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What happened?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 23 / 25
Date: March 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Utterly disappointing... And this from a chap who gave Microsoft's FS 2004, FS 2002 and Combat Flight Sim 2 - 5 stars respectively. The box notes claim that "Combat Flight Sim 3 was built using an entirely new graphics engine", if this is truly the case (and there's no reason for me to dismiss this statement as a bold faced lie) then my next burning question would be... "For the love of God, why?!" Although I love to fly (simulated that is) I have to admit I am first and foremost a graphics geek, so my eyes tend to bend that way immediately and on first inspection of CFS 3 I was struck by the lack of "pop" CFS 3 offers visually, sure the aircraft skins are top notch, but beyond that the textures are flat, the sky looks as if someone simply scattered a handful of cottons balls over a blue field, the menus look like something pulled off the shelves way back in the mid 90's (remember those days) matter of fact CFS 1 was a stellar achievement compared to the milk toast drabness of Microsoft's latest "combat" outing. And oh yes did I mention the panels, cockpits and pathetic gunner views of the fighters and bombers are so dated visually that I thought at first glance my graphics settings were on low? NOTE ON MY SPECS (for reference): Compaq Presario 8000T, Pentium 4 - 3.20E GHz processor, Windows XP Home Edition, 1 GB DDR / PC3200 Ram, 160GB 7200 rpm Seagate Barracuda hard drive, 16X max. DVD-ROM Drive, 256MB DDR ATI Radeon 9600 (Direct X 9), Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (needless to say I had the offender in question maxed out!). The poor visuals inside these buckets of bolts only compound an even greater problem... playability or flyability (are those real words?). The heads-up targeting display is arranged at such an awkward angle that training your sights on the enemy is like navigating a high-wire on the tip of your tong, you can't see where you're going and trying to think ahead of your enemy's AI is near impossible because you can't see him and the oldest trick in the book of leading your target simply doesn't apply here because your forced to blindly spray a line of bullets somewhere into space in a direction you think or hope your quarry might be headed! I could go on and on but I simply don't have the mental strength or enough negative adjectives to describe the horror that is found inside such a pretty box. Hopes were high, then crushed by nothing short of an amateur offering by an industry giant. It makes me wonder, does the design team responsible for this flagrant act of shoddy craftsmanship still have jobs at Microsoft and if so are they wearing gray uniforms and carrying buckets and mops? Microsoft should be nothing short of embarrassed by CFS 3, it's a tremendous set back for the true innovator of flight sim technology. Look out Microsoft UbiSoft's on your six with IL2: Forgotten Battles (which looks better, runs better and feels better), they've got four gold stars stenciled neatly on their fuselage and they're looking to make that five.

A Poem

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 16 / 19
Date: December 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

There's nothing much here to appreciate,
It's an over-hyped sim with a bad frame rate,
The flight model's childish, the gunsight's off -
Caveat Emptor Microsoft.

Just how bad can a Combat Flight Simulator be?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 24 / 28
Date: August 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

To answer the above question, simply purchase and play Microsoft's newest, CFS3.

Just kidding. Don't buy this program under any circumstances. CFS3 is so bad, I really think MS ought to send a refund to everyone who's already bought it.

Since I'm sure you'd rather hear WHY it's so bad, instead of just a rant, here's the short list:

1) The aircraft models are done terribly; they look like $... snap-together models, built by a 4 yr old
2) The interior models (the virtual cockpits) look like a rough draft, nowhere near the quality of product MS put out even with Combat Flight Simulator 2 (which was excellent).
3) The world to fly in; also horribly done. Very poor sense of scale or depth, colors that seem to run together, and it looks like a flat picture of the world with occasional bits stuck on to give it authenticity... at which they failed miserably.
4) If you really want to play a quality combat flight simulator, go check out 1C:Maddox Games' IL2 Sturmovik Forgotten Battles

I hope this information helps steer you away from CFS3, but not away from MS products altogether.

Don't Buy cfs3 or you will wish you didn't.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 13 / 19
Date: October 27, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have cfs1 & cfs2 already and my hopes were high that Microsoft would deliver in cfs3, the improvement they boasted of. But other than the nice clouds cfs3 is not nearly as nice as either cfs2 or even cfs1. The cities in cfs1 have better graphics. In multiplayer there is no lobby anymore, you can't land to repair your plane. The planes fly-ability have taken a step or two backwards. You can not open a second window like you could in cfs2 to watch your back. I am sad that Microsoft thinks so little of its loyal cfs gamers. The instrument panel is weak and the instruments look less real than in cf1 which did a pretty good job on their airspeed indicators, altimeters, compasses and so on.

I hope they fix it fast.

Low Grade Flight Sim

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: December 21, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I went out and spent 45 dollars on a flight sim I expected to be out of this world considering all the hoopla I saw on the net about it. Instead I got this...The same game Janes's came out with 4 years ago, with a different title, same graphics engine and everything. (Jane's WWII Fighters). Anyways, choppy gameplay..for some reason my 900mhz w/ 64mb video card isnt enough to go above graphics Lvl. 1, and i still have choppy gameplay. Why? Why does the creator of Flight Sim 2002 do this to their fair name? I went to great lengths to find a site I could say something about this horrible product on, but..obviously about 5 people already beat me to it.

What Happened?!?!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: November 18, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I've bought both previous versions of CFS and greatly enjoyed them both. This however has little in common with CFS 1 or 2. The cockpits are terrible. They look more like something out of Fighter Ace. In fact the whole game (not really a "sim" anymore) is more like the arcade-ish Fighter Ace than any previous CFS. The key commands are different than either previous CFS and it is a laborious process reassigning them. The ground textures, flight models, AI, sound, maps and campaign structures are either no better or noticeably worse than CFS2. There is also no compatiblity with CFS1 or 2 aircraft. Oh yes, almost unbeliveably my Microsoft Force Feedback joystick doesn't work at all well with this game! I think I'm going to go buy IL2 now and take CFS3 off my hard drive!

Note: my system is a 2.8 P4 /128 meg ATI Radeon 9700 /512 meg RAM. After installing the OLDER ATI driver (yes you read that right) the game does run alright with a fairly decent frame rate but I think that anything too much slower would have some difficulty.

Combat Flight Simulator 3

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: December 10, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have been a flight simulator fan since the old DOS versions. Since then, Microsoft had steadily improved their simulators to an astonishing level. That is, until Combat Flight Sim 3. This simulator is terrible. It is full of bugs and unless you have "tomorrow's" cutting edge computer, you probably won't be able to enjoy the advertised graphics. I have a 2 year old Dell system Pentium III with 512 MB Ram and 15 GB of hard drive operating on Windows 98 SE and a video card that was fine with Flight Simulator 2002. The game wouldn't even work on my computer until I found a driver that even Dell didn't have. Even after that I had to turn off all the special graphics to get the game to operate at a useable speed. Even then it would, at times, become very choppy for no apparent reason. Save your money and time until they fix the bugs.

major disappointment

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: November 10, 2002
Author: Amazon User

CFS3 strikes out on all the requirements of a combat flight sim.

The terrain graphics, touted as new and better, are muddy and look artificial. The aircraft graphics are no advance.

The game play is poor--no advance over cfs2 in any paramater.

The flight modeling is arcade-like--no real feel of flying, and all planes feel pretty much the same.

The 'virtual cockpit' is a step back with poorly detailed instrument panels.

The 'stutters'--widely complained about--are the final straw.
Even on a high end system, the graphics stop, jerk, start again for no apparent reason, far too often.

MS would have been far better to continue to evolve the CFS2 model than to go with this--it's certainly not better in any respect.

Overall, I'd give it a 0 if I could, based on it falling so far below what was the state of the art in flight sims even 2-3 years ago.

Terrible

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: December 05, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have been buying Flight Sim since v. 1.0 on my IBM XT. All have been significant improvements except for this one. It is, in a word, terrible. Graphics are rough, gunsite sits directly on glare shield, so you cannot see the target under G loading. It's movement is notchy. I can't get Best Buy to take it back.

Save your bucks

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: June 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Having been a big fan of CFS2, I was excited about buying this new simulator. I like to think that I have a pretty good system, graphics package, etc. But this thing is so buggy it causes my computer to crash everytime I try to play it. What a major disappointment. I know people who have had success with it.........but several more that have had the same problem as I have. Save your money!

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