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#3478351 - 12/21/11 01:26 PM Re: Review: Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters [Re: citizen guod]  
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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.


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#3478426 - 12/21/11 02:46 PM Re: Review: Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters [Re: citizen guod]  
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The best 'lite' sim ever made was Jane's Fighters Anthology, followed by Jane's USAF.


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#3478703 - 12/21/11 08:56 PM Re: Review: Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters [Re: Jedi Master]  
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Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
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!

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?

#3478796 - 12/21/11 11:01 PM Re: Review: Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters [Re: citizen guod]  
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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.

#3478980 - 12/22/11 06:11 AM Re: Review: Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters [Re: citizen guod]  
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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.


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#3479015 - 12/22/11 08:52 AM Re: Review: Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters [Re: citizen guod]  
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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.

#3479207 - 12/22/11 05:08 PM Re: Review: Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters [Re: magicalflyer]  
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Originally Posted By: magicalflyer
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.

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.

#3479266 - 12/22/11 06:23 PM Re: Review: Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters [Re: Ssnake]  
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Originally Posted By: Ssnake
You are under the unproven assumption that a novice player is actively seeking to learn something.


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)

Last edited by CA_Stary; 12/22/11 06:25 PM.
#3479297 - 12/22/11 07:07 PM Re: Review: Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters [Re: CA_Stary]  
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Originally Posted By: CA_Stary
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

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.

Quote:
And I don't think that a storyline driven campaign is a must-have for the beginners (they have it in the arcade)

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.


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#3479316 - 12/22/11 07:31 PM Re: Review: Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters [Re: citizen guod]  
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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

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