I'm looking for a good WWII combat flight sim.  I've got MS combat flight sim 2 Pacific and MS combat flight sim 3 battle for Europe(which are graphically dated now), but I was wondering if you all could recommend something a little more recent.  It doesn't have to be brand new but within a couple of years or so.  I've got PS3 Steel Birds, and I guess it's the reason I'm looking for somethig for PC play. However I find it kinda hard to play with the goofy controller and not sure about purchasing a joystick for it.  Any good games I can scratch this itch for the PC?

Doesn't IL-2 1946 have like a bajillion planes in it?  And random campaigns? 

Is it any good?  I've seen some of the gameplay on youtube.

Il2 1946 is basically THE WW2 combat flightsim.  The base game is 10 years old now, so it doesn't look amazing, but it runs on any reasonable PC and MP is pretty solid.  Also it's been tweaked and modded until it seems like every  plane from WW2 (plus a few pre and post) is flyable.  Buy a disc for £5, or download from Steam, and patch up.  This website http://www.mission4today.com has all the downloads, plus a bunch of helpful people.

IL2 does have a modern successor: Il2:Cliffs of Dover.  As the title suggests it covers the Battle of Britain - but only that period.  It's more advanced in terms of graphics and flight model, but, in my opinion, overly ambitious.  You need a proper gaming PC to run it, and even then you may be subject to low frame-rates and crashes.  The developers are working to get it playable (10 months after release) for more people, but I wouldn't recommend it at the moment

I am going to second the recommendation for IL2. I have been playing since Pacific Fighters was released, and never looked back as far as my WWII combat flight sim of choice. The best stuff, IMO, that's been added into the sim has come from the Team Daidalos patches, which have brought the game up to the current version of 4.11.1.  There's a decent amount of very high quality aircraft, including the TBD Devastator and the second ever official 4 engine bomber the Pe-8. Several new features have been added, my favorites being the expanded flexibility with both the quick mission builder and full mission builder. More realistic bomb, rocket, and torpedo models with most German aircraft having the correct electronic bomb fuzing device. 

Probably the most game changing addition came in the most recent patch. The AI has received a complete over haul to every single facet of it's operation. There is no more planes not being able to pull lead on a maneuvering aircraft, or doing endless barrel rolls. The AI will now really bring the fight to you, at the higher level, and you will know when you are facing an ace. All the skill levels also have modifying traits that will make pilots of the exact same skill level use a different set of tactics depending on the situation. I have seen rookie pilots freeze up when getting shot at, and then bail out when the tracers get to close. This is indeed a feature, not a bug, lol! As I said, I've been playing for quite a while, something like 7 or 8 years, and this one patch changed the game more then anything that's ever been released. 

The official TD forums are here http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/forumdisplay.php?f=202  The updates so far for v4.12 include the long awaited cockpit for the Hawk 75/P-36 in Finnish service. Also, a new kill scoring system will be implemented. You will now be able to share credit for a kill. If you damage an enemy bomber during an attack, and as you break awak your wingman finished the bomber off, you will now each get 1/2 credit for the kill. In the past they have released videos showing an operable radar system in a Bf-110-G4 as a teaser for some of what they are working on. This game is not going to stop growing any time soon, and unless CloD really comes through with much more content in future titles, it may just still be going afte CloD is gone.

a third vote for IL-2 1946.  Lots of mods for it, even one for Korea (http://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php?topic=14158.0) if you want to get into the jet age fighters....

4th vote for IL2 - & get the Stab 1946 mod. I find it charts a good path between a believable sim & accuracy without having to have a pilots license to play it. I also enjoy the campaigns - playing around in a Finnish biplane is great, as are some of the obscure Russian fighters & bombers.

Definitely go for it, and I'd guess you'd get it at a good price, and it will run on your PC (unless its really old)

5th vote for IL-2. Can't beat $10

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/il_2_sturmovik_1946

What about Wings of Prey, the graphics look pretty cool.

Wings of prey is a very very "light" plane game (notice I did not say sim) with any gimics. 

I am enjoying il2 Cliffs of Dover (the recent sequel to il2 based around the battle of britain) but you need a super PC to play it and I cannot recommend the single player campaign in it.

Cliffs of Dover

I have il2 and have to say that its graphics are now dated but it is easily the best ww2 flight sim for variety. It is still the staple today for most ww2 fligh sim clans.

il2 sturmovik

IIRC, you can force Anti-Aliasing on in IL-2. 

To get rid of all those big nasty jaggies.    Always makes things look so much better.

+1 on IL-46.   But also recommend you look at Battle of Britain II Wings of Victory, now available from A2A Simulations for $19.00.  Game has plenty of dogfights...but best part is it is tied to an optional dynamic campaign game.  The player as the Luftwaffe commander can set up bomb targets for the day, then jump into fighters and dive bombers to play out the missions.

I had forgotten about Wings of victory. Has this been updated recently? 

Does IL2-Strumovik 1946 play ok on Windows 7?  I've been looking at it on youtube looks pretty good. So does Battle of Britton II Wings of Victory.

Originally Posted By Mr.Gregg (23 MAY 2012 9:45pm)

Does IL2-Strumovik 1946 play ok on Windows 7?  I've been looking at it on youtube looks pretty good. So does Battle of Britton II Wings of Victory.

  I'm running IL2 on Win 7 64 no probs.  If you do get it, make sure it's intalled in its own directory (eg C:\games\IL2) and not in the ..x86programs dir that windows will want to put it in.  

BoB:WoV is a good game - you can have hordes of airraft in the sky and the AI is very good (not in that it always shoots you down, but that it doesn't have too predictable behaviour).  I think there is a community which keeps this game alive with patches and so on.  The only downers compared to IL2 are the narrow focus and the lack of multiplayer.

edit: bizarre random smiley - doesn't show in preview!

Originally Posted By Mr.Gregg (23 MAY 2012 9:45pm)

Does IL2-Strumovik 1946 play ok on Windows 7?

Most things bought from Good Old Games work on Windows 7.

Originally Posted By destraex (23 MAY 2012 8:53pm)

I had forgotten about Wings of victory. Has this been updated recently? 

Not sure, I know it went through a major overhaul about four years ago...better graphics, better AI, etc.  Don't know if they have done something more recent.

It's the only game I know of, where the sky is filled with bomber and fighter formations.  Playing an August 40 interception over London is something to be seen.  The game really creates an atmosphere that not even IL-2 can touch IMHO.

The last update (v2.11) to BoB2 WoV was in May 2010. 

http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=21865

They're currently beta testing patch 2.12 so it should be out in the near future.

http://SimHQ.com/_air14/air_505a.html

At the risk of sounding a little blasphemous vs. IL2, there IS another game on the horizon, a flight sim covering the period 1915 - 1952 or so.

World of Warplanes.

Now, before I get some 20 mm rockets shot my way, this may not be a bad game.

I love World of Tanks, with its excellent gameplay, and there is no reason to think that wargamers.net won't do the same very high quality programming for this one.

I believe that there will be a variety of missions, not simply capture the flag or destroy all of your enemies.

There are some pretty good trailers out there, and I believe the game is pretty far along, and reasonably close to release.

http://na.worldofwarplanes.com/

IL2 1946 seems to be the best but I don't like how the campaign works.

I not much of a flight sim guy,  but I really do enjoy BoB WoV....The Dynamic Campaign,  the ability to play it at both the pilot and Strategic Commander levels (either side) during the same game,  the depth of crew/squadron management, you can adjust the flight fidelity (arcade to serious sim),  the many mods and skins,  and most of all,  it plays well on my dog machine.....

Seeing as how there is only so much that I can say, NDA's being what they are, I can say that I think the 'hardore' sim pilots/fans out there are going to be plesantely surprised by War Thunder: World of Planes. I was expecting power ups floating in the sky, and perhaps the option of having an oversized Mario fly your Italian fighters. This is not the case, not the case at all. 

Originally Posted By Stryker07 (25 MAY 2012 4:51pm)

Seeing as how there is only so much that I can say, NDA's being what they are, I can say that I think the 'hardore' sim pilots/fans out there are going to be plesantely surprised by War Thunder: World of Planes. I was expecting power ups floating in the sky, and perhaps the option of having an oversized Mario fly your Italian fighters. This is not the case, not the case at all. 

 

 

Is it as complex as cliffs of dover?

I also have a BETA key but have not bothered unblocking all the firewall ports to give it a birl yet.