Combat flight simulator wwii europe series free download

To keep an enemy in view during combat the aircraft must be steered using the stick and panned using the hat switch - a daunting task made more difficult by the missing "snap" button. Though the 3D view may be superior to the 2D view for actual combat the 2D view snaps every view , the engine cowling significantly restricts a pilot's view.

Fortunately the virtual cockpit is eminently usable with all necessary information overlaid in a HUD-like arrangement. Compared to the adventure-oriented Crimson Skies , CFS2 feels dull and bland in the style department. This sounds a lot more interesting in concept than implementation. Microsoft has inserted a rather censored view of the war with vagaries and missing details where the expected personal perspective on the pending mission should be.

Crimson Skies' excellent voice acting and mission briefings make CFS2 feel dull in comparison. Additionally, now-standard in-game movies are completely missing and would have greatly enhanced the storyline. Microsoft inserts unconvincing comic-book sequences of a year old boy's fears instead of cut scenes from a kamikaze mission or the sinking of an important ship.

Because CFS2 is built on Flight Simulator's foundation, many details have been built into the game that otherwise wouldn't have been. Most gamers don't want to worry about performing a full pre-flight checklist, but for gamers interested in absolute realism the ability to change your fuel mixture sounds made to order.

Gamers that crave realism will find plenty to keep them occupied. The real test of a combat simulation boils down to how the airplane handles in flight. Hard-core players will be pleased with the attention to micro-details and action-oriented gamers will appreciate the macro-view of air combat. Action-oriented simmers can circumvent practically every realism setting in the game. With ammunition and fuel set to "unlimited", damaged turned to "invulnerable", and an easy flight model, beginners will find a smooth learning curve for the game.

Advanced simmers will obsess over the full realism found in the flight model and adequate flying prowess of the computer-controlled pilots. With every imaginable option available for tweaking, gamers of every level will find something here to their liking. With the flight model set to full realism, the aircraft handle precisely as expected.

Pilots will need to manage their energy and angle of attack to avoid stalls and situational awareness becomes much more elusive. Torque effects are less noticeable than in other "realistic" simulations, yet this doesn't detract from the experience. The modeling of stalls seems accurate but these rarely lead to deadly spins. When played with an easy flight model, stalls are much less frequent though they never fully disappear as with say, Crimson Skies.

If full-realism isn't enough to challenge the hard-core pilots, consider that most combat sorties begin and end on an aircraft carrier. Taking off isn't much of a challenge as long as flaps are set and the throttle is set to full. Landing, on the other hand, presents an entirely new challenge. Landing with low fuel on a small carrier with damaged flight controls presents one of the most memorable challenges. Unlike strip landings, a carrier landing feels wrong every bit of the way down to the deck.

The angle feels too steep and the speed too high. Casual gamers already sweating this detail will be glad to know that the entire procedure can be skipped with the press of a single key. On the downside, players can choose from only seven flyable aircraft. Though this is historically accurate it is a bit frustrating to have so few choices. The handling and performance of each aircraft feels distinct with full-realism turned on, yet these differences largely disappear with the easy flight model.

Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. In single missions, you fly historically based assignments at rookie, veteran or ace skill levels that affect the number of enemies encountered.

Each mission has a pre-flight briefing containing a map of the engagement with waypoints and a follow-up debriefing upon completion. Free flight mode allows you fly the countryside in WWII era aircraft and simply enjoy the scenery or practice maneuvering with no enemy return fire.

Quick combat inserts you instantly into air combat against enemy planes with the singular purpose of practicing moves, shooting down bombers or fighters, engaging in offensive, defensive or head-to-head maneuvers, and flying during the day or night in various types of weather. Listening to Pinero talk about the various damage models and flight dynamics contained in the game is enough to make a layman's head spin and a physics professor's skin-flute become sexually swollen.

A typical sample: We're taking into account the way the Earth's atmosphere behaves and the number of air panicles per square inch at different altitudes. Air particles! They're simulating air particles, for God's sake! And bullets.

Each bullet has its own flight model, and damage is calculated by measuring the path a bullet takes into your plane and what systems it affects. Bullets are being modelled all the way up to a fraction of an ounce, and each different type of bullet has a physics model, laughs Pinero.

Bullets from a P travel in a different way to bullets from a Spitfire because of mass and weight and shape. This is just basic physics, it's not rocket science. We are doing other things that really are rocket science though. Such as We have the German V-l, and for that we created a brand new flight model that takes into account atmospheric pressure, wind, temperature - just like a plane.

There's even a mission where somebody shoots up a V-l and you have to intercept it, which is pretty cool. The thrust of the game is that you can fly any of eight planes across two of the war's most important campaigns - the Battle of Britain and the Battle over Europe.