How does the latest title in the Jane's lineup compare to the glory years?
Hint: This one has a "health information bar".

Review by Chuck "PFunk" Bellows

http://www.simhq.com/_air13/air_502a.html

Good god....I thought this was a joke. Definitely not a "Janes" title from yesteryear............

Tell us how you really feel PFunk lmao

This was a great review, PFunk. I'm not going to spend money on a Jane's title anytime soon.

I do love your comparisons! Keep articles like this coming. They are a great read, even if the game is no good.

Thanks!

Who is "Evolved Games" and how did they get the rights to use the Jane's name? Does "Jane's Information Group" have any say about their name being used on this crap?

you were alot nicer to that title than i would have been.

Wags must be laughing his ass off...or crying about an old love.

Good review Chuck.

Ah, the 'Janes' name, so many memories - this game is like how Disney could do their 'Hall of Presidents' attraction if they dug up and animated the actual corpses.

Wags is kicking butt and taking names at DCS. He's created a better product than anything EA Origin could have ever envisioned.

I just bought A-10C and I cannot believe how comprehensive it is.

my memories... early 1997, blue jeans manual cover... oh noes!

edit: Strike Fighters 2 maps are 16 times those of Janes' actually (1000x1000 km vs 256x256 km)
anyway another good review... I wish (cough, cough) someone else used that terrain engine for their newest title

I'm glad I read your review, Chuck. Disappointing to hear something with a "Janes" stamp on it can be so bad.

Gotta agree totally,

Grew up on Jane's Longbow and LB2,USAF,F-18,F-15,USNF97.This crap doesn't even come close.It was a sin to even use the title "Jane's".Only serious sims are attributed to this name.This sequel is a complete joke.Although the first Advanced Tactical Fighters and USNF were not total simulations in the sense.They were much better then this junk.

So many games are coming out these days that try to capitalize on some classic gem by using the name but they can't even obtain a fraction of the glory.They are better off leaving the names of those titles alone.They are not worthy and they can't fool us.

It seems like the era of the PC-based air combat simulator is pretty much over (still)

Its really too bad, with native Windows support for multiple monitors and so on, I was hoping we would see some flight sims taking advantage of it. (Asides the MS Flight Sim, X Plane and Aces High II....only ones that come to mind. Perhaps Falcon does?)

I really miss the days of games like US Navy Fighters and the sort, where you could have multiplayer fun with many different aircraft types.

It's hardly over.

Lol, have you checked out DCS A10? Or Black Shark? Heck, the Lock On Flaming Cliffs do a pretty decent job. Then there's Rise of Flight, IL-series, etc... the oldies such as EECH, Jane's F/A-18, and Falcon 4 BMS are still around as well.

You've named Lock-On/Black Shark/DCS....largely all from the same producer. Rise of Flight...then games that have been out of 5 years or way more. Like I said, where is the new stuff? By all means, point it out to me.

While there can be little doubt that the simulation market has by and large stagnated since the late 1990s while the rest of the computer game market grew by several hundred percent, thus marginalizing the genre, it seems to be equally true that the market is still large enough to allow for two larger and a number of smaller teams.
It's not all doom and gloom.
But an inevitable consequence is that there are fewer direct competitors, that there are fewer releases. Also, keep in mind that generally game engines have matured over the past decade to the point where they now live much longer - this is a technology-induced factor to slow down the overall, directly observable pace of development. But as long as there is some money to be made on the PC platform, flight simulations are not going to die out.

I'm guessing you didn't follow the link in my post. There's an upgrade coming to bring Lock On to DCS standards, which will be amazing. There's a new map coming out for the whole DCS series. A new fast mover sim also part of the DCS series as well as a WWII vintage sim game. Sure it's all from ED/TFC but who cares? They make by far the best sims on the market today, the rest are all arcade-ish. A2A makes some phenomenal stuff too, but of course that's not really combat sim as much as it's a flight sim.

You don't need ten producers when one is doing the best work. But you seem too negative about the whole thing anyway, so whatever. DCS is what's new but you don't seem impressed, so not sure what to tell you.

There's been a couple more, so it's not that bad:

- Take On Helicopters is a new flightsim from the makers of ARMA (has combat helos in it, kinda). http://takeonthegame.com/

- IL2 Cliffs of Dover was a new release back in April, even if it wasn't as good as it's long gestation period would suggest. http://store.steampowered.com/app/63950

- Microsoft is re-writing and updating FSX to their new 'Microsoft Flight' franchise. http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/

- X-Plane 10 is quite a big update. http://www.x-plane.com/desktop/

- Falcon BMS is almost like a completely new game. http://www.simhq.com/_air14/air_507a.html

- Gaijin should release next year their air combat MMO World of Planes. http://www.worldofplanesgame.com/en/game/

PS I know you said 'combat flight sim' but I widened the search a bit

There's also that new Thud Wire F-14 game coming out.

BTW I take exception to the idea that "ED make the best sims evah so it doesn't matter if they're the only ones doing them". Well, it would matter to me since I don't enjoy that type of super-hardcore training sim.

When I first saw the title, I thought this is some kind of April Fool joke article... but this isn't April! So, my second guess was that
this must have been a community-created mod pack for SF or SF 2... but then I read the actual article and realized that this game
is simply a joke, period. And a sick one at that.

I also would prefer more devs making combat flight sims, but alas that ship has sailed.

Anyone here remember 1998-1999? Those 2 years saw more high-quality sims released than any years before or since, but that was the curse. The market was so divided few could afford to get them all. Despite being a junky I think I bought only 1/2 at most.
The result was all the publishers backlashed against the sim market for poor sales totally disregarding the fact that they'd flooded the market.



The Jedi Master

I second that, the market was too flooded, sims need a lot more time than saying most ego-shooters. But then there is a question, how many sims have actually survived since then? And those were not necesseraliy the best at that time, from a quality standpoint, but those with the most potential. Still those of inferior Quality and potential failed.

Also unfortunately I have been proven true about this travesty of a game. They call themselves "Evolved games"? Well they should rather call themselves "Idiot Games" or "games by the village idiot´s Dumb Brothers".

It would´ve indeed been better to let the venerable Jane´s name rest, instead of doing this, making a game that has no connection to the name and what it stands for. It´s like the package telling you telling it´s orange juice, only that you´ll later find out, it has been 90% watered down. And it should be treated the same way, legally. But then that is a ongoing trend in the gaming industry right now, as many have pointed out. OPF, Gothic (Arcania is no Gothic!) or the Tom Clancy series.

Also I don´t know how big publishers can care that less about their reputation, when JoWood collapsed of that, because nobody bought what they had. While the Team behind the gothic series, Piranha Bytes survived nearly without scratch, because they proved they could make a good game.

What is the problem with Challenging games? I can´t believe that the teenies should be that dumb to only play games like this. Well in some cases I can *cynicism*, but not for most of them!

I remember 2001 walking into EB Games and seeing:

Half the store being PC Games,
and over half the PC Games Side was Flight Sims,
and over Half the Flight Sims Section was JANE's
(Fighters Anthology, F-15, F-18, USAF, Occasionally USNF'97/ATF, LongBow II, 688i, Fleet Command, IAF, and not to mention the PACKs that included those titles.)

I think if you looked at the PC selection at EB games today it would look the same games, but the boxes would be scruffier. lol

Plus the elevators on the 688i were far too small, pitch control on that thing was a nightmare

PFunk,

Good, honest review ... no punches pulled. That is what this software niche needs to keep it improving.

Thanks

How'd you say about climbing back into our ole Jane's F/A-18 and bomb the office of whoever made this one? Like I can say that..I lost the CD long ago..but that's what piss me off even more! I thought I could regain the old good memories with Jane's sim, in a package with modern graphics, state-of-the-art flight dynamics, etc, etc.. I almost bought this mess when I saw it in a gaming store here a few days ago, thank God I was in a hurry.
Oh, and my wallet says thank you for the review.

Good point Jedi. I also remember those times, since I started simming in 1997 with DID's EF2000 and Longbow Gold being my very first flight sims. I remember walking into the local CompUSA store and acting like a kid at a candy store. Those were the days.
Pescador

Man I miss those days. Janes F-15, Falcon 4.0, EAW, Janes WW2 fighters, Red Baron 2 etc. If I had known that would be the best of flight sim times I would have relished it more and not took it for granted.

Same here Force 10.

Yeah, that was when we COULD "vote with our wallet" and only buy the ones we thought worthwhile. Now it's like if you refuse to get something, even if it's half-baked, you feel guilty you're contributing to the demise...



The Jedi Master

While it may be deplorable that the once reputable Jane's label is now officially in the gutter, I think that overall the simulation genre needs more "sim lite" games and that the pursuit of procedural accuracy has overall resulted in developers and the fan base painting themselves into a corner: New players are rare.

To change that you need entry level simulations - I always pull out "Strike Commander" here because I think it epitomizes what "simulation games once were about, with an appeal to a wider audience. I don't think that configuration screens are the answer. They may still be a good idea to let an experienced player still tailor the amount of button clicking to his preferences, but the detrimental effect of them is that they reduce the pressure in the development group to make a clear decision - do they want a hardcore sim, or do they want a bigger audience. If you want a bigger audience, you must not make the title intimidating (and multi-page config screens do intimidate people), and above all you must appeal with content (a story line, or a detailed background picture, ...) and not a great flight simulation engine.

I'm not sure that this title is what the market needs, but at least they gave it a try to reduce the overall complexity. Unfortunately it still seems to fail in too many other areas. But we shouldn't slam it for something that it doesn't attempt to be ... unfortunately, using the Jane's label they feed the misconception about what kind of a title it wants to be.

Yes, the whole problem here is the naming being used. I never played it yet, it could turn out to be a fun arcade like Ace Combat. But they really should never use "Jane's" for that type of game. It's like they're trying to deceive us..

Well, "they" decided to capitalize on the Jane's brand. If the Jane's Information Group is willing to sell out and utterly ruin the value of their brand in the field of computer simulation games, that's their prerogative. They make money a last time with the license, the developer may make a bit more money from impulse buyers and those who probably don't really care anyway, but every self-respecting flight simulation enthusiast who informs himself about the title before a purchase will now know what to expect.

No harm done, other than to the reputation of the Jane's brand. And it is fully in the realm of entrepreneurial decision-making to ruin one's reputation for a quick buck. It is their problem, and their's alone. You are in essence criticizing not the product, but a marketing decision. Hey, it' marketing - what else do you expect? That they don't take every opportunity to put more lipstick on a pig? It's their job to do that, and it's the job of self-respecting consumers to lift the veil of euphemisms that shroud the truth before pulling out the wallet.

This is why I love DCS: A-10C, for one of the most complicated simulations ever made, modeling just about every procedure you can model in the A-10C without having access to the real one that the military is using, they also put some serious thought into making it one of the most scalable games ever made.

Perhaps your memory is a little thin, but the last "sim" with Jane's on the label was released in 2000. Few who started simming in the last 10 years have even SEEN a Jane's title, and then it was just that lame WWII arcade game.
Who will be deceived? What value is there to ruin? It's like they make a new Studebaker and people talk of it "tarnishing" the reputation of the older ones. For all intents and purposes, the Jane's name was dead in games. They're bringing it back now in this way, but it really means no more than "Tom Clancy's" on the front of games like Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon and Endwar does now, Or Madden on a football game.



The Jedi Master

You got a point there, Jedi. But for an oldtimer like me it's kinda..disappointing..I guess? I had only two of Jane's sims. F/A-18 and IAF. One missing and one broken now. But I still remember how "real" they were back then. Of course, they're probably feel like games if you compare them to VRS F/A-18E or DCS A-10C or LOMAC. But still, back then, they were THE sims I love. That's why I was so happy when I saw a "new Jane's" on the store few days ago. You can imagine my feeling after reading the review.. And although I agree with the argument that most people that started simming in the last 10 years wouldn't even know about Jane's sims, it still makes me wonder: why did they bother using Jane's name in the first place (assuming they didn't plan on deceiving anyone)?

...probably because some market research revealed that there's still some brand awareness which predicted higher sales figures if they included it in the title than without. In other words, they are still capitalizing on the reputation that they built fifteen years ago.

Read that as you want - as an attempt to deceive customers, or a failed (first?) attempt to revive the brand, or the last opportunity to squeeze a few more drops from an old lemon.

DCS is also a perfect example of preaching to the choir. It's as far from an entry-level flight simulator game you can get. Sure it scales down but it's still as dry as they come.

The contrast to Strike Commander could hardly be bigger.

On the contrary, I think the Jane's name is there now for the same reason it popped up 15 years ago...the publication is known. Their reference books are ubiquitous to those who work in the defense industries and their other publications are well known and widely read.
The fact that there were a bunch of titles released over 10 years ago with that moniker is incidental and probably not very helpful marketing-wise.

That would be like Peter Jackson saying the reason the LOTR trilogy was made was people's love of the Bakshi cartoon from decades back and had little to do with the love of the novel.



The Jedi Master

The reason DCS sims are so dry is the fact there is no dynamic campaign engine.I shelved Black Shark and Lock on because of it pretty quickly.No fluid battlefield and an ability to role play a bit with rank and it collects dust pretty fast.

Just look at EECH and the Falcon series.This is one of the main reasons they are still very popular today and comunity upgrades continue to flow.Maybe developers should get some motivation from that but these days many just don't listen.Luckily,Combat helo will have the same sort of campaign engine.

i think the community modding flourishes there because extensive modding is relatively easy. not the case with dcs. the lack of dynamic campaign and role play elements to the degree of eech and falcon can be made up for by other areas dcs excels in. unfortunately such attempts to further bolster the game's strengths is limited by lack of modding.

But both Falcon 4, EECH and DCS are just too damn complex for an entry-level or casual player.

Completely not true. The avionics and flight models are completely scalable for the casual player. There is no one more casual than I am, and I have a blast with it.

Dude, the casual customer is someone who wants something that looks like Ace Combat but a bit more realistic and runs out of the box. Neither you or I qualify as entry-level or casual users in the accepted sense of the terms. It doesn't matter that the avionics or flight models in hardcore sims are scalable because they are designed as simulators first and foremost and not games. Besides, both EECH and F4 are both over a decade old and require lots of mods to make them look anything approaching decent. So that's a major turnoff as far as casual users are concerned. As far as DCS is concerned, it's whole reason for Existing is that it is a super-complex simulation of the A-10. Scale away the complexity and you lose the whole point of the game.

Again. Strike Commander has been mentioned as a good entry-level sim. Go play it again, then play something like F4, then stop to consider why Strike Commander is a good entry-level sim:

First of all, it has excellent production values and is plot-based. Casual users and especially those accustomed to console games like campaigns that have a definite direction to them.

Second, the combat feels pretty authentic (ie limited weapons, quasi-real physics, real avionics etc) but is cleverly designed so that distances are much closer than in real life, so you get more of the in-your-face action than boring "look at symbols" BVR.

There are many more examples of games that did these things, like Jetfighter III, Thunderhawk, Wings.

So a good entry-level/casual sim needs to be designed as game first, simulation second.

Since EA owns the rights to Strike Commander, when do we see an announcement?

My guess is when hell freezes over. If a big publisher would do it, it'd probably be Ubisoft.

And that is the part I cannot understand. SC was a decent hit for Origin. It has the format to appeal to a wide audience. Why wouldn't EA want to do a Strike Commander 2? The brand name is solid, and they have the rights already.

I can't imagine Ubisoft doing much semi- or light-sim anything going forward, but maybe I'll be proven wrong on that.

I think the market analysis for EA shows that the market potential for flight sims, even if they are somewhat casual, isn't anywhere to the truckloads of money that they can make with BF3 ... which happens to be what the shareholders of the corporate stock seem to expect. An EA executive once told me that they "aren't in the games business, but in the money making business".
I don't know what could be more telling.

I'm sure, one day something like it will come along. But I wouldn't hold my breath for it.

It was a really big hit actually IIRC. Like Crysis it made lots of people upgrade their systems just to be able to play it. But that was almost 18 years ago. The last time EA published a flight sim was a decade ago when they closed Origin for good. The problem with flightsims is that they are seen as a niche catering to grognards and when viewed against Modern Warfare 2 making over a billion dollars the flightsim is going to lose every time.

Meanwhile during this decade Ubisoft has published the IL-2 series, AAA console flight games like Blazing Angels 1&2, HAWX 1&2, the entire Silent Hunter series (now there's a niche genre). So if any big publisher is going to develop a AAA Strike Commander analogue it would probably be them.

Considering all they've done with the MUCH larger Wing Cmdr franchise (so large it had a film let alone half a dozen major titles) is release a crappy little XBLA top-down scroller shooter, I'm not surprised Strike Cmdr is just growing weeds.
Oh, and EECH is far from complex. EECH is to Black Shark like the A-10 in LOMAC is to the DCS A-10.



The Jedi Master

Here we go again. You have to understand that the ED titles are at the very extreme end of complexity. EECH is very complex if you compare it to a game like Apache Air Assault or Ace Combat. As is LOMAC. So it will not be a good entry-level sim, which needs to "realistic" but with simplified mechanics. Strike Fighters is a good example of getting the formula almost right, even if it too is almost too complex to appeal to someone completely new to flight games.

Less clicks/effort to update EECH than BF3.

j/k

I think.

Ace Combat has zero complexity. There's nothing to learn. You could replace all the planes with spaceships and the game wouldn't be any different. Compared to Ace Combat, solitaire has more complexity.



The Jedi Master

And because it has no complexity, anyone can pick it up and have fun with it right away. Flight games (and that includes DCS as well) are fundamentally about giving us the ability to pretend we're fighter pilots and have fun doing so. What is so difficult to understand about this? To the casual user, too much complexity is a bad thing. That's why I said even SF is too complex for the casual user. The entry-level sim needs to be as realistic as possible while being no more complex than popular RPG's such as Skyrim. And it needs to look cool, which means a fairly linear campaign with impressive set-pieces.

Strike Commander was great in that it created a challenge for the player, yet it didn't take a fat manual to memorize. It shouldn't be so easy as to be effectively a side-scrolling arcade shoot em up. But I was pretty proud when I managed to land the F-16 safely in SC, and I still have a few memories about the more difficult dogfights (or the single one tank kill that I achieved with the cannon).

SC still passed as a simulation, even if it was definitely not one of highest fidelity. But it created a bizarre world of freelance mercenary fighter squadrons where you also had to somehow manage the finances. That helped to increase the fun, because missiles and smart bombs were a lot more expensive, which created an incentive to do without AMRAAMs whenever possible, and to throw Mk82 bombs which created a bit of a skill challenge to actually hit a target.
Strike Commander was immense fun for someone like me who wasn't so deeply interested in flight simulations but who still didn't want to have a totally dumbed down flight model. It was simplified, but in a clever way. Options screens cannot and will not achieve the same effect. It was a conscious game design decision to bring the player into dogfight situations where the F-16 was most fun to fly even though modern avionics try everything to avoid dogfights in the first place. I want stalls, I want some difficulty in flight maneuvers. What I don't want, as a casual flight simmer, are more than two or three radar modes to manage, 20 minutes of starting up the engine and taxiing, and shooting blips on a radar screen without actually ever seeing the target. At the same time I want a jet, and not a prop machine, and I want some sort of a storyline that keeps me engaged. Wingmen with different personalities to choose from.

The formula isn't too hard, actually. The problem is that the current developers and the current fans have painted themselves into the corner of a complexity trap. Every new flight sim will get measured by the number of options and the fine detail of flight simulations. That's fine for you experts, but it locks the door for everybody who might develop a deeper interest, if only there was something simpler and more fun to invite him into the scene in the first place.

Ssnake, based from what you wrote about casual flightsim above, I think you'd love Crimson Skies so much. Anyone still remember that one? Well, the planes ain't based on RL planes at all, but they still have wings..easy to fly, but still harder than ace combat. Good story and characters. Not to mention you can design new planes, too. I also love how the plane shakes when I fire the cannons. And the thrill of making precision approach to dock with the zeppelin. Imagine if they remake this game with today's graphics..

CS was an excellent title. IIRC it was a decent hit as well.

Those are contradictory requirements. You can't have a "sim" that is easy to pick up and has some engaging story (like a freaking RPG that is all about the story!) that is realistic! There was nothing realistic about Ace Combat, or Crimson Skies.

I think F-19 was the best of the "easy sims" because while it took liberties you had to really know to understand that. To everyone else it seemed like total realism and it was easy to get into. I flew it with a lousy keyboard for years! They don't make them like that now. However, there was ZERO story. It was WWIII, that's it.
The Jane's USNF/NATO/ATF/etc series was also like that. That's what this title SHOULD have been. Instead, it's Ace Combat meets HAWX, which is to say crap. When Battlefield's air segment is more realistic, you know it's a fail.

The issue is you're using the word "sim" and then putting forth a list of needs that negates the title being considered a "sim."
If it's just a flight game you want, well here they are! This one, AC, Hawx, etc, they're out there. However, there is nothing they teach you that would be applicable to "moving up" to more complicated sims any more than playing those old games in the arcade like Afterburner were for easing the way into Falcon 3.


The Jedi Master

The best 'lite' sim ever made was Jane's Fighters Anthology, followed by Jane's USAF.

Why not? Again, go play Strike Commander, or Jet Fighter III. Those are still sims without being super-complex and they are based around definite story arcs. Realism in itself isn't some kind of objective quantity of complexity. In games, "realism" is really a misnomer for believability. Ace Combat isn't unbelievable (or unrealistic) because it follows a linear plot with scripted missions. It is unbelievable because it has unlimited weapons and planes that act as spaceships. Strike Commander and JF3 are believable because while they are still based around closer-than-real-life combat and has simplified flight physics these are all still believable and do not break suspension of disbelief.

After all, F-19 would still have been realistic even if it followed a completely linear, engaging narrative. Linear narratives are great because if they are good they provide context and an incentive to keep playing. I hate to break it to you, but "complex engine management" only works as a selling point if you aim it at nerds. And entry-level sims shouldn't be aiming at the same nerd crowd that demands every game about airplanes be at least as complex as DCS: A-10.

TBH, the oldschool sims were no more complex than HAWX or Ace Combat but they were designed to feel believable. After all, you could easily fit all the controls in F-19 sans camera views onto an XBox360 controller. And how about Jetfighter 2 and F-18 Interceptor that had even less controls?

There are several dimensions to "realism", none of which has a clear metric. Realistic scene rendering, realism of procedures, and realism of results. A detailed model will eventually deliver more accurate predictions of real-world behavior of a technical system (like a fighter jet), but depending on what your focus of interest is, a simpler model may still deliver accurate results. It all depends on what you're looking at.
Immersion and the suspense of disbelief of course are highly dependent on the expectations of the audience. In fact, a Falcon 4 flight model might look inferior to a pre-industrial age person if he could see it in action than an ultra-simplistic flight model that behaved more like a hot air balloon or a bird, simply because he wouldn't know anything about jet engines, avionics, stall conditions, and whatnot.


The expectations of expert flight simmers, by definition, are irrelevant when it comes to the design of an entry-level flight simulation.
That statement may now result in me becoming an outcast and pariah here. But you wouldn't confront a four year-old with Grand Prix Legends when you have Mario Kart as an alternate choice. If you want to raise interest in racing games, I'm pretty sure that Mario Kart is the by far better choice than GPL, even with all the assistants activated.

If this "entry-level flight simulation" is meant as some sort "basic flying school" before flying the likes of LOMAC, F4, DCS A-10C, etc., then I think WOE/WOI/WOV or any of SF variations in easy difficulty setting is the most appropriate choice. It has a simplified flight dynamics good enough to introduce novice pilots to a more realistic sims. Ace Combat, Crimson Skies, and the likes are IMHO out of question for this purpose since, despite also having "airplane-like objects", there's nothing you can learn from them. They don't even have flight dynamics for all I know; it's just up, down, left, right, and somewhere in between, with the kind of movements that would surely piss off Sir Issac Newton.

You are under the unproven assumption that a novice player is actively seeking to learn something. I think that most of these hypothetical new players would be out for entertainment. They would accept, albeit grudgingly, that they have to master the maneuvering of their airplane if they want to be successful in the game, and to make progress with what must be considered one of the rewards, revealing new chapters of the story.
The trick is to make the flight model complex enough to create a sense of accomplishment and to actually teach a little without making it an obvious Kindergarten flight sim.

I am with you that in order to not just be an action games with plane-like vehicles in them, there has to be a discernible flight model in it. Which is one of the reasons why I skipped Crimson Skies. It sounded as if they got everything right, except that there was no actual (virtual) flying in it, just magic carpets in the shape of planes.

It shouldn't be, since procedural sims like those are marketed to hardcore nerds whose battlecry is "it's a SIM, not a game!". A casual user like me has no interest in playing that kind of hardcore procedural training simulator and therefore there is no need for a "basic flying school". If someone is a milnerd, he'll actively seek out DCS and put in the effort to learn it. SF games are still too complex and based around "realistic" premises with bland dynamic campaigns, lack of content etc to function as pure entertainment. You have to have a decent narrative and simple-yet-deep gameplay mechanics that can hook users. Such as the whole "buy weapons and planes as mercenary while advancing through the plot" style of Strike Commander.

Forgive me to disagree on your unproven statement, but I think there is quite a bunch of players seeking some form of realism in flightsims that need something more than HAWX or Ace Combat delivers (not familiar with the AC series, based on gameplay movies only) but would instantly get frustrated with DCS of F4 level of complexity. In this case I agree with Evil Flower that titles like SC, Jetfighter III or Janes' ATF were best balance of gameplay vs operations complexity/learning curve back in the days, Novalogic short living series falling to more arcade category. Now thinking of it there's only SF series I think that does it well (but sadly doesn't fully deliver in the graphics department, which is of course also factor for new players)

And I don't think that a storyline driven campaign is a must-have for the beginners (they have it in the arcade), not at least when the sim includes simple custom missions generator sort of. At the level of interest making unlimited ordnance not whistanding, the progress in dogfighting skills would be enough of a reward IMO, no need to bad acting movies between missions (Jetfighter IV anyone?)

Also we need to remember that the lite vs realistic has changed over the years, what was considered realistic back in the early 90s (F-19 and it's F-117 "sequel", CYAC, Aces series) would be generally considered lite now by DCS-level of complexity players (and IMO they'd be right)

Absolutely. But focusing on them means effectively a deterrence of a potentially larger audience. That's perfectly fine if that is what a developer wants to do (we at eSim Games are just as guilty of it like most flight sim developers, just in a different field). All I'm saying is that if "the collective" of all flight simulation enthusiasts - developers and players alike - wanted to achieve a significant growth in popularity (my metric for that would be the number of active players), then focusing on procedural simulations is the wrong way to go, even if you have some scalability in it with the possible activation of certain flight assistants in the Options menu.


Maybe not, but the point I'm trying to make is that there is nothing available in the field when it comes to anything that is more simulation than arcade. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nichts. Rien. You are defending against a demand that nobody made, that all future flight simulations should be plot driven and with simplified flight models. This is part of the problem of the flight sim community as I observe it from a rather distant, but decidedly non-hostile observation point. There is so much focus on procedural accuracy that developers don't dare to give up on that in favor of adding more and better content for fear of the backlash that they will receive in the forums.
These collective blinders are hurting the genre. Most developers and publishers have fled the field. Partly due to their own communication failures (e.g. the "Gunship!" disaster or now the (misleading) use of the "Jane's" seal of quality in this recent installment (or whatever some people mistake for it)). Partly due to project mismanagement (the original "Falcon 4.0" by Microprose). Partly due to much stronger market growth in other genres and for other platforms.


It's perfectly fine to define a product title over a market niche. It's just very difficult to grow a market from there without abandoning it. So it might be a smart move and would be beneficial to the flight sim community in general - that's the core of my theory presented here! - if there was some sort of an entry level simulation that would attract novice virtual pilots with something that wouldn't have a great resemblance to the procedurally oriented simulations that currently dominate the genre.

the problem is as I see it, whenever new or existing developer wants to attract new audience to the genre, they seem to allways lean one step too much into arcade minefield, either on purpose or by unnoticed design mistakes.
I think "Wings of Prey" is perfect example of it. Good Il2 based (to put it simple way) simulation, very nice FM at realistic settings, with great scalable graphics, but the simple lack of presistent airfield starts and landings, and the 20:1 gameplay combined with small maps and simplistic DM makes it fall into the casual arcade category. It really needed 2x the size maps, starts and landings plus some less trigger-happy missions design to be perfect example of good entry level WW2 simulator. Shame as the "war battlefield" immersion delivered is IMO the best around now WW2 wise