Hmm. Uh. Good. Now put it in your closet after you’re done stroking the manual pages.
The installer’s for Win 3.1.
I should play this tonight.
The GOG version runs fine. I just wanted the box with all the goodies.
Oh speaking of manuals. I’ve had a very funny experience with them of late.
Super-SVGA Harrier. Amazing game. I think. I’m not sure because the manual is one of the worst I’ve ever read. And I’ve read tons of manuals. Things aren’t explained well and there are no images to help explain anything. It’s a mess. I’m told this was a Simis trademark.
The Tornado manual, on the other hand. 332 page joy of a thing to read. The section on the mission planner alone is huge and broken into sections based on how likely you are to use it (single plane, wing, full theater commander). It’s just such a delight.
So I believe it was on this very forum, after talking about Red Storm Rising, that I was told I should read Sid Meier’s book. I just got to this quote and it hit me like a truck.
“Mostly I was tired of hyperrealism. If real life were that exciting, who would need videogames in the first place? The flight simulator genre, especially, was forever clamoring for more dials to watch, more flaps to control, more accurate wind speed and wheel friction calculations—and no one seemed to notice that it had turned into work. Games weren’t supposed to train you to be a real pilot; they were supposed to let you pretend for an hour that you could be one if you wanted to. It wasn’t escapism if you didn’t actually get anywhere.”
Yeah, that’s what sims are for. Oh wait… ;)
I love scripted campaigns, and dynamic campaigns, and pilot career sims, but I also love trying to master a complex machine, and to think that if you put me in a real one I’d have a chance of at least starting it up. :)
Bluddy
4929
Again I think computer games experiences are very wide, and they can provide desired experiences for different audiences. Simulators as games satisfy a certain crowd looking for enjoyment and the essence of the real experience: the parts that are exciting and make flying a unique experience. Simulators as… well, simulators, satisfy a different crowd - one that wants to feel every single detail of the experience. The problem is that since computers became more powerful, the second crowd has completely dominated the field.
Editer
4930
No. Then I would have to interact with DCS users. :)
(I kid. There are some who are awesome. Like @schurem, and some of the podcast guys. But if I have 25 minutes to fly, I’d rather fly against broken AI…)
That Sid quote is money. You could very easily do modern sims that fly right, have all the right instruments and performance and even damage systems, but still have a fungame element too.
I don’t want Ace Combat, I want to be able to imagine it’s real. But there’s a balance to be had, especially if they ever want sims to be anything other than niche again someday.
EASY to understand comparison: I am VERY excited to go to the theater and risk Covid to watch Top Gun: Maverick later this month. It will make hundreds of millions of dollars. A more accurate experience would be to show two episodes of PBS’s “Carrier” in the theater, though. But that would make tens of thousands of dollars.*
- Though I would go see that too.
I would prefer more balance too. But is modern computer power the root of the imbalance? The size of the field seems a lot smaller than it was, you have to think the few remaining studios are making what sells.
Eg what happened to Combat Air Patrol 2, that was kind of a modern semi-sim dynamic campaign game? I think it’s dead now, wonder what happened there.
This came up earlier in the week during a Harrier stream so we looked it up and yeah, dead. Shame really, they seemed to be going for a modern EF2000 feel.
Bluddy
4933
That’s a good point. I don’t think it’s just computing power. Another factor is the console-ization of computer gaming and the corresponding movement away from the joysticks that were so popular in the mid-80s to late 90s. That has to do with the movement of video game entertainment to the living room, where it’s really hard to setup a complex joystick rig. Only the most dedicated people do it (I myself have barely touched flight sims in the last 10 years) and they tend to be the people who also want maximum realism.
AI and metalevel game structure have been their sorry state in DCS for so long, I have developed ways of enjoying it without those.
Like ARMA, and this is not a coincidence, DCS is a consumer spinoff of simulation software that gets sold to governments. They are not entertainment software by root, but eductational in nature. The Mirage module is famously codeveloped with the Armee de l’Air. They are sims before they’re games, and yeah then all gaminess has to be tacked on.
For example short “instant action” scenarios. A 2v2 low over the mountains, catching a train before it enters an air defence umbrella in a warthog. A night carrier trap. Things like that. 10 to 25 minutes of fun.
For longer bouts, there’s PvP and scripted campaigns. Sure those are new only once, but there are a couple of authors within the DCS ecosystem who have taken the artform to some interesting places. A good way to loose hours in the sim.
But of course ymmv.
Totally agree. I understand the position that the 1990s sims devoted more attention to being games.
But it seems unfair to claim that modern DCS (as of 2022) is only for rivet-counters. Compared to 5 years ago, there’s a wealth of rich story-based campaigns that create some of that same feeling as the sims of yore. Just completed Hormuz Freedom for the AV-8B Harrier II, and it was outstanding. One of the best simming experiences I’ve had going back to 1987 and Spectrum Holobyte’s Falcon for the OG Macintosh.
If your opinion of DCS was formed circa 2016-2020, please go back and look at the wealth of SP campaigns now available. DCS modules do require more study than the sims of yore, but there’s always IL-2 if you want to “pick up your joystick and just fly”.
Well that’s nice to read. It’s still too much for my patience these days but I’m glad to hear they’re at least trying.
It is a higher bar, no doubt. I’m just diving into the F-14A in DCS. I still remember spending many hours flying Microprose’s Fleet Defender circa 1994. The DCS version is (at least) an order of magnitude deeper in how it models the famous Tomcat. I’m loving it, but it certainly requires more time and effort to master than Fleet Defender did.
So just acknowledging that DCS is not comparable to the Microprose sims in ease of use, appropriateness for casual players, etc. But for us weirdos who find the process of learning a complex aircraft inherently “fun”, there’s now a ton of SP game content available where we can use that hard-won knowledge.
For the Tomcat, there are four SP campaigns now available. F-14A has “Zone V” and “Fear the Bones”, while F-14B has “Operation Reforger” and “Operation Cage the Bear”. The latter two come with the DCS F-14 module, while the first two are DLC available for purchase.
Editer
4938
No doubt there’s good content for DCS. The problem is just how much richer that F-14A is. Ideally you’d have a sim that had an F-14A that could be jumped into as fast as Fleet Defender’s, with missions of that scope, and then as you learned it, you could crank up the authenticity and systems depth.
DCS’s easy mode stuff is essentially broken. I don’t think many plane developers even give it any real thought.
I’m an aviation nut (literally hundreds of aviation books and thousands of airshow pictures I’ve taken), and an old-school sim nut, so I’ll take the time to learn a DCS plane. And the aviation fan in me is satisfied.
But there’s not a Fleet Defender/1942/Janes USAF equivalent to bring new players into the hobby. Ace Combat isn’t going to cut it, and there’s no transition from that silliness to DCS.
Without new blood, the hobby’s going to die when the people who started on Dynamix and Jane’s and Spectrum Holobyte die or get too arthritic to hold our HOTAS controllers.
It’s called MSFS. There are (arguably) millions of new pilots who are getting into sim flying via MSFS. If they want an intermediate step to add combat to their experience, there’s IL-2. If you really love aviation and getting deep into the hardware, tactics and processes, there’s DCS as the “advanced” simulator.
Would it be better if there were more combat sims to offer that intermediate step of a Pacific Air War or Fleet Defender? Absolutely. But I’m skeptical of the ability to go very far in that direction via DCS. It’s hard enough making a study-level sim on its own terms. You’re raising the degree of difficulty further if DCS also needs to be a casual-friendly game.
Aviation isn’t as omnipresent in the public’s consciousness the way it was for us in the 1970s and 1980s. I’m just grateful that there’s a “second Golden Age” here thanks to VR and games like IL-2 and DCS. DCS seems to be growing nicely as a community. Perhaps the newly resuscitated Microprose will offer some of those entry level combat sims to bring yet more players into the hobby?
I just want a sim that gives me 25 years back lol
It fills me with an absurd amount of delight that I just got Tornado working with my Roland MIDI units (MT-32 chained to an SC-55mkII). It sounds absurdly better than the crackly Sound Blaster/Adlib sounds I was getting this morning. God I’m having so much fun with these old sims.
Hey Brian, both megafortress and tornado look interesting. I somehow missed those back in the day. If I may ask where did you source them from? Nothing on GoG (They DO need to focus on their original mission of classic games it seems). If you ordered the disks on eBay, how did you get them running? None of my (many) computers have CD / DVD drives anymore. Do you buy legit copies and then go the abandonware route to get something workable?
I own copies of all of these mostly on disk, and yeah, acquired via ebay. I’ve been getting a lot via this guy:
Because he includes the original media and an install CD that pretty much installs the whole thing for you (and I own like a $30 external CD drive for these things). For example, here’s Tornado:
Here’s Megafortress:
I’ve bought several sims from him, but also bought boxed copies of sims I particularly love like both versions of Tornado.
Personally I don’t like to stream abandonware as I worry that might bight be in the butt later, so I prefer to actually own copies of the games I stream.
