Your first combat flight sim...

[Spinners]

I can't remember the name but it was some crap 'Sea Harrier' (post-Falklands) game for the C64 and clearly remember the blurb on the box stating that it had input from a Fleet Air Arm Sea Harrier pilot... yeah, right.

 

After that, nothing until MiG Alley but I didn't get to grips with that and, in anycase, my PC was a bit weak. Since then I've tried IL-2, LOMAC and Strike Fighters and have settled into a long-term relationship with the latter.

 

 

[Rafair7643]

First post for me.

 

My first ever "combat" sim would be The Dambusters for the C64. In comparison to todays offerings, it was pretty tame, but in those days it was top notch.

[+Gocad]

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. The graphics were awesome.

 

Great game, and the manual was an interesting read, too. It's a shame they don't make games like this one anymore.

[Termin8er]

Speccy Holobytes Falcon, Microprose Gunship 2000, Intellisoft/Electronic Arts F18 and the buggy but beautiful (back then) F29 Retaliator (the F29 looked a lot like the F22 Raptor?). Microprose and Speccy Holobyte must have been largely to blame for the desctruction of much of the rain forest; based on the size of their manuals! I used to relish reading them from cover to cover! S'funny, but back then I thought these games looked great!? It's not till you look at them on youtube, you realise how dated they look (and here I was thinking how much better FF5 looked when compared to F4AF?)?

 

 

 

Sine Virtus, Sine Laus.

 

 

[Falcon161]

Jane's World War 2 Fighters takes it.

OH hells to the yes!! I loved that game!! IT was my Favourite all time WWII SIM!!! I also playe HIND and Falcon alot but fr the life of me I cant remember who made them.....They were both made by the same people both had the same graphics although ones was slightly more polished.....I can remember though Warbrids and ACES High loved them but WWII Fighters from Janes MY Alltime Favourite

[JediMaster]

Hind was made by Digital Integration, but I don't recall them making an F-16 sim. Of course, there were a lot of "also rans" in that area besides MPS/SH's Falcon 3/4 series that I can barely recall. I know Novalogic did one.

[haukka81(Fin)]

Hi!

 

My history:

1.A-10cuba (great)

2.F-18 Hornet Korea (great)

AND NEXT-> JANES F-15

it's was so great, atmosphere was great!! I hope that we get new F-15E sim some day..

Edited August 15, 2010 by haukka81(Fin)

[Bobby]

Hi All,

 

First came Flying Corps, then Red Baron 1 & 2, and CFS1. Followed by EAW, CFS2 & 3 + MAW + OFF, Battle of Britain II, and Il2 in all its incarnations up to 1946. Still got all of them except MAW (trashed in a computer crash), and CFS2 (I lost it). But the first two don't play so well on XP. Shame. I loved Flying Corps.

 

Cheers

 

Bobby

[FastCargo]

JANES F-15

it's was so great, atmosphere was great!! I hope that we get new F-15E sim some day..

 

Well, you can still play it in high res now and on modern machines, it runs really smoooth...

 

http://combatace.com/topic/20530-still-looking-for-strike-eagle-sim/page__st__15__p__89860#entry89860

 

FC

[Rambler 1-1]

Jane's ATF on Windows 95. I used to love the intro video!

 

Before that, I played Buck Rogers, but I can't even remember what console it was on.

[fatkat357]

So, what was the first sim that got you hooked to the genre ?

 

First combat sim was the original Falcon in the fall of 1987. I remember getting it and reading the instruction book cover to cover over the weekend. (Yeah, I know this dates me.) About a year or so later, I trued Sublogic's jet, thinking it was way more advanced because the framerate was much smoother. At the time, I flew using a keyboard - first joystick was CH's Flightstick about 2 years later. The idea of being freed from the keys (if only for just pitch & roll) was incredible. By then, I got my copy of "Their Finest Hour" - graphics was CGA at the time. I remember wondering why some planes burned and others actually exploded.

 

Around the time I got TFH, there actually was a television miniseries about the battle of Britain - "Piece of Cake" on Masterpiece Theater. One of the pilots loses power because his Spit still has wooden props. I'm thinking - okay, he can glide just like the Spitfires on TFH.

 

Those were the first and - for a while - the last sims I could get into. More sims used VGA and soon became demanding in other ways. Though I did get a VGA card in '92, the onslaught of games with even higher system requirements meant I either needed a new system or would have fewer trips to Software Etc. Falcon 3.0 was pretty much the nail in the coffin - it did run on my system (a 286) but barely. I had hoped to make Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe run, but it do was unplayable.

 

My next new computer was a Pentium 166mmx in '97. The first thing I did was buy a lot of older games - "Aces of the Pacific", "X Wing" & Hind. those were either great years to get into sims or bad ones. It was easy to find not-so-old games for real cheap - like a bundle containing Falcon 3, Fleet Defender, Gunship 2000 and one other game in one box that Software Etc sold for about a dollar, or one that had Hornet 3.0, Flight Unlimited and a couple of others in a budget CD-Game section of a "99 cents or less" store. By then I had little time for sims. I'd look at these games and remember how much gameplay I squeezed out of TFH or Falcon and wonder where these games had been...

[Dogzero1]

Hind was made by Digital Integration, but I don't recall them making an F-16 sim. Of course, there were a lot of "also rans" in that area besides MPS/SH's Falcon 3/4 series that I can barely recall. I know Novalogic did one.

 

Digital Integration made the best F16 sim in my opinion, F16 Combat Pilot and many more great combat flight sims.

 

[Viper3]

Better late than never.....

 

Microprose F15

F117

Falcon 2.0

Falcon 3.0/4.0 - OMG so many hours

 

FLEET DEFENDER - waaaaaaaay ahead of it's time.

 

 

 

All of janes flight sims

 

 

My room looks like the poster who had the pics of all his flight sims...... matter of fact we have all the same sims.... I also have a huge tank sim collection...

[TeargasHorse]

There were two stand-up arcade games, I dunno which was first that I played, Tail-Gunner, where you were on a spaceship and were the tail gunner, and Red Baron, that was from the cockpit of a triplane going through mountains and shooting stuff.

 

For the PC, the first would be Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer on the Apple IIe. There was one biplane fighter that you could dogfight. There was no joystick or mouse so it was keyboard/pad, and had FPS around 7.

 

Then the switch to PC.

LucasFilm Games "Their Finest Hour : The Battle of Britain" (still no J/S),

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe and the 4 addons,

Strike Fighters by Sierra,

Battle Hawks 1942 (there were 2other games by these guys, I cant recall the names),

Aces over Europe + Pacific,

A-10 Tank Killer by Dynamix,

1942:Pacific Air War (fantastic game),

X-Wing + addons,

Tie Fighter +addons,

F-19 Stealth by MicroProse,

Red Baron

Flight of the Intruder

Gunship 2000,

Falcon 3.0,

F14 Fleet Defender

F15 Strike Eagle,

Chuck Yeager's Air Combat,

Microsoft Combat Flight Simulater 2 and 3 (first user made free add-on planes)

MiG-Alley

Jane's USAF, my first online game <S> SAF!,(boo Jane's for killing the servers!!)

Jane's WW2 Fighters,

LOMAC (never got used to playing),

Falcon 4 (never had time to learn),

IL2 SERIES,

Strike Fighters series (although I still dont have version 2 of them),

Operation Flashpoint series.

 

I believe that I still have every single game on either 5 1/4" or 3 1/2", plus the 486 with them still on the HD!

I'm sure I'm missing something, but you only asked for the first, and I got all nostalgic.

Edited July 24, 2011 by TeargasHorse

[Dogzero1]

Just booted up my old amiga a1200 and F-16 Combat pilot. Gawd, it looks dated but the gameplay is still fantastic. Bump it up for retro air combat sims.

[+Spectre8750]

F-15 Strike Eagle MicroProse Software, 1984 on a Commadore 64. and then most of the ones pictured above.

Edited December 30, 2011 by Spectre8750

[kct]

Flanker 2.5, due to not having a chance to jump into the Jane's bandwagon.

[JediMaster]

You know, in just 4 months this thread will be a full 4 years old. One of the longest continually-active threads here that I know of.

[colmack]

Yeager first ever flightsim to play with (not mine only played one day C64) Falcon AT (286),falcon 3, AOP/AoE, fleetdefender (Packard Bell 486) CFS2, CFS1, Falcon 4.0(Pentium?)

[+KnightWolf45]

the very frist for was Fighter Pilot on ZX spectrum 48K in 1983 IIRC

on PC Ultra fighters frist Game i buyed!

[B52STRATO]

Wow, still active after these years ! I think it was CFS or maybe 'F-22 Lightning' by Novalogic (I still like to drop the B-61 on the Tu-95 base)

[JediMaster]

I like dropping them in SF still.

[BFawlty]

The Dynamix(I think ;-)) titles Wings over the Pacific and over Europe.

 

BF

Edited February 18, 2012 by BFawlty

[JediMaster]

Yes, those were the 2nd and 3rd titles in the Dynamix Aces series, after Red Baron.

[czingerx]

Even though I played Top Gun in the late 80's. The one I really got me into it, is F117 Stealth Fighter on the PC, I have to say in 1991 or 92.

 

The past few years I've been getting back into all these flight sims in general pretty hard again. Love the mature and civil community that comes along with it too.