MS CFS..Not Impressed.

[HarmsWay]

I know there will be people that will disagree with my opinion here.....and that's ok. I've been playing microsoft CFS since the very first one they came out with. The first CFS started my trek into multiplyer games. I loved it from the start and recruited family members into it. We even joined an internet team and kicked ass in on-line tournaments. CFS1 didn't have the greatest graphics or a co-op option, but the modders came up with creative ideas and the game became refreshed. CFS2 was announced and we were all excited. better graphics....yet no co-opp option...many disappointments and options we had in CFS1 were taken away...until modders...not MS...helped us out. Ok..I'm hanging in there beleiving in MS....they came up with CFS1..a great game. Hooray...here comes CFS3...a co-op option and everything!......let's go spend the 50 bucks! What a hoax!...what a disappointment worse than CFS2! how lame! Probably what people wonder is what I run for a system. OK...Ihave a Dell Dimension 1.3 gig P4 512 RdRam 64 MB G-force3 DDR blah blah blah. A decent gaming PC above the required or suggested specs for this crap software. Latest patches...drivers..blah blah blah! This game sux. It's boring. It's slow. The co-op stinks. It hesitates. Frame rates suck no matter what tips and tricks you try...and why should I have to anyway???? This is microsoft...they're not dumb! The warp is hideous...anyone have to sit thru warping with crap square graphics on the ground while ships float past in mid air? I wasn't going to ever post anything because I know there will be people that might think this is a fun game. The truth is...it sucks. It sucks more than CFS 2. I was captured by CFS1. Microsoft CFS has become a disappointing money pit. I haven't enjoyed online flying since CFS1. No longer in the internet team. I saw a post where someone asked about CFS4...I didn't read it. I decided to register and post my opinion of CFS3. For me..I don't think there will be a CFS4. Has anyone who has been with CFS from the get go noticed that there are far lass fewer mods for CFS3 than for the last CFS's? Hmmm...there's a clue MS. MS has lost the edge on  WW2 era Air Combat gaming. Time to shop around.

[SilverFox441]

There are fewer mods because mods are a lot harder to make...and they can only be done in GMax. Rumour has it that we will see the ability to use FSDS V 2 planes before too much longer.

If that happens I think we'll see mods flood out as more people have the ability to make them.

[Smoke2much]

I have to agree with Harmsway.  The subject of graphics issues has been pretty much kicked to death on this forum, there are huge problems that we all know about.

It is the game play I would like to expand.  The campaign game is simply dull.  Endless, unrealistic anti-shipping missions.  The game in my opinion is repetetive and boring.  It doesn't seem to matter where you put the ability points your pilot gains and you have no real control over the strategy on the ground.

I don't play it any more as I find CFS1 much more entertaining.

Will

[Oz]

The thing with CFS3 that makes an 'operational' game so boring is that whole 'tactical' mess. In WWII, it wasnt the pilots who make the strategic planning, that was for the military comanders. Pilots just flew the missions they were told to complete. Another thing, in the campaign missions anyone noticed that the briefing is barely a briefing. It always says Destroy ships on all the anti-shiping missions and leaves you wanting to know a bunch of info about a convoy you are to hit. The only thing i dont agree with you Harmsway is bout CFS2. CFS2 was really great, and overall an improvement over CFS1. Personally i think its better than  CFS1, only thing is i do like the European theater more.

[Sky_Shark]

valid points made here.


Smoke2much wrote "The campaign game is simply dull.  Endless, unrealistic anti-shipping missions.  The game in my opinion is repetetive and boring.  It doesn't seem to matter where you put the ability points your pilot gains and you have no real control over the strategy on the ground. "

You can choose other missions besides anti-shiping but in my opinion, you have to gain control of the seas before invading.

The hability points do matter! The greatest improvement is on g-force tolerance. It's nearly impossible to dog-fight with 25 g-force tolerance. I'm up to 40 and it's quite ok. Vision is very important to detect air targets at confortable distance.

but truth is that litle or no control is available in ground strategy. Britain always invades too soon. In the real war we had to prepare the path for the ground invasion. I cant help Britain invading north France and then losing it again and become weakened.  :P

To Harmsway:
CFS3 is about tactical bombing. It's not dogfighting, and I think dogfighting is the most fun out of flying sims. Focusing only on Fighter Sweeps missions wont win the war

[Wing Nut]

I must agree, CFS 3 has been a major disappointment to me.  I hate the graphics, the fact that it takes MINUTES to load anything, the fact that one pilot is now responsible for the whole war, the lack of freeware planes, ALL OF IT!  If FS2004 is anything like this, I may dump flight sims completely, and I don't say that lightly.

[bm]

       I haven't touched CFS3 much lately, I do the odd free flight but the campaign is boring and endless.
   The graphics and effects are amazing, if you crash into the ground in the middle of a railway station the visuals are amazing there is so much going on. Flack is meaty and all sorts of visuals, it has generally a much more meaty look to it than ever before.
  My history of flightsims are in succession Flight Unlimited 2, CFS2, FS2000, CFS3, FS2002.
    Flight unlimited was amazing, AI traffic, ATC, and a much more meaty feel to the planes and everything looked amazing in 97 with an 8mb builting graphics card.
  CFS2 (with the 8mb job) was a leep forward, I could shoot!!
FS2000 put me off Civil flightsims for a long time, it was rubbish and boring and I couldnt see a thing as the screen was a bit of a blur. (full stop). CFS3, then eventually because of all the stuff said and made for it I thought FS2002 must be good so I got it. (standard version didn't know about GMAX then) It was amazing, not as good as Flight Unlimeted 2 but it covered the whole globe and ATC and AI all over.
  The point of that was CFS3 is a change, a huge change from CFS2 and like FS2000  CFS3 isn't a refined experience, it is and improvement in someways and has potential in the future with clever modding people and future versions.
I don't play multiplayer and the campain is boring so a campaign would be nice guys.
The trouble with the present version: (in a list)

 Hideos warp
 Limited AI
 Boring campaign
 Limited options on Free flight
 And other stuff (so much for my list)


     Thats my opinion look to the future, I have more opinions but thats enough for now.

[Katahu]

Well, I bought CFS3. And just like you people, I was totally disappointed at first. Stutters and slow loading.

But when the next day came, I heard about the tweaks that can be made to improve the sim.

You can download a set of instructions from simviation. The instructions are simple and straight forward. As a result, I have managed to improve the performance very dramatically.

My specs:

Pentium 4 processor with 2.4ghz
512mb ram
GeForce 4 MX440 (Gateway) with 128mb
60gb Hard drive
a cd-rom that has the speed of the SR-71 Blackbird
Windows XP

There are some things that many people have to get use to. Change inevitable (the sims new game engine, etc.).

Stop talking negative about the warp option, alright guys.

In real life combat, you don't get warp drive and fly from London to Berlin in less than one minute. Yet nobody wants to fly from London to Berlin for hours at the speed of 250 mph (ww2 airspeed measurement) on a combat simulator. So I suggest that you drop the subject about the warp. I know that the warp sucks in CFS3, but the game engine is new and the warp has to operate differently. So get use to it. There, end of conversation about the warp option.

Now as for the campaign. To me, the campaign is GREAT (I don't know about you people). I say it's great because I make it great. Don't you see guys? Since the war is affected by you people, it's up to you people to make it fun.

It's possible that the campaign is boring because some people lose at first. As for me, my heritage is all about war. My dad, grandpa, all my uncles, etc. My battles in the sim are great because I'm used to the idea of conflict and I have studied a lot (in fact all) about WW2 (how it was fought, who fought in it, what military leaders were involved, etc.).

I don't want to start a flare up around here.

All I'm saying guys is that the quality of the sim is really (or just probably) based on the views of the user himself.

Don't expect all your favorate eggs to together on one basket. If that happed, then M$ would or will not be able to make a better sim.

There, end of my conversation.

[Iroquois]

I strongly agree with Katahu on this. CFS3 is great dispite its draw backs. kdryan mentioned that the whole war is up to one pilot, not true. If you actually play the campaign, you'll notice that the AI does stuff on its own. Ie. it will launch ground offences without being told.

Another thing, I don't understand why people are so afraid of Gmax. I find it a very powerful and easy to use 3d design tool. You'll notice that major design teams (ie Project Opensky, Meljet) all use Gmax now. I find that some of the Gmax freeware for FS2002 is the best around. Technology changes and you just have to accept it. How would you feel if all we had in the ways  of PCs were Comadore 64s.

CFS3 is the best version of CFS (I hate CFS2, crap graphics, confusing keyboard layout). You also don't need a high end system to play it. I have a AMD Duron 950 with 512mb PC-133 ram and a Geforce2 MX440 64mb card. For me, CFS3 shutters less than FS2002.  In fact I get a stable 10-20 fps on CFS3 where FS2002 is all over the place.

The game is what you make it. You treat it like trash, its going to give you trash.  

[Oz]

Well to be honest i do use CFS3 a lot nowadays, mostly to drive my tank around the cities

[smokey]

Well said in the Pro's & Cons dept. Having said that, I want, veary badley to be in the E.T.O. My roots are there also. That is the apeal of the game, time and place.
Can we have the beast of bouth?
that's what made CFS1 good for me.

[Oz]

Well in my opinion CFS3 has absolutely no similarity to CFS1 except for it being the European theater. See CFS1 was upgraded, modified, and enhanced, hence bringing CFS2. CFS3 was not upgraded from CFS2...this is an entirely new game built on different 'priniciples'. Its got a new engine and tons of good and bad stuff. Now if you only want to enjoy shooting and bombing ships and facilities and a bit of dogfighting, flying the classic european-theater warbirds and you dont mind all the other problems the game has then go ahead and buy it.....but keep the receipt!!!

[Wing Nut]

I've said it before and I will again.  CFS3 is basically a warmed over version of the excellent 'Janes's WWII Fighters'  The gameplay is almost identical, right down to the virtual cockpit and the customizable guages you can display, the graphics are comparable but obviously more advanced on CFS3.  Jane's had red out's and black outs, sun glare, visible damage to the planes, and all the major features MS tried to incorporate here.  And they did it almost 5 years ago.  

In several areas Janes actually surpasses CFS3.  The flight museum is awesome to browse through and the mission builder is first rate.  You can customize a mission to include up to 32 AI aircraft from both sides of the fight.  There is no campaign game per se, but I think it's pretty much agreed that MS dropped the ball on the campaign in CFS3 too, so they cancel each other out.

No, when a 5 year old sim can go up against 'state of the art' I think I would have to to question the success of the new sim.  If anyone has any doubts about what I say, pick up a copy of Janes, you can buy them for about ten bucks now.

[Oz]

Hmm... I myself never got to play janes(was gonna buy it...) But i tell ya i think CFS3 is an updated version of Fighter Ace. Go ahead and try the demo that comes with CFS2 or FS2002 and youll see what i mean. The views, the type of font, the cockpits more than anything. Like i said before; normally the next CFS or FS sim is an improvement over the previous version with more new features...not less. And think bout it; Fighter Ace was a MS game. Maybe the designers took some stuff out of it (a lot..) and made CFS3 out of Fighter Ace 'spare parts' and ideas. Thats why i dont like CFS3 to die for, cause it barely has any similarity with its previous versions.

[Iroquois]

I have Janes WW2 and hated it. It had crap graphics and the keyboard controls were confusing. CFS3 is much better. Don't waste your money on cheap rip-offs of Microsofts winning series.