A decade or so ago, I remember picking up Falcon 4.0 and spending hours perusing the three-ring binder and revelling in the awesome detail of the world's greatest fighter study-sim.

Then, 10 years of study-sim famine. We had some cool stuff come out, but not anything that could compare to Microprose, Spectrum Holobyte or Janes.

I held off getting Black Shark, because, in my heart of hearts, I bleed stars and stripes. I have nothing against non-American sims, in fact I think they're great. It's just that I love the feeling of joining my country's Navy or Air Force and giving the proverbial finger to despots and dictators everywhere.

If you share such a notion, do not let it hamper your decision to pick up this work of art. Never have I felt such a sensation of being in a real aircraft in real flight. The flight dynamics are unbelievable and this sim is rock solid and smooth as silk on my dual-core rig with 4 gig of RAM and a GeForce 8800 GTX.

It's going to cost me a pretty penny, but I can't wait to take the 500 pages or so of manual goodness into Kinko's to have them print it out in full color.

With a lot of down time between now and the new year, I'm going to immerse myself back into the revelry that I enjoyed back when I was in college, basking in the glow of F-15 Strike Eagle, Jane's Longbow and F-18 and, of course, the Falcon series.

Support these guys my friends...from what I understand, an F-18 sim is in the works if they make a profit on this masterpiece.

you might want to hold off on getting the manual printed at Kinkos. a printed manual will be relesed in January by Eagle Dynamics. it should be much cheaper than getting it printed yourself.

The quality might be a lot better too.

A guy on the ED forums paid ~$130 to have it printed. It'd definitely be better to wait!

However, back to the main point of your post: the feeling BS gives you - I'm with you all the way on this one. It really is the most realised sim released in the last decade.

The printed manual will also have extra content.

should be cheaper to print it yourself if you have a laser printer at home... Of course a no go if you have an ink printer .

What kind of extra content will the printed manual have?

Don't forget...the Hog is next...

The chopper might be Russian-built, but at least you can join squadrons of various nationalities. I thought that was a cool touch as continued from LOMAC/Flaming Cliffs.

Thanks for the tip on the manual guys. I'll definitely be waiting until it comes out.

I have to say, this brings me back to Falcon4, Apache, and Longbow 2. I have been dreaming of a time I could poor over a sim such as this.
So far I have 20 hours stick time,and I have 300 kills plus 19 deaths,lol. I can only say that this sim gets my hands sweaty and the heart rate up.
This is the best sim I have played in a long while and I have to agree with the header. Fly safe and check six.
Bullet

Honestly...

...I never thought I'd see a new hardcore air combat sim again.

Life is good.

-Surfer

Yep. This really is something very, very special.

Great to know somebody finally made something to put on the shelf with the classics.

Now if we could just get crew management (I used to love Falcon 3's take on this, where retaining your best pilots really mattered) and, of course, a dynamic campaign.

But still... Thank God for the Russians! They are by far making the best sims, true labors of love.

Agreed, it's a real work of art!

Back to flying...

It's pretty stunning just how high E.D. has raised the hardcore bar here. It solely was my
justification to upgrade my hardware, and an ongoing justification to refresh that hardware next
year again.

I've never spent a better fifty bucks and I still consider that 'grand theft' at that, for the insane
depth and quality of this piece of software.

I sure hope they make a ton of money...

-Surfer

I too just want to offer my thanks to ED who have done a tremendous job on this sim. I haven't had an "ohmygawd" moment while playing a game in a long time and this one has had me grinning ear to ear despite the fact the helicopter (or any for that matter) ain't immediately easy to handle.

I got this game just in time for me to say it most certainly tops my list for the year (and probably next) as best of 08. The graphics are pretty astounding, the physics are marvelous, the clickable cockpit (especially with trackir) is especially immersive, and I haven't encountered a bug worth contemplating (even the now infamous starforce has been perfectly docile!). This is by far the most rock solid release I've experienced in a long time.

I'd also like to thank the community here at SimHQ for all the comments in the forums. I was worried I wouldn't appreciate this game much primarily because it doesn't have a dynamic campaign, but I found some conversations that put my worries to rest and, furthermore, got me excited to crack open my wallet. Actually, $50 is so exceedingly cheap considering what's packed in there. This sim should keep me occupied for months/years compared to most game releases these days that seem to be quantified in hours of play.

Oddly enough, one of my favorite features of this sim so far is the "random" conversations that come up every once in a while where a wingman (or some such) will talk about the area's geography or about meeting up with the passing pilots later in the evening, etc. This feature most certianly wouldn't be worth squat if the rest of the sim wasn't so well built, but it is there (and thankfully the sim is amazing) and adds personality/life to an already lively environment.

At any rate, I'm gushing. ED, you rocked before, and now you rock even more ... keep it up.

m