Combat Flight Simulator 3

Richard takes to the unfriendly skies to evaluate this just out from Microsoft.

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It's not all bad though. At your disposal are eighteen aircraft to choice from, all specific to the period. Each of the planes have different handling characteristics, some are much more manoeuvrable or will have greater firepower. You can even choose bombers and then man the gunner positions leaving the computer to pilot. Shooting anything down is pretty hard and with limited ammo you'll find yourself running out very quickly. Thankfully you can have infinite ammo letting you spray bullets at will.

Rather than have a set of linear missions there is a dynamic campaign to play. This gives you quite a lot of freedom to do the types of missions you prefer, be it ground attack or air patrols. There is even a nice role-playing element to the campaign. As you complete the missions you and your squadron are awarded experience points and prestige. With more experience you can change your statistics so your vision gets better, you can withstand higher g-forces before blacking out and also increase your health. The vision system is particularly good, your radar will display unknown contacts as white and the better your vision becomes the further away you can discern friend or foe. The prestige your squadron gains can be used to move airbases so your closer to combat or gain newer aircraft quicker. The only down side of the dynamic campaign is you lose having a strong story to follow so after a while it feels a little shallow. To keep the pace up you are spared the tedium of having to fly slowly to the combat area by the use of a warp system. Once you take off you need only to press X and you'll zip to your next waypoint, being pulled out only if your intercepted by the enemy. Once you've destroyed your target and you can warp back to base and you won't even have to land if you don't want to.

When everything is running smoothly the effects can be quite nice. Whilst attacking ship convoys you'll begin to spot destroyers or cargo ships from a distance by where the engine smoke appears from. So on your first strafing run you can aim for the destroyers leaving the cargo ships undefended. When the ships are destroyed some will roll over while others will tilt leaving the bow sticking up. The ships will billow flames and smoke while an oily residue covers the ocean around them. If your feeling particularly mean you can even strafe the ship while it's going down and you might be treated to some secondary explosions. While attacking planes you may sometimes get a lucky shot that causes it to explode and tumble down to earth. Other cases will leave you blasting away for ages trying to knock him out of the sky. Your plane also has this attribute, some hits may cause your plane to handle a bit awkwardly, other shots may cripple your aircraft and force you to bail out. If you are very unlucky you can even be shot dead in the cockpit. The action can get a bit repetitive and it's quite telling of the game play when before long I started to shoot down my own squad just to keep myself amused.

Ultimately there is quite a lot to like in this game and quite a lot to hate. If you didn't like flight simulators before there is nothing in this game that will make you change your mind. If you are a fan of the genre and you have a fast machine it is worth checking out but don't expect it to hold your attention for long.

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By Richard Clifford