Flight Simulation

[Paul Debrion]

Any flight sim fans around here?

Personally I like both Microsoft Flight Simulator and X-Plane for just flying around.

As far as combat flight sims goes, Falcon 4.0 and its variations is still my game of choice and probably one of the games I've kept the longest, flight sim or otherwise. I also liked Total Air War though I don't play it anymore. For some reason I never liked LockOn or IL-2 very much.

I have yet to try DCS: BlackShark, though I have been keeping an eye on the Digital Combat Simulator series and will probably try DCS: A-10C Warthog whenever it comes out.

My old Logitech Wingman went near-dead and isn't as precise and the rudder no longer works well.
I've recently ordered a Thrustmaster T.16000m to replace it.

I've also gotten a cheap webcam and am planning to put together a Freetrack optical head-tracking system eventually.

[shadowbringer]

I'm not much into flight simulators, but I'd like to mention the two games of this genre that I like, or liked: Turn and Burn - 'No-Fly' Zone (for the SNES), and the old (in fact, one of the first PC games I've ever met) F-19 game, for MS-DOS (dunno exactly what version now.. I think that DOS Box runs it well.. if I only could remember the controls :p)

They're not realistic enough on how we should operate the planes, though :p

[Dead Princess Sakana]

Hm, I don't like pure realistic simulation games, it has to be airfights at least. And then I usually want some story as well, so I never got into that kind of games much. Space combat games usually suit me better.
Though there is a game called 'Sky Crawlers' for Wii seemingly coming out in Europe in February that looks interesting.

[orinrin]

The last sim I played was X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter and god knows that is pretty old.  I would get more into these kind of games if I could find a stylish control pad/joystick.

[Paul Debrion]

Hm, I don't like pure realistic simulation games, it has to be airfights at least. And then I usually want some story as well, so I never got into that kind of games much. Space combat games usually suit me better.

The last sim I played was X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter and god knows that is pretty old.  I would get more into these kind of games if I could find a stylish control pad/joystick.

Have you ever played Freespace 2?

If not I would highly recommend it. In my opinion it's the best space combat game ever made and controls well with or without a joystick.

It's rather old, but the modding community has made numerous upgrades and enhancements to the original game to improve the visuals as well as allow it to run better on a modern PC:
http://www.hard-light.net/

[Dead Princess Sakana]

That looks interesting. Haven't played that yet.
The only ones I played were Starlancer and Freelancer. And a bit of X-Beyond the frontier, but that game is so slooow~

What about non-space games? Any recommendable ones there?

[Hideki]

Off the top of my head, The only flight sim I've played was US Navy Fighters.  It was an old game, considering it ran on DOS. 

[Doomsday]

I haven't played many flight sims/Space sims really. The only one i can remember from the top of my head was an old-ish space sim (if you can call it a sim, but its close-ish I guess), Tachyon: The Fringe. again, I don't even know if you can class that as a proper sim.

[Paul Debrion]

What about non-space games? Any recommendable ones there?

Well, despite stating that I never liked it that much personally, I would also recommend having a look at LockOn: Modern Air Combat.
It's a really nice combat flight sim that isn't too hard to learn, not as difficult to learn as a straight up "study sim" like Falcon 4.0 or anything like that at least.
It's not as easy to get into as Ace Combat or HAWX of course and still has a much steeper learning curve than either of those games, but it's not too bad.
I would also recommend IL-2 for similar reasons. Again, there's nothing really bad about these games and I only dislike due to personal tastes.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum you have hardcore "study sims" with textbook-like manuals like the Digital Combat Simulator series (DCS: Blackshark, DCS: A-10, ect.) and Falcon 4.0 which pretty much teach you to fly the actual aircraft in a much more literal sense.