Make no mistake about it, MS Combat Flight Simulator is not "just another" WWII flight sim.

If you are already flying the civilian simulator, MS FS98, you already know how extendible it is. CFS carries all the goods from FS with it. That means scenery from pretty well anywhere in the world can be downloaded from the Net and used with it.

It also means that you can fly almost any of the literally thousands of free aircraft available on the Net. Some are better than others. The things (extensibility, especially) that helped make MS FS so popular (MS claims it's the best selling computer "game" of all time) should ensure that this is a sim that will not soon lose its place on your hard drive.

Frankly, Microsoft, when compared to other simulation producers, started out with a huge advantage because of their ongoing work on MS Flight Sim. They have taken full advantage of all they have learned over the 16 plus years of its existence by bringing a lot of it to CFS. The enhanced scenery in CFS is supposed to be a preview of what we can expect in the next version of Flight Simulator, to be titled FS 2000. If this is indeed the shape of things to come, then the future of flight sims looks bright.

This MS FS pedigree means that everyone from neophytes to older flight sim hacks like myself can probably find something to like about this sim.

To accommodate the variety of skill levels CFS has a plethora of available skill level and configuration options, all the way from invulnerable to realistic. As I was doing some review testing on the sim a friend showed up with four 11-year-olds from his son's baseball team. They wanted to try it out. On the standard jet sims there would be little point in giving them a go.

In this case, however, I put the difficulty settings all the way down to invulnerable and let them fire away. Needless to say, I had to pry their sweaty little figures off my controllers to get them to give each other a chance.

There is so much here it's difficult to know where to start. The aircraft? The environment/scenery? The Game play? The AI? The multiplayer? The multimedia training films? The documentation? Ok, let's consider all of the above and in that order.

The Aircraft

CFS comes with eight flyable fighter planes. They are the Hawker Hurricane Mk I, Supermarine Spitfire Mk V and the Mk IX for the Brits, the Mustang P-51 and the republic P-47 Thunderbolt, (the Jug as it was affectionately know) for the Yanks. For the Luftwaffe you have a choice of The Messerschmitt BF-109E the BF-109G and the Focke-Wulf 190A.

In addition, if you feel more like flying a WWI kite, they have included the Sopwith Camel from FS98. In one of the few oversights in this sim there are no Russian aircraft included, but then this IS the European Series, presumably they have other theatres of operation planned.

However, for anyone who's ever NOT used MS FS, then you will be happy to know that there are literally thousands of aircraft available. Most of them a free download on the Internet; as well, there are retail packages from professional A/C designers available which are generally of higher quality. Almost any of these aircraft can be "imported" into CFS and automatically have guns attached to them. Even civilian transports such as a 747 will have guns attached if you use it in CFS, what you would do with guns on a 747 is another question.

Additionally you can use these custom aircraft in multiplayer too as long as the participants all have the same a/c available to them they will be able to see the others a/c. ie. if you want to fly the F86 Sabre Jet in combat against others then all will need to have the same a/c in their CFS directory. If you try to fly your F86 on the net and others don't have a copy, you can still do it, but to others it will just look like a very fast Spitfire!

You do this of course, at your own peril, if you choose to use other aircraft in multiplayer your opponent(s) will be notified of this by the plane label that is clearly visible to all.

Detail and Views

Another thing you notice immediately is the cockpit detail. The cockpits look incredible. Instead of looking like they are fresh from the factory, the paint is chipped around the canopy giving them a much more realistic "used and abused" feeling. The instruments are laid out exactly as they are in the real thing; they must have done their research.

CFS Cockpit. Click for 800x600.

However, this is not just another pretty face cockpit. Rather, there is a great deal of information given to the pilot via the instruments. The slip ball rolls flawlessly back and forth as you maneuver your aircraft, and can be used exactly as in the real aircraft. For example, check the ball when lining up on a bandit, because if you are slipping or skidding too much it will throw off your aim.

And speaking of slipping and sliding, I was impressed to notice that flying in this sim is the first time I have really noticed A/C slippage. I am not sure why this is the case, but it seems they have gone to some effort to make it more obvious. If I have one problem with this, it is that the A/C seem to slip and skid a bit too much now.

The views are generally quite good. F9 gives you a "tactical view," a small window with a top down view of other aircraft within about two miles. Two miles isn't as far as it sounds at 600mph combined closing speed.

There is a full screen view with gun sight that most people will use often because of the increased "under the nose" visibility. (It would be nice if this could be set in the preferences for online play).

Padlock views are good, though unless you have a monster system it takes a little while to switch back and forth from padlock to fixed view. Best to do it once before the fight if possible, this seems to help set it up and next time it works faster.

In fact Microsoft has pioneered a fixed view padlock system that is one of the most effective yet seen in a prop sim. Once you select your target, you will have additional information superimposed around the object. You can toggle this info on and off according to your preference, but so long as your target is selected it is marked by a color in the tactical window and by a 3d conical arrow that appears on screen, always pointing to the direction you need to pull to bring your target within your deadly crosshairs!

If you prefer, you can switch to a virtual cockpit. This view gives better visibility than the full cockpit and less than full screen, but still includes functioning instruments. And as in Flight Sim '98, you can configure multiple windows with the views you prefer to give you a much improved situational awareness.

Oddly, one of the few oversights in the view system is the lack of a friendly padlock. Perhaps this is because little emphasis was put on interaction with wingmen. One hopes that a friendly padlock will arrive in an update, since anyone who's tried to fly with a wingman knows how impossible it can be in a dogfight to keep track of your wingy.

Environment:

To quote a friend, a military pilot, "When I come up on a bogie in CFS, I get the sense of flying form on someone (which I have done a lot for real), but I did not get this same feeling in … (insert other sim here)."

In my book, environment encompasses not just scenery but many things, and is essential for suspension of disbelief. It includes scenery and sound, i.e. things like radio chatter, doppler sound effects, and wind, sun glare and G effects as well as how your plane interacts with the "physical" World. In these departments, CFS again comes out at least as good if not better than most of its rivals.

The scenery in CFS is second to none, if you have the hardware to run it. I would suggest at least a PII 233 and Voodoo II or comparable. However, I have successfully run it on my P166 mmx with two Meg, Cirrus Logic video adapter. (Setup tried to put the resolution at 320 x 240 x 16 but this looks like hell (runs at about 10 fps), and returns you to the bad old days of jagged and pixilated lines).

On my 166 CFS will run at 640 x 400 on low display complexity, about 8 fps, depending largely on how many planes you have going at the time. Clearly not the ideal setup. However, add a Voodoo card to the 166mmx setup and you will have a workable system with quite acceptable performance. In 1 v 1 I get 20fps at 640X480. Microsoft gives these specs as minimum:

• · Multimedia PC
• · P133 or faster microprocessor
• · Microsoft Windows 95, 98 or NT 4.0 operating system
• · 16 MB of RAM
• · 200 MB of available hard disk space
• · Quad-speed CD-ROM drive
• · Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
• · Windows 95-compatible sound board
• · Microsoft Direct3D-compliant 3D graphics accelerator card (recommended)
• · Headphones or speakers (recommended)
• · Supports force feedback hardware compatible with Microsoft Direct Input API

My PII 233 with Canopus Pure 3d, Voodoo I and 8 Meg STB Velocity runs CFS quite well at Max complexity, but there are pauses occasionally (mostly at start-up, after a while it settles down). There doesn't seem to be much difference in frame rates between either the Pure 3d, which runs in 800 X 600 and the Velocity 128 when running at 1024 x 768. If anything the STB card runs a bit faster at 600 X 800 but the best thing about the STB is that you can run in 1024 resolution which is gorgeous.

The scenery in CFS bodes well for the coming FS 2000. VFR (Visual Flight Rules) navigation in a flight sim will take a big leap forward on the PC if all the scenery looks as good as it does in CFS. It's somewhat hard to explain in words just how good this scenery looks, and even screen shots are not as impressive as seeing this landscape rolling beneath your wings in real time.

The Game Play.

CFS is somewhat weak in this area when compared to some of the other titles out there. There is no dynamic mission generator or coop multi-player. And while your wingman and others will make radio calls, informing you of bandits or calling for help, you can't issue orders.

However, the missions themselves are great fun, partly because of the excellent flight, damage and ballistics modeling (see below). And there are other things that will keep most people interested, e.g. scenery additions or third party aircraft etc. And who knows what kind of expansions to this world we might yet see? In the meantime, just bring your imagination.

AI, Ballistics and Damage Model

Enemy AI is another of the few disappointments I encountered with CFS, though there are some mitigating factors. In Quick Combat, the AI even on ACE level is pretty well a novice to intermediate level pilot. I have no trouble shooting down two of two enemy A/C in this mode every time.

Oddly, this doesn't see to be so true in the single or career missions. however that in the offline single or career type missions. In these the AI pilots seem to be more aggressive and just generally better, and if you don't keep good Situational Awareness (SA) you'll get toasted pretty quickly. Perhaps giving the pilots a clear objective (in programmed missions) has an impact on the AI effectiveness.

However, if you think this will get you ready for online play, you are in for a shock. Against real players who know ACM it will not be nearly so easy. Furthermore, in online play the Bandits seem to be smaller which of course makes them harder to hit.

In truth, there is a great deal happening behind the scenes here, and Microsoft has done some innovation in the computer controlled pilot (CCP) arena.

One of the firsts is the development of realistic SA for the CPPs. The field of view for CPPs is divided into six sections and each section is modeled according to the pilots current attitude, taking into account the parts of his aircraft as well as sun attitude and cloud layers. As a result, these guys will realistically lose sight of you depending on where you are before and during a dogfight.

AI pilots come in different flavors (5 levels of skill) as well as flying with the same flight model you will use. But here again Microsoft has done some innovation, and instead of simply modeling manouvers according to pilot skill and aircraft characteristics, they have modeled the actual control input on the stick, and a zealous pilot could lose control the same as you would!

CPPs are also aware of the individual strengths of their aircraft, and the higher their level of skill, the better they will take advantage of those strengths and seek to exploit the weaknesses of yours! You will see CPPs using energy, altitude, and manouverability to their advantage.

CFS is state of the art in other ways also. You'll quickly discover when your own aircraft takes damage that there is a great deal of detail in the damage models. A few shots from a bandit on your tail and you may suddenly find that you can no longer roll to the left as well as you can roll to the right. Or you may find your engine gradually losing power. Or your ability to roll using rudder may be hampered.

In fact, any object that can incur damage can incur damage in three levels: leak, break, or bomb. The result will be appropriate to the aircraft part in question. For example, an aileron will never leak, but at the low level of damage its effectiveness is impaired. A fuel tank, on the other hand, will leak, and at the highest level of damage it will explode. How many areas can be damaged? The B17G can take damage in 44 distinct areas.

In the same way, ballistics and physics is modeled in appropriate ways. Individual bullets have ballistics, and various guns have appropriate muzzle velocities. In fact, the nose cannon on a B17 has a different shell size and velocity and trajectory than the tail gun, and the scope of the gun is limited in accord with the actual model.

Multiplayer

You can not change starting altitude when hosting a game, and starting from 5000 ft all the time is neither historically consistent nor does it make any tactical sense. It also makes for a short flight before you are turning and burning at ground level.

Overall, quality of game play in multiplayer is good, with smooth response as tested on the MS IGZ www.ZONE.com At present you are limited to eight players to a game on the Zone. However, in the game options box in IPX mutiplayer setup there is provision for, count'em two hundred and fifty six players! I wouldn't be surprised if the Zone added at least a couple more player capability at some point.

With eight the maximum number of players in a game there was occasional skipping but nothing really out of the ordinary Internet gremlins, and probably due to my connection. You can choose to play a melee or team type game. Unfortunately, all you can do is dogfight against other players for now; no coop, or bomber escort missions etc. I suspect this will come in time, whether from MS or from the CFS community. That said, dogfighting is all many people want to do so for them this will be acceptable.

SUMMARY

To sum up, this is a sim you will probably want --no-- need to have, if you have any interest at all in WWII era air combat. Chances are it'll get worn in like your favorite pair of slippers and you'll find yourself putting the CD in the drive and returning, time after time, to fly in any number of combat situations and geographic settings.

Moreover, don't forget all the FS aircraft and scenery that is already out there on the net. With a little imagination, almost any scenario becomes possible. At present, the missions are somewhat limited, but MS has promised that a mission editor for CFS is forthcoming.

Download Peter's customized Sabre and MiG 15 and fly them in CFS: Sabre vs MiG 1.8 meg.