Are there any recent flight sims or multiplayer combat flight games worth anything? Or are there any known to be upcoming that are any good I could bookmark?
I have a few old ones I tried to reinstall but they don't seem to like my Win 7 64 bit. I'm able to install the old Novalogic flight games(I know they aren't "sims", they were good multiplayer back in the day, at least you could fly normally in them and it wasn't the kind of total garbage that the 3rd person view flight games are), but the matching servers are all down for them so it doesn't matter, can't play against anyone.
Additionally, does anyone remember a game called Tornado back in DOS days? Graphics were trash compared to now, but it had the best mission planning and resource management I ever saw. The mission planner let you plan routes around known AAA and SAM battery areas, gave you time on target and other specifics you could manage fuel with, and you could attack just about anything. You could spend a long time planning to hit the most important targets, or you could just load up with laser guided bombs that, unlike GP bombs that had to be dropped in pairs, you could drop them 1 at a time, which allowed you to hit, if I remember, 10 targets in a mission(1 for every LGB you could carry), and in so doing go for quantity over quality attacks(due to fuel restraints, you can't just fly around to 10 different important targets, you had to pick what you could hit within what your fuel could get you to). And with fuel an issue, you weren't done until you got all the way home.
Anyway, with all that said, I wonder if we'll ever see a multiplayer game with an integrated battlefield(meaning infantry, ground vehicles and aircraft fighting together - an important distinction because flight sims might have these things, but then, in pure flight sims you usually can't play as infantry or ground vehicles) that has its vehicles and aircraft with fuel to consider- think something likeWW2 Online(aka Battleground Europe) but perhaps not quite that large of a theater, where aircraft use up fuel and you only have a certain amount of them, forcing you to bring them home or there's one less for other people to use later. With something like that, you wouldn't have to actually kill enemy players in the game to feel like you accomplished something, just flying out and blowing up a target, even if it's a static resource target and not an actual enemy, and making it home safely, landing your plane for others to use later. And as far as armor and specialty vehicles, they too could be a limited resource, forcing you to deploy them appropriately, and utilize resources to defend them in the field if needed(ie, defend wounded armor out in the field until they can be repaired). In games right now they aren't designed so that there's any need to consider preservation of equipment, you can go out and ram the enemy if you want to, it will respawn, but if returning to base actually meant something, that would increase the sense of accomplishment for many players.
I'm sure I confused everyone, basically I'm saying I wish they would mix BF2(BF3) with a WW2 Online style theater(large enough that it could take from hours to days to win a battle), and and add in things you see in simulations like fuel, limited vehicles and aircraft resources, bridges in key places(where armor would have to divert well out of the way if such a bridge was destroyed), etc. WW2 Online was a good try at this, but it just doesn't reach the mark. And remember WW2O is a 10 year old game(yes, I know it's been updated over time), I actually said all these things on Cornered Rat's WW2Online forums 10 years ago when it was in beta....10 years has brought a massive increase in what hardware and the average person's broadband connection will allow, so I think all this is physically doable now.
Edit: Found a website with some screenshots of the old Tornado:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/tornado/screenshots
Of special interest are the loadout screen showing what you load up with(it was 7 LGBs not 10), and the Operational Zone Map(seeing it there doesn't do it justice though)
I have a few old ones I tried to reinstall but they don't seem to like my Win 7 64 bit. I'm able to install the old Novalogic flight games(I know they aren't "sims", they were good multiplayer back in the day, at least you could fly normally in them and it wasn't the kind of total garbage that the 3rd person view flight games are), but the matching servers are all down for them so it doesn't matter, can't play against anyone.
Additionally, does anyone remember a game called Tornado back in DOS days? Graphics were trash compared to now, but it had the best mission planning and resource management I ever saw. The mission planner let you plan routes around known AAA and SAM battery areas, gave you time on target and other specifics you could manage fuel with, and you could attack just about anything. You could spend a long time planning to hit the most important targets, or you could just load up with laser guided bombs that, unlike GP bombs that had to be dropped in pairs, you could drop them 1 at a time, which allowed you to hit, if I remember, 10 targets in a mission(1 for every LGB you could carry), and in so doing go for quantity over quality attacks(due to fuel restraints, you can't just fly around to 10 different important targets, you had to pick what you could hit within what your fuel could get you to). And with fuel an issue, you weren't done until you got all the way home.
Anyway, with all that said, I wonder if we'll ever see a multiplayer game with an integrated battlefield(meaning infantry, ground vehicles and aircraft fighting together - an important distinction because flight sims might have these things, but then, in pure flight sims you usually can't play as infantry or ground vehicles) that has its vehicles and aircraft with fuel to consider- think something likeWW2 Online(aka Battleground Europe) but perhaps not quite that large of a theater, where aircraft use up fuel and you only have a certain amount of them, forcing you to bring them home or there's one less for other people to use later. With something like that, you wouldn't have to actually kill enemy players in the game to feel like you accomplished something, just flying out and blowing up a target, even if it's a static resource target and not an actual enemy, and making it home safely, landing your plane for others to use later. And as far as armor and specialty vehicles, they too could be a limited resource, forcing you to deploy them appropriately, and utilize resources to defend them in the field if needed(ie, defend wounded armor out in the field until they can be repaired). In games right now they aren't designed so that there's any need to consider preservation of equipment, you can go out and ram the enemy if you want to, it will respawn, but if returning to base actually meant something, that would increase the sense of accomplishment for many players.
I'm sure I confused everyone, basically I'm saying I wish they would mix BF2(BF3) with a WW2 Online style theater(large enough that it could take from hours to days to win a battle), and and add in things you see in simulations like fuel, limited vehicles and aircraft resources, bridges in key places(where armor would have to divert well out of the way if such a bridge was destroyed), etc. WW2 Online was a good try at this, but it just doesn't reach the mark. And remember WW2O is a 10 year old game(yes, I know it's been updated over time), I actually said all these things on Cornered Rat's WW2Online forums 10 years ago when it was in beta....10 years has brought a massive increase in what hardware and the average person's broadband connection will allow, so I think all this is physically doable now.
Edit: Found a website with some screenshots of the old Tornado:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/tornado/screenshots
Of special interest are the loadout screen showing what you load up with(it was 7 LGBs not 10), and the Operational Zone Map(seeing it there doesn't do it justice though)
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