feel like your pocket money was well spent. I've been playing an A10 sim from DCS recently, which is very shiny and new, but falls foul of the cardinal sin of not including a a dynamic campaign. So once you've learnt how to fly and drop bombs, there's suddenly no game left to play and it wears off pretty quickly.

Enter Falcon 4 BMS 4. Falcon is a very old Microprose game (12 years in fact), which has had a loyal following thanks to being a very good F16 simulator with the last and greatest of the truly dynamic campaigns. The BMS mod has updated the graphics to DX9 and added a whole host of improvements, including what is possibly the most accurate flight model to date and, importantly, rock solid Multiplayer.

If you like flight sims, this is the mutts nuts. But it's one helluva steep learning curve. You do need the original Falcon 4 (not the Allied horse release), but this can be easily acquired for less than money (and weighs in at only 0.5Gb). Otherwise it's entirely free.

I don't think I've ever played a proper, balls-out sim. I played and enjoyed F/A18 Interceptor and Gunship 2000 back in my Amiga days but I don't think they would stand up as a pukka gen sim by today's standards. There was also that WW2 game that was cheap on Steam not long back who's name escapes me, but I never played that on sim mode so that doesn't count either. Oh! There was Team Yankee too, that was fun.

I enjoyed Il-2 a lot, but I must confess that I play it on semi-realistic/arcade since I always forget where all my things are and what they are for and end up bailing out before I reach the battlefield. I probably would've been good at them in my younger days (pre-20, I mean) but I find I no longer have the patience or attention for games with steep learning curves. Technically, it should have been the other way round.

Bummer... I have falcon 4.0 Allied horse.