In many cases, you can be making a low pass, scrape your prop on the ground (lawnmowing) prop bends back, and stll be able to make a safe landing.

Yeah. I love those moments, especially on the IL-2, where everything seems to have shot up and you can still manage to get back to base and make a safe crash landing. After bailing out, you pan around your perforated and absurdly maimed aircraft to realize just how lucky you were.

I've read some more reviews and I think the usage you mentioned is exactly the ideal FPS use. In standard shooters it would suck and be problematic - eg once you turn your head as far as it goes, how do you turn more (assuming you're not called Linda Blair)? With a mouse you just lift it off the pad and move it to the other side but you can't really do that here unless you press F8 (or whatever it is, the on/off button), move your head around the opposite way, press F8 again to turn it on and then continue turning. Not good in a fast paced deathmatch.

However, for games that have a seperate head angle, ie games that you can look a different way than your body is facing, then I think this could be killer but few games allow this. I don't remember the original AvP because, well, I wussed out after about a minute of playing (very scary game!) so maybe this does what I want. The only FPS I can think of is Operation Flashpiont and I do think this would be extremely cool (native support in Op-FP2 maybe?). Flightsims have this feature a lot more and many racing games do too so they will be the main areas but it would be nice to see a good number of FPS games which have a seperate head angle for TrackIR to work with.


Cheers,
Quboid
This comment was edited on Jul 30, 14:39.

I have never used the TrackIR for anything other than FS2002 and Forgotten Battles, so I can't say anything about it personally. But I have heard for games like Alien vs. Predator, when there is a slight "fear factor", it can add to the experience very nicely. It basically functions as your "head", so that you can rotate it separate from your gun you see in front of you.

It doesn't look nearly as good as the TrackIR, but a heck of a lot cheaper if you have a webcam. I just bought a broken set of E-D glasses from E-D UK who also sell TrackIRs so I might request a change if the glasses need RMA'd, meaning I'll only have to pay about £20 more.

Cheers,
Quboid

I have been considering getting trackIR, but I don't think it would work for me because I have two windows behind me that might cause it problems. However, I have found a different system that uses a webcam and works similiar to trackIR (but I presume not as well), you can find it at http://www.mousevision.com/ if you are interested.

I've been hearing a lot about the TrackIR lately. Is it any good for games other than the ones their site (www.trackir.com) list? I see it can send mouse signals so all games that use mouse input (Quake etc) can use it, but is it any good for Quake input?

Cheers,
Quboid

I am a major flight sim fan (Got FS2004 this morning, have a yoke, joystick and rudder pedals), and the fact that you can not realistically crash is the one thing that really annoys me

IL2 Forgotten Battles has good crashes. In many cases, you can be making a low pass, scrape your prop on the ground (lawnmowing) prop bends back, and stll be able to make a safe landing. Then of course you can cartwheel it by putting a wing tip on the ground at full power.

The best realism enhancment I have found for both this game and Forgotten Battles is TrackIR. When I played FS2002 with it for the first time, I felt like I had been missing out on a whole part of the game. It is very natural and the immersion is deeper than what most periphials provide. I find it as essential as a flightstick now.

Heh, and no, I don't work for TrackIR Just a big fan of it.

Here's how to get the crashes to work - open up the aircraft.cfg for the plane you want to crash (sounds bad lol) and add the following line into each of the [fltsim.x] sections after "ui_variation=":

visual_damage=1

Next go into the realism settings and check "Detect Crash and reset situation along with the two options for overstressing the aircraft and crashing into other aircraft if you so desire.

LHX : Released: 1990

well that will look good on my win2k system.
This comment was edited on Jul 30, 04:33.

MS more than makes up for the lack of detailed crashes in other areas. FS9 blows FS8 out of the water in almost every area, and I believe that MSFS is more responsive than most other ganes. I am a pilot, and enjoy the amount of detail FS goes into. The ATC has also greatly improved, and it is at an amazing level seeing as this is only its second incarnation. I also love the fact that you can assign AI planes to specific gates so that all of one arline are put together like in real life. With all the great features of MS, however, I still find it disappointing that when I do crash (almost always on accident), I would like to have some impact rather than restarting the mission, and if I clip my wing while taxing, I would like to see that damage and then be able to takeoff and see what would have happened.

...and the fact that you can not realistically crash is the one thing that really annoys me.

MS never really applied a lot of thought into that area. Back in FS5.0 the only plane that could crash in a spectacular fashion was the "Default" Cessna 182, the others would simply bury their noses in the ground. FS2K2 added some fire, spark, and smoke effects but I can't remember anytime when the plane would physically break apart piece by piece like that old Cessna did.

In truth, MSFS makes up for this in other areas. It might seem hard to believe, but MSFS is actually as responsive and interactive as any typical game. The difference is in where this interactivity comes from.

With other games you have stuff blowing up by shooting at them, in MSFS you have the aircraft's response to the subtleties of your control inputs. Many games have near-photorealistic but ultimately static environments, MSFS can show weather and time effects in real time. NPC interaction in other games is emotional, in MSFS ATC interaction is procedural but just as deep.

There is a "Game" in MSFS for the typical PC gamer, it just take a little unshackling from the "Blow it Up" purview of most titles of similar magnitude to find it.

I am a major flight sim fan (Got FS2004 this morning, have a yoke, joystick and rudder pedals), and the fact that you can not realistically crash is the one thing that really annoys me. In case you are wondering I am a pilot and I really enjoy other computer games, Flight Simulator is just another kind of fun. Though Half-Life 2 will blow it out of the water, I will still play FS.

Go into the Settings menu and up the realism settings, geez. It's been that way for 5-6 versions now.

It defaults to no-damange, no failures, etc... so people, even people like you, Bob Bobsen, can at least get the plane off the ground.

Flight sim? You cannot even 'crash' all you do is bounce. And don't even try and ram a building, you go right through it! It seems a little too 'safe' to be an accurate simulator..

This comment was edited on Jul 29, 21:46.

Why has no one made a decent helicopter sim, preferably a gunship one? As they're probably a million times more fun to pilot.

Like Janes Longbow and Longbow 2?

Yup - it gets even cooler when you join something like VATSIM too (www.vatsim.net) - which is a complete simulation of the worldwide air traffic system - yes you can even get an extremely well done freeware radar program and act as an air traffic controller (with voice chat no less) to sim pilots. It's awesome.

"I have all the FPS games just like everyone else, but MSFS is the "game" that's consistently held my attention while other's get uninstalled after a while."

Same here and I got a few of my hardcore sooter haxor type friends into it also (although they will never admit it) and for some reason we will be multi shooting the latest UT mod one wheek then discussing flightsim addons the next. It's an odd fasination but for sone reason I can't seem to get enough¿

It includes small airports in many cases. Being that I live in a smaller city (Syracuse) I was suprised to see the small airports listed that only allow personal aircraft and helicopters, for example. I can think of dozens of them with an hour or 2 of the International airport here.

"some 24,000 authentic airports worldwide"
er, how can that be possible?"

Hey #6 and #8 - cool it.

FS is incorrectly labeled a "game" at this point. It will teach you how to realisticly fly a wide variety of airplanes if you have the time, patience, and will to learn. It's a totally different kind of "fun" and satisfaction to break out of a cloud bank at 50 feet and see the runway in front of you, knowing you did it right and can get a plane on the ground solely on your instruments etc. Some people apparently need to shoot things and blow things up to have any fun - I have all the FPS games just like everyone else, but MSFS is the "game" that's consistently held my attention while other's get uninstalled after a while. If you've never tried FS before, go pick this up along with a decent joystick with throttle and rudder twist and give it a shot. Check out the forums at www.avsim.com or www.flightsimnetwork.com if you need help with anything or are interested in getting addon aircraft (which are almost ALWAYS much better than the default ones that come with FS) And please folks don't bash on someone else's favorite genre of software just because you don't find it "fun" - I assure you there's a fairly sizable community of simmers who do in fact find it fun and enjoyable.