flight

After playing 'Eurpean Air War', I assumed that this was a benchmark from which other games could be measured, but boy, was I wrong! The missions are sadly limited, and worse of all, once you paly them, they are sadly two-dimensional. What is most annoying is that anytime you try to do some aerobatics on this game, the plane stalls! Very disappointing if you've played the better sims.

I've got Combat Flight Simulator-1 (CFS1 - Europe) but bought CFS2 as well because I wanted a contemporary sim which depicts naval aviation of WWII. (Virtually all WWII sims of the past decade were set in Europe. Despite a large number of titles, there hasn't been any PTO sims of note since "1942: Pacific Air War" and "Pacific Strike" of the mid 1990's. Microprose followed PAW up with European Air War and the similarly set "B-17"; EA/Janes followed "World War 2 Fighters" with "Attack Squadron" - both set over Europe; MS returned to Europe with CFS3, bypassing Korea which richly deserved attention) In CFS2, you fly missions from Japanese or American island bases or carriers.

In many ways, CFS2 excels as an improvement over the older CFS1 (naval aviation aside), but is also a major disappointment for the exact same reason: if you own the older game as I do, you'll probably spend more time trying to spot the improvements than just enjoying it. Though the premise is different and sports a newer look between the missions (where the bleak look of CFS1 seems to have been inspired by episodes of "World at War", colorful comic-strip panels that seem inspired by nose-art ala Roy Lichtenstein dominates CFS2), the game never capitalizes enough on its newer concept to break away from CFS1. Though much of the Pacific war was fought by dive bombers like the Dauntless and the Devestator, or torpedo planes like the Avenger, CFS2 is still a pure fighter sim, having you fly dogfighting and strafing missions from your fighter. Terrain is a huge improvement, but the graphics quality of the aircraft is not. Smoking effects are an improvement (the kind you get when you mortally wound an enemy plane) but the sound/graphics related to enemy bullets is completely unconvincing (bullets sound as if they're whizzing past you, even while punching holes through you). The naval aviation aspects of CFS2 are also a mixed bag between "wow" and "huh?!" On the one hand, ships actually move (not like the perpetually parked steamers and U-Boats of CFS1) and even bob. On the other hand, the sim stays confined to the fighters - Corsairs, Hellcats and Wildcats - instead of allowing you to raise havoc with an Avenger. You can download extra planes and missions off the internet, but be prepared to do some careful file editing if you want flyable torpedoes. Though ships are an improvement over those in CFS1, that's not saying much. While ships in CFS2 now burn, and even stop dead in the water before sinking, (rather than just disappear in a puff of polygon-fire) they otherwise slip quietly, and whole, beneath the Pacific - never breaking apart, listing or disgorging fuel or men like the game's planes (or those in "Their Finest Hour" of 1989). Once while attacking an enemy-held Island defended by picket destroyers, I spotted one of the destroyers steamed into the island - not running aground, mind you: it went on and on, as if it were now a train. Your own aircraft carrier remains curiously pristine (considering how they were magnets for enemy planes) but also devoid of any activity - human or mechanical - unlike the airfields of CFS1. To help you land, there's an LSO (Landing Signal Officer), but he appears, not on the carrier, but in the "radar" window on your left side. Looking much like the AOL stick-figure, and offers zero help. I can't imagine this guy guiding anybody up the gangplank, let alone talking a landing airplane onto the wire. I've become proficient at carrier landings despite getting a "WAVE-OFF!" on every approach. The LSO doesn't even speak - surprising, considering the finite number of phrases he'd have to know ("wave-off", "power", "raise altitude" or "you're too high" to think of a few). A talking LSO was a fixture of "F-14 Fleet Defender" (1994).

Not that carrier-flying isn't a welcome challenge, it's just painfully obvious that nobody explored the cool ways to make the most of it. Campaigns are pre-scripted, though dynamic campaigns would probably be wasted on a sim of this type. That doesn't excuse an unnecessarily rigid mission requirement system that won't allow you to "jump" once you're out of ammo or damaged. That itself was not as problematic as the alternative - I was willing to fly back to my carrier in real time, only to find that the in-flight map brought me back to where my carrier had been when I launched, not where it had gotten to about 2 hours later! (I guess they had the LSO write the pre-mission brief as well.)

In short, CFS2 is more of a game-engine than completed game. Likely, you can fill in the gaps described above with third-party software on the internet. But it's an insult that CFS2 is so far short of its potential out of the box. I bought the newer game because I expected more than an evolved form of CFS1 (I could've gotten that myself). That's a shame, because the sim itself is such a beaut - one in which those interested enough can learn about the mechanics of WWII engines, face the challenge of carrier-landing battle-damaged planes or triumph over the supremely nimble Japanese planes using dive-and-zoom techniques (if you've been spoiled on the Mustangs and Spitfires of sims set in Europe, you're in for a shock). It wasn't until I reached mid-1944 that I encountered clouds - but they were beautiful. For its faults, CFS2 is that rare sim that kept me coming back, and goes to lengths to keep you from skipping to the next waypoint.

I ran CFS 2 on a P4-2Ghz, WinXP w/game port controls. Graphics were acceptably fluid and there were no controllability problems, though load times are high. If you haven't bought any WWII sims since the mid-90's, I'd suggest this one. Otherwise, you'll have to weigh your interest in WWII naval aviation against the price of this one and your eagerness to have to customize a sim in ways you'd expect it to behave out of the box.