Thanks MigBuster, I'll pick up the SF2I sim and for sure grab Stary's terrain mod (I'm using his Germany terrain mod and really like it). I'm probably a 60's/70's type- my era anyway lol.

I'm slowly warming up to SF2: NA, mainly because I finally got to a point in a campaign where I got to attack the Kiev carrier group.

With all the SAM's flying around, it was like the attack on the Death Star from A New Hope.

Ended up taking a SAM right in the face and blowing up real good along with the bulk of my planes in my squadron. The two survivors jettisoned their bombs while either evading MiG's or SAM's so they couldn't do much good after that.

Good times.

Well, I added Israel and Vietnam and have three campaigns running now...er one still running (Europe). My IDF pilot got clobbered by something over the Nile (SAM?)-- Was busy checking my fuel status, looked up and suddenly disentegrated. Probably should have been skimming over the sands. My Navy flightof Phantoms got jumped by Migs as we crossed the coast. Too low in this case (trying to avoid SAMs) and could not maneuver. Unable to get a lock with my Sparrows (need to check the manual). Lesson also learned re: checking loadout prior to take-off...had no guns...doh. Lots to learn, and boy do I feel rusty.

So with all things being said about SF2 series (pro & con), is it worth getting?

About a month or so ago I lost All my SF1 series stuff--and I mean ALL of it, the sims were HEAVILY modded--when my external HD went belly up, so I'm out of the game for now. Was contemplating reinstalling SF1 series stuff from a friend who's got the cd's (except for WoI), my OS is WIN XP. Wifey says she can put WIN 7 on my computer and I can fly sims for WIN 7 OS (she's the techie in the family).

I dunno, SF2 stuff seems a little more involved since I'll be getting in late, beside my machine is old (bought in 2007).

What is a virtual pilot to do???

BE

The difference between the first and second generations of SF2 in terms of game play are small. The missions and campaigns pretty much function the same way. SF2 also runs much better on Win7 than the first gen games.

They're not terrible games, but notice what I just said. The differences between the first and second generation games in terms of how they play are almost unnoticeable. They haven't really evolved much. The modders that have made additional content are keeping the series on life support. I don't know how much longer that can go on now that another, unnamed simulator is going all-out on third party content.

Thirdwire are creating a cut down version for Tablets/phones as we speak - and their current direction for the core PC series seems to be less support for 3rd party mods and more DLCs - which they can make money from.

SF2 is far superior to SF1 (apart from lack of Multiplayer) - there are actually many changes to the engine - but with later patches is best on a muticore CPU with Win7 and a decent GPU (and SSD) if you can.

The look of the aircraft are much better in SF2 than the first-gen games, agreed. The cockpits are also much more high-resolution.

The terrains are still lacking. The Tomcat game was supposed to usher in a new terrain standard, but it left me kind of disappointed, even now.

I have a semi-decent rig that can run FSX at High to Ultra settings and it unaccountably crawls on the post-apocalyptic moonscape that is North Atlantic's version of Iceland. I prefer flying in the old terrains.

I'd love to have access to some of the newer third party terrains.

The Iceland terrain is very high-poly, so it requires a decent PC to run well, but it's largely featureless. In other words, the actual terrain contours are very accurate, but when it comes to places like airfields and cities, there are very few and they're not very big.

Why? TK knows, but he's not talking. I think TK changed the way terrains work behind the scenes, but to the player's eye it's not very different.

Also, SF2 runs far better on a DX10/11 capable machine with such a video card. On DX9 it runs noticeably slower than SF1 series.

Really, the loss of MP is the big negative of SF2 over SF1. Everything else is better IMO, although some people disagree over things like how the sky works or AI behavior or whatever.




The Jedi Master