For one the ability to choose a date and then the game automatically pulls in every object relevant to that date including the skins and specific loadout on the aircraft of that period.
Granted if you’re a gamer and into VR this wont mean Jack but as someone interested in the historical side this type of thing is a priority.
Granted you could do this in SF because of the amount of content available.
TK spent time researching the conflicts of that period and did add in bits unique to them in campaigns. Also the AI was tailored specifically to that…and although the flight models were only SFM level at most - you could still recreate the actual behaviour with what was provided - this is something people don’t seem to realise.
Instead of having endless debates over a missiles being too draggy etc to persuade the dev to change missiles - you could easily adjust it and most other parameters to what was expected from the reams of declass info on weapons firing and performance of the era.
Objects - well anyone can do that but out of the box there are a ton of pits and aircraft never touched all vital to these conflicts. the move to hardcore means you can never have the required content level because it simply takes too long!!
So a different year means a different sub variant of a jet with different weapons, ECM and avionics capability
Nothing else currently simulates overall the conflicts anywhere near as realistically as these did. That is not just the AI, objects, and terrain but also the behaviour required - nothing else is even close.
Also due to the change in attitudes - because I think, TK had to pull the mobile SF2 Israel game from Apple store! Getting commercial companies to even touch the Cold War on a major level is looking like a bit of a hot potato…that may change I’m sure.
Everything you say good about the sim is true. No argument there. My squad even had limited success running multiplayer with HyperLobby back in the day. And that’s not to mention Yank Air Pirate, which was the best reason for keeping the SF series on life support, IMO.
But Windows 10 was released four years ago this month and to ask $100 for a sim that will require the owner to compromise cybersecurity, keep a sandboxed rig, or a VM just to run the software, doesn’t strike me as a sound investment.
The open nature of the modding was very nice and allowed for a lot of things that the developer either didn’t have the time for, or wasn’t interested in. If I could get VR in both EECH and Strike Fighters, I’d be a pretty happy puppy.
But yeah, I don’t want to run anything other than Windows 10…so I’d need to get that square peg into the round hole.
Doesn’t look like good business to me IMO he should have changed something and at least stated Win 10 support - of course there could be good reasons for this out side of PTSD from when he had to do the support before.
I have actually been running all the SF2 games on Win 10 only since Win 10 came out and still running it with the latest drivers on a 2080 - clearly the level of backwards compatibility in Win 10 is high.
However I can not recommend buying it new if you use Win 10 because no guarantee it will keep working.
@MigBuster - you bring up some great points. The one about picking any date and theater and the game engine being able to pull in the right aircraft, variants, weapons, and loadouts is awesome and I miss it. It really took the pressure off of people to generate 3rd party missions and campaigns, as the game engine did a lot of the work for you.
But, bottom line, the $100 dollar package without any bug fixes or Win10 compatibility is just stuff I already have. So it’s a no buy.
I will always, ALWAYS, remember with nostalgia Fall 2006 when I first discovered Wings over Europe, Cold war gone hot.
I must have played that at least until same period following year…
I can never unlove it.
It’s up there in the Heaven of simulators, alongside Chuck Yeager’s Air combat, Strike Eagle II and III, Falcon 3.0, M1 Tank Platoon, LHX, Gunship2000, 1942 Pacific Air War, Aces over Europe, and so many many more.
But it’s in heaven still.
It was wonderful while it lasted, and memories will never fade away- but I’m physically over it.
If he just patched up the stuff I mentioned earlier, I think I’d pay the $100. Get the naval battles straightened out, get the AI working properly, get the graphics issues fixed, get the campaigns updated. He doesn’t have to add anything.
Where is this list? Facebook? I don’t & won’t use it. Can someone post it here?
I still have some modded SF2 installs, which are still played occasionally, I tell myself I’m maintaining them for when my kids take an interest in flight sims.
Thanks, found the link now. I don’t own everything on it & also don’t have the access code from my last purchase any more. I’ve requested a new code, but not received it yet. If the outstanding DLC is less than £50 I’m going to grab it all then claim my free all-in-1.
