I bought some flightsims...

[rootbeer]

at Best Buy tonight. I got them all in one box: Pacific Fighters, Lock On, and IL-2 Sturmovik. These games are by Ubisoft. I have not yet opened them. Are they old, lo-tech and with chunky, clunky graphics as compared to FS2004? Should I return them? I await your considered replies with breathless anticipation...

[Sir_Crashalot]

I've seen screenshots of all of them here and they didn't look to bad to me.

Crash

[Peanut1234]

Yep, I have the same thing. Lock On is fun with modern fighters if you are into that. I don't like IL-2, I just dont like the crappy graphics and lack of planes, but Pacific Fighters you HAVE TO install! That game is loads of fun! I hope that my opinion helps, so install LOMAC and PF, but not IL-2.

Rhys

[rootbeer]

Thanks! Looks like I'm keeping it, then. I love modern jet fighters...

[Mobius]

I still fly Lock-On almost every day, and Pacific Fighters is a great WWII Pacific Theater flight sim, and IL2 is regarded by many as one of the best WWII flight sims ever.  I think you'll be happy with them.

[rootbeer]

Well, I've fooled around with LOMAC a bit and I ain't gettin' too far with it. Is there a place I can read about how to get to different views, how to throttle it, fire the weapons, lower the gear, et cetera? I always start in the air, I know not where. It seems to be very different from FS...

[cheesegrater]

Il-2, Pacific Fighters, and LOMAC are all great flightsims. Among the very best ever. LOMAC is a fairly complex sim, I would look at the help files, and start flying a single aircraft to avoid confusion, flying the F-15 will be a lot different than the Su-25.

[rootbeer]

My biggest gripe with LOMAC is that there seems to be no way to go back a step or click out of something. I see no red X anywhere on the screens to get back to where I was before. I also haven't found where I can use my flightstick instead of the keyboard.

[Mobius]

What do you mean get back to where you were before?  There are little yellow X's in the upper right of the menu screens, but other than that, you would have to end a mission to change any options or anything.  I would highly suggest going through some of the training/tutorial missions if you don't know what to do, or how something works, as they are very helpful.  If those aren't enough, try HERE for a great set of tutorials for LOMAC.  For any other questions you could look around HERE or try the forums.

[Katahu]

Here is my own personal review of both IL-2 and IL-2:Pacific Fighters [PF].

1. Because PF is part of the IL-2 series and can be installed together with along with IL-2: Forgotten Battles [FB], the graphics are the same in my opinion and they are impressive.*

2. Stall characteristics are apparently overdone. You'll notice that you'll be stalling like heck whenever you do a tight turn or whenever your not using the rudder properly.

3. There is no autorudder in the IL-2 series so you'll notice that you're required to use the rudder manually to avoid the stalls.

4. Online sessions are incredibly stable, although you will run into some occassional players who don't have anything more than a 56k connection. Speaking of online sessions, Gamespy hosts the main servers, but you can also use a direct IP connection [if I remember correctly].

5. The only difference between the entire IL2 series and CFS series is that the scenery doesn't cover the entire globe. In fact, you're restricted to a rectangular area and the boundaries are obviouse.

6. You'll notice that you don't have the option to skip certain parts of a flight and therefore you're only options are either to fly along or to use warp. Please note that the warp feature is useless during online play.

7. Warning, whenever you play online, be on the look out for any German planes out there looking to shoot you down. Chances are it's probably piloted by actual Germans [cough]Bjorn[/cough] who seem to have a good understanding on how to handle those unstable birds.

8. Patches are available to download, but the installation process of these patches are time consuming and you beter have a good connection and time as the downloads are somewhat large in nature.

*Note: If you want to install PF along with IL-2, you also need to have FB installed as well. Here is a list of available installation options:

1. IL-2+FB+AEP**+PF
2. IL-2+FB+AEP
3. IL-2+FB

Notice that each version is installed in the order in which they were released to the public.

**AEP stands for Ace Expansion Pack. It only expands the FB verison of the IL-2 series.

[flyboy 28]

I got that same pack. I'm bummed I've never been able to run Lomac on my system. Integrated graphics card. *shivers*

[rootbeer]

The graphics are good, I'll admit. The F-15C is well done and the WW2 fighters look very good. I find the a/c have a tendency to go into very high angles of attack-- massive forward-stick is required to get even the semblance of level flight.

I have the guns set to infinite ammo. It's a blast just firing away until the barrels would droop from overheating were it real. So how long would it take a backwoods mouth-breather like me to learn this game?

[Mobius]

You can learn LOMAC in a few hours, but it takes a while to get good at it.

[Isak922]

LOMAC is easily one of the best looking combat flight sims... EXTREMELY complex though... I've had it for about a year and still can't figure out how to lock a target for a missle  :P Hooah to Sidewinders!

[Woodlouse2002]

Graphically they are all good sims. The fact that they're all lumped together in a value pack though says something about the quality of actual gameplay.

Basically you'll love it or you'll hate it.