One of the best?

[GreyCap 0]

Hi all!

Before I go buy First Eagles, I was just wondering where it stands on the list (short list) of WWI flight sims.

I remember having a great time flying campaings in Red Baron II, how will I feel with FE?

Thks!

Edited April 3, 2007 by GreyCap

[Dagger 21]

this is apples and oranges I'm afraid.I played RB3D for years in a squadron..and it was a great sim,now I play FE,while it doesn't have all the features of RB,and concidering it had years of time to get brought up to date,FE some say is better,I like it.Plus with the continued support it's only getting better.if you intend to play on MP be sure to have a second plain install as if your planes and the hosts don't match it won't let you play.

[Firecage 1]

I have to agree its hard to compare. I was also in RB community for years and I think RB3D has always been a measuring stick. It wasn't perfect but it had MANY great features.

 

FE has the ability to let you customize the planes to fly the way you like so it can be tailored to fit what you think it should be. Problem is the open code makes it very hard to do MP without 2 seperate installs.... one clean and one tweaked.

 

SO far the AI and colllsion detection, AI flying and shooting need more work. I would also say the makers of the game have been real good at addressing issues in a very timely manner. TK has also said this game was to shoot things down and have fun , not a Full Accuracy FM. But I do get the feel of flying in FE when im on a mission. The planes feel very nice and most of the third party planes are fitting together pretty well.

 

One thing I have issue with is there are no spins like you would expect in this FM. Some of the players/mod people have found a way to make the planes spin with some fancy code work. Its not exactly what you might get from a full blown hard FM but it wasn't made to be that anyways.

 

Bottom line tho is I would suggest it to anyone who like flying WWI sims. Even without some of the features its one hell of a sim and I enjoy it a ton. If Sierra would have listened as well as third wire has so far RB3D would be amazing. IMHO the player community is what kept RB alive not Sierra. This is a small company and they have been adressing the issues faster than most games for sure.

 

 

BTW there are about 30+ planes now for FE even at this early stage of the games life. Not bad in my book.

[JediMaster 451]

First Eagles offers the ability to add lots of planes and terrains, but comes with very few out of the box. The campaign is a different class from RB's, but that game had a massive budget and team by comparison.

 

FE is a great lite game that lets you fly and fight with little fuss, but it's not the all-encompassing obsession that RB2/3D was.

If you have CFS3, there's also the Over Flanders Field Phase 2 mod out, a total conversion that runs over 1 GB in size. It has its own limitations due to the CFS3 engine (just as attempts to put WWI planes in SFP1 and WoV/WoE had problems due to limitations), but offers an alternative take on doing a WWI sim.

 

I have both.

[Sky Captain 0]

First Eagles looks pretty well done, from what I've seen, but I haven't acquired it yet. (I've been doing some OFF, but I tell ya, that's incredibly difficult Of course, I doubt that WWI was a piece of cake either) But I'd say it's one of today's Top 10 WWI sims. (Which is not hard considering the state of many of today's combat sims)

[Gr.Viper 131]

OFF is great if you want some really hard times and get arm ache from maneuvering. Also ground fire there is merciless if you dare go near the ground.. And you can fly over a HUGE detailed map of Europe. I might go London-Berlin some time.

FE is good for having fun massive dogfights without much lagging.. and without worries about some technical limits of old fragile canvas planes.

RB3D somehow has everything apart from realistic cockpits and fancy detailed graphics.. But for now that's the only flight sim where I saw neat wing warp and wings getting deformed after collisions.