I'll come back to thread this weekend, just wanted to thank Scott for the heads up on "Top Gun: Behind Closed Doors" (also DVR'd the "Back to the Future" one).

Flew Fleet Defender today, what blast. The official strategy guide was by far the best of any sim guide. And don’t forget A PLAYER'S GUIDE TO FLEET DEFENDER by Robin G. Kim.

Lately I've been flying Fear the Bones campaign for DCS Tomcat set in 1989. What a blast. But the weird thing is that I have sort of flashbacks from F-14 Fleet Defender all the time. The way MPS modelled that bird is amazing for its time. They crammed so much into that iconic cockpit. Some partts of it were clickable, even not obvious parts like the HUD filter handle (right side of the VDI) which actually works and will switch the HUD color for night ops. I would love someone remake this sim, but for it to reamain approachable leave the avionics modelling and just improve audio, visuals and flight modelling. For hard-care simmers we have DCS.

Also Mark, could you PM me, you seem to not accept PMs?

This picture is fantastic, this simulator has a graphic and a quality really amazing. There is not a huge difference from real photos and this one

Yeah, DCS surely looks gorgeus. There are still plenty of things to fix and improve by ED, for instance control over your wingmen is pretty weak. Even sims from the 90s had better options to command your wingman (USNF/ATF, F-14 FD, Jane's F-15/18).

@Damson
After following your posts here and there I see that you are really what you may describe as an expert and fan of the older games from 80-90 and early 2000. I have also very fond memories of them too and of course, MPS games and sims have a special place in my heart. But the times have changed and some of the older games simply did not age too well. Still, out of all of the sims what is your personal favorite, and which one really deserves to be on the top of the list of all of them? Which of them had the richest and deepest gameplay and which of them is still enjoyable today because of that and not so much because the graphics (by some miracle) withstood the passage of time?

That's a really tough question. I personally can look past some of the shortcomings of those older sims because I played them in the past (and some of them am still playing), but for someone else it may be too archaic. But still, there were so many great titles it's really hard to choose from. But to narrow it down I would say that for helo flight sims it would be Jane's Longbow 1 and 2. First one has pretty immersive campaings (Gold version has Ukraine and Korea) with branching missions while Longbow 2 added Kiowa and Blackhawk, took away the Alpha Apache and introduced dynamic campaign. If you can go more retro Gunship 2000 is also great (for 1991) - it was basically precursor for Longbow 2. Plenty of choppers, theaters and the ability to lead an unit was pretty innovative at the time. For a more arcadish approach (but still set somewhat in reality) I would recommend Comanche 3/Gold - for me the best one in the series from Novalogic.

For some fixed-wing action there is plenty. If you want to dive into dynamically driven conflict - go with Falcon 4 (or Falcon 3 if you're brave enough), Joint Strike Fighter from Innerloop was pretty good but a bit overlooked IMHO - it has really nice graphics (even in software mode) and good flight modelling. Total Air War from Digital Image Design was stellar, along with it older twin brother F-22 Air Dominance Fighter (it didn't had dynamic campaign, only scripted missions) were best F-22 flight sims to date. While we talk about DID you need to mention EF2000 - still highly playable, and with the Reloaded mod you can even use Track IR with it. I also still really enjoy flight sims that came from MPS folks who later ended up in Jane's, like F-15 Strike Eagle 3, F-14 Fleet Defender and Jane's F-15 and F/A-18. Those were the original study sims series that put the bar really high regarding avionics modelling.

But lets not forget the survey sims like US Navy Fighters, Jane's ATF and all its expansions - these are highly playable even today (even if you don't have a joystick) and provide hours of pure jet-fueled gameplay. Also highly approachable, not very complicated but still grounded in reality (not some silly Ace Combat stuff).

For some more late 80s / early 90s action I would say that F-19 Stealth Fighter is still good gameplay wise. Playing cat and mouse with the enemy doesn't get old. F-117 Stealth Figher 2.0 is a bit upgraded version with added theaters and improved sound and graphics but I still prefer the original one. Digital Integration Tornado is also worth checking out. It was a solid flight sim of an aircraft not often depicted in this genre.

I know it's a broad list but to be honest there are plenty more flight sim games that are good, there was just so much titles coming out back then (A-10 Cuba, Graphsim's Hornet, Origin story based games - Strike Commander, Pacific Strike, Wings of Glory, Dynamix Red Baron and AotP). From all this sims I would say that probably Falcon 4 and Jane's Longbow 1/2 stood the test of time the best, they are highly re-playable, have digestable graphics and pretty decent flight model / AI / avionics modelling.

Great answer and I thank you.

Not much surprise to your mentioning all of those great simulations and games. I think too that Falcon4 and LB1/2 deserve the highest accolades and so we are in full agreement with that. In fact, in Falcon4 I am personally committed and involved for many years in BMS to keep it better. It is with regret I say that some of the titles you have mentioned could have been equally great had they received so much TLC over all these years as Falcon4 did.

It is also amazing that you rightly so picked up this element of the "cat and mouse" game in F-19. What fond memories of great and never boring gameplay and satisfaction if you could hide from the enemy by circling and hiding low behind the mountain or hill!

TAW by DiD is also great, great title and piece of very elegant simulation combined with the strategy game.

It possibly could be summarised that all of the old titles which despite shortcomings in graphics and other bells and whistles so popular and relevant today could put that element of surprise into their games and sims deserve big applause and sincere thank you from all us gamers remembering those old days.

It is also amazing how much work and effort was put into those manuals which were really so rich and informative by comparison with today's standards and norms. This all makes me really grateful that we were (and still are) privileged to experience that great stuff!

I think seeing so many kids these days bored to death with watered down crap from big companies and flocking to emulators ad pixelated games says a lot. My son loves megaman and a lot of other older sega and snes games so old sims aren't so bad when so many new ones lack depth and dynamic campaigns.

I had similar thoughts when I finally installed Steam and GOG. I have never really realized how many games have been produced in the last 2 decades. I knew nearly all of the older ones when they were being made through CGW Computer Gaming World and PC Gamer.

After around 2005 I lost track of them until kind of 2020. Wow! I could not believe how many of them have been made since then. And they all look kind of the same, at least to me. Really rather sad!

Since the older games, those I knew were pretty much dirt cheap on those 2 servers I quickly acquired a full collection that I wanted to have. It became apparent also very quickly that there was not much else (with some exceptions) I really wanted. And this situation has been like this since. Every week or so I go through those servers seeing hundreds of newer games and not much I would really want. I was into the games in simulations for over 30 years of my life so I cannot call myself an inexperienced outsider or a novice.

Times have changed for sure!