I've gotten back into a couple of my older games. Silent Hunter 4 and 5. Since installing them, I've hardly been playing anything else. I'm immersed. Completely. I'm not in my house in Dallas. I'm on the rolling, pitching deck of a Gato class submarine heading off to do battle with the naval forces of the Empire of Japan.
What puts me there are not just the beautiful graphics that have been helped along by some really talented modders, but something more subtle. Radio news programs and period music.
Such a little thing. I was on the boat's deck, heading west out of Hawaii. Switched on CBS radio and the newscaster was talking about the fighting on the Eastern Front. A little while later the President came on. FDR. Turned it off to hear some music. A melancholy Hawaiian love song was playing and it almost sent a shiver up my spine. The music, the sound of the ocean splashing over the bow and the red sun going down far out on the horizon took me right out of my seat and onto the conning tower of that submarine. Has to be one of the most immersive moments I've ever experienced in all the years I've been gaming.
I realize that that's what is missing from flight sims, today. It's why I'm on that sub instead of my P-51. The flight sims just aren't putting my there. They used to. But not now.
I remember Jane's WW2 Fighters. Very atmospheric. The intro film even played 1940's swing music. No one wants to do that kind of thing, anymore.
Maybe not everyone feels the same way. Some just want to shoot things. That's fine too. They are games, after all.
But, on my way to the DCS Sabre, I'd love to pass under the sign at Kimpo airfield in Korea that said "Through this gate passes the best fighter pilots in the world." Small thing, but it puts you in the moment. Of course...we'd need a Kimpo airfield, first.
What games have done that for you guys? Just pulled you right out of your seat and put you inside the game. I'd bet that most of them are older ones.

I agree to a large extent with your post Pooch. IMHO, a significant component of the "fun" factor with games is role playing which fits in perfectly with the idea of "immersion". While I really enjoy sims like DCS World, Rise of Flight and the IL-2 series, they all lack a deep sense of immersion. Sometimes it's just not enough to fly individual missions and to destroy some targets and then fly back to base. Having a "big picture" going on outside of the cockpit aids a lot with the enjoyment imho.

It's because of this lack of immersion that I've found that over 50% of my stick-time is in multiplayer. Having other human players in your missions kind of makes up for the lack of immersion from the single player part.

Excellent post Pooch,I couldn't have put it better. Out of all my sims the SH series is the one I re-visit the most (modded of course).

I really can't play modern flight sims anymore,they just don't do it for me.I do play War Thunder and mostly arcade mode because it is FUN. Quite frankly,trying to learn how to play the likes of DCS has finished me off.Maybe it's my age and I just can't find the concentration levels to learn a complex sim but they just leave me cold now. Jet Thunder is the only sim I'm truly looking forward to but when that will arrive is anyone's guess.

The first three that popped into my head (I'm assuming we're talking about only simulations),


1. Silent Hunter 4

2. Aces of the Deep

3. Formula 1 series by Codemasters

What would you say worked for you, with the Formula 1 sims? The car felt real? The sounds? I think that what we hear is almost as important as what we see, in games. In Falcon 4.0, hearing all of those other strike missions going about their business really put you in that F-16.

While the physics modelling is not hardcore like what you will find in Grand Prix Legends or iRacing, the fact that it has a career mode complete with interviews, cut-scenes, driver rivlaries, news feeds, etc. adds a lot of life to the game. It's not just a racing sim that starts and ends with being in the driver seat.

There is a combination of factors in Skyrim that has me still enjoying it. The open world, the NPCs with the great voice-overs, lush graphics, and one of the few sound tracks that I don't turn off. That music is one of the best game scores ever.

Absolutely!! The music is an integral part of Skyrim. I actually got goosebumps the first time I fought a dragon and I heard the opening title chanting in the background.

Yes, 21st century sims lack that immersion we got in the 90s unfortunately. The last one that had it for me was CFS3, but it had other shortcomings that limited how much time I spent with it. I would love someone to tack the 90s shell onto DCS or Il-2, with briefing rooms and debriefs, and pilots that seemed lifelike and not lifeless. We now have highly accurate systems simulators, with graphics of varying degrees, but little "soul."

Although I've not touched it since Phase One, I understand many say OFF/WOFF has a great amount of immersion. I've just never had the time to go for it.

The only current games that give me that sense have been the well-made FPS and RPG games like Thief, Mass Effect, Skyrim, Dishonored, Tomb Raider, and so on.

The CM F1 titles do as well, although the AI can ruin it for me at times with their inconsistency, especially in changing weather conditions.



The Jedi Master

Well, see, Panzer enjoyed the Formula One sim because they created a world around him. That's what they aren't doing anymore.
Its' like the difference between a really well done, accurate, historic novel and a book with pretty pictures and specifications. You can't wait to get back to that novel. You like picking up the picture book every now and then and glancing through it, but that novel is keeping you up late at night.
Yeah, what you're hearing is as important as what you're seeing, in games. One of the great things about Falcon 4.0 was hearing those other pilots, in your headsets, going about their missions. It really put you up there in that F-16.

Silent Hunter 4 is my current sim of choice as well. I agree with how immersive it is, but taking it a step further, for me this is matter of state of mind. I feel fortunate that my mind works in such a way that I become the skipper of the Triton, prowling the waters of Makassar Strait. Graphics, sounds, AI and all are certainly important factors to creating this immersion, but for me how the sim is approached is at least as important.


What I mean by this is using my knowlege of the Pacific submarine war and directly applying it to the actions and decisions I make. Difficulty settings also play a part. I mean I could use auto-targeting, and external cameras. Would I be more successful? Almost certainly. Would I enjoy it more? No way. I need to try and replicate the experience as closely as I can, based on the tools at hand, and what I know of how things were done in real life.

Realsim is a slippery slope. We all bandy the word about, but we can never really get there in a sim. Forget for a moment that our lives are not in danger, and that it is not 125 degrees in my living room and I do not have 80 very ripe shipmates, nor do I miss my son because I haven't seen him in 2 years.

No sub sim will ever be realistic in the literal sense. I do not have to deal with electrical shorts, bad water, broken crankcases, squealing port shafts or chattering rudders. The SJ never just stops working.

But what I can do is make it as realistic as possible with what the sim does give me. For me that means never using externals, using manual targeting and firing spreads when I am sure one would do, diving on every air contact. It means staying in my assigned area, when running over to Truk would surely mean more contacts. It means rarely using the gun, and then only on proper gun targets. A 10,000 ton tanker is not a gun target. It means spending 2 hours getting in position to make an attack only to raise the scope and see a fishing boat, when other players would hit "," and have been on their way. It means spending another 3 hours staring at the gauges and the diving officer in an evasion, reacting only to what I can hear. It means making trim dives, even though it serves no purpose in the sim. It means dead is dead, and never reloading because all 3 torpedos were duds against the side of that cruiser that was a dead duck.

By doing all of this I achieve the immersion by forcing me to make the decisions that a real sub skipper would have to make. The sound of the water, the stars in the sky, the sound of the klaxon and the water lapping at the scope all add to it. But in the end, for me, it's about a state of mind, of immersing myself in the role of the skipper, and acting as I would if I had indeed been in command of a US Fleet boat in the south Pacific in WW2.

only time I found myself inside of the game was many years ago when I played IL-2 (original one). never had such feeling after, even with 3D/surround stuff. I suppose it's just a work of imagination and can't be replaced with any hardware.

I can completely understand this since the challenge of acting as closely as possible to a real WWII submarine skipper is what creates the sense of immersion but personally, I could never be that hardcore with a sub sim. Yeah, I use time compress all the time and I reload if I make a dumb mistake.

Regarding immersion i wholeheartedly agree, after Aces of the Deep, Silent Hunter 3-5 were a giant leap forward. Some people did 1:1 cruises, sleeping only when submerged or using a clock to enter the bridge regularly
Weather, dusk and dawn is really breathtaking .. could still use a bit more micro management though.

But do not forget B17 - the Mighty Eighth. This was so absolutely "real" in a way that i thought i got a heart attack at times. Only thing that ruined it for me was that the AI could not fly the B17, when you switched back from manual controls, after this ... "patch".

Immersion is everything! Especially simulation games have become increasingly sterile and "technocratic". Or sandboxes. Higher fidelity seems to equal less immersion.

In a way, pretty much everyone here is a role player to a certain degree (pretending to be a fighter pilot/ tank commander/ whatever), something that - apparently - "sim"-developers seem to ignore, or file away under "negligible".

Just one example that comes to mind:
Why not take ED's excellent P-51D model and build an environment around it, with period music, interaction with AI "squadmates" (could be done like Skyrim; "I used to be a Mustang pilot like you, but then I got....." ). Maybe include "FPS-like" mobility to the player character (optionally, to appease the impatient ) and attend the briefing in the appropriate room, then drive out to the parked planes in a Jeep, do a walkaround, start up, taxi and takeoff in pairs, form up, fly to rendezvous point, escort bombers, the whole thing.

In short, take the core simulation part and build roleplaying elements into it, to make it come "alive". Take On Helicopters was on the right track, but the execution unfortunately left a lot to be desired.

Add a 4k Oculus Rift, and it would be close to immersion heaven.

I used to be a Mustang pilot but then I got a Rheinmetall bullet to the knee!

It's cool, and I know I don't play the way most do, nor would I expect them to. But it's the way I get the most enjoyment. For example the 'dumb mistake'. We all make them. But I want to have to live with that mistake. For me, only by playing this way can I get the satisfaction of a job well done. By reloading until I don't make a mistake, it removes for me the sense of accomplishment. Neither way is wrong, but only one way is right for me

The greatest increase of immersion in a game for me was SCORCHED EARTH for IL2.

From assigning commanders to look after wings / ground assets to assessing the Intel screen to assigning flights/ground units, deciding on what to send up for Intel/defence/attack taking into consideration available assets and repair/refuel time of assets, deciding which assets to produce, which towns to occupy.

All of that even before jumping in the cockpit. Then when you flew, you really had no idea what you could come across.

As the enemy commander(s) which are all human you could find nothing, maybe a target of opportunity or overwhelming odds.

It was great flying over a previous battle where the charred remains was still burning when you last saw them.

It made you want to get that plane back. You didn't want to be a hero as every asset lost was a kick in the teeth.

That gave to me a truly wow factor where you could play IL2 as a pilot as a commander playing a game of live chess never actually in the cockpit.

It was truly a marvellous creation.

Speaking of immersion by including strategic elements, that to me is what made Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe so immersive. It's quite impressive to me that a flight sim in 1991 gave you the ability to control the armaments production of your nation while deciding which industrial regions got cover from nearby fighter squadrons.

I agree. There's a lot of technical attention and fidelity to the simulated machines in which we control, but the package (name your game of choice) is more or less a collection of parts w/ no character. For me, perspective is all about the little things, and while we may have an outstanding simulation, the time machine factor is missing.