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As somebody who doesn't fly, I'm always interested in seeing what the pilot sees. Are video games like Ace Combat 5 or Falcon 4.0 in any way realistic? They're both fun as hell, but how close are they to the real thing?

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I can tell you, as someone who has sat in the cockpit running F-16 Avionics systems since 1982, that Falcon 4.0 is about as close as you will get without spending groups of money. Everything in there pretty much works the way the jet does; there are inevitable compromises for playability, but you would really have to know the aircraft systems to even know that.

Best Regards,

And I can tell you as someone who's sat in a Cessna Laughing

that Ace Combat 4 is about as far away from realism as you can get :p

Check Six,

-Aaron

That's awesome. Obviously games can't reproduce the physical aspects of flying, but thanks for helping out a backshopper!

F4 is pretty realistic but its not close to the real thing because you dont feel anything.

Enthusiast Joined: Jan 19, 2006 Posts: 42 Status: Offline

While it is a fun game, Ace Combat is about as representative of the real thing as "Battleship" is to actual naval warfare.

However, you play Ace Combat for other reasons too... Like an absolutely AMAZING friggen storyline. (4 was the best, 5's was pretty good too) and sweet friggen videos at the end of a mission. The detail in the terrain and aircraft renders is absolutely beautiful. Sometimes you can get tricked into thinking is real if you stare hard enough. 20 AMRAAMs later you think differantly, but still :p The game was fun.

F4.0 was fun to me for about 3-4 weeks. I sat down, went through the entire manual, learned to play the game, and I still could not get into it. I guess for me I actually dont feel like I would get a kick out of it unless I'm actually IN the cockpit, with the freedom to look around, and feel the Gs :p To me F4.0 seemed like everything flying an F-16 would be with the fun parts eliminated and the tedious tasking and management left in. Was more like a chore to me :p sorry if others feel differantly. (Also I felt the AI was ridiculously easy in that game, and not being able to play online, I felt under challanged... Seriously... the AI would do some absolutely STUPID stuff...)

-Aaron

Ace Combat for fun. Falcon 4.0 or Lock-On for realism

BaronControl wrote:

Ace Combat for fun. Falcon 4.0 or Lock-On for realism

if you want realism.. dont fuckin go with Lock-On lol...

Driver wrote:

F4 is pretty realistic but its not close to the real thing because you dont feel anything.

you just have to use your imagination Laughing

but yea, you pretty much summed it up..

Both ace combat 4 and 5 are sweet arcade games...but that's exactly what they are. The planes are well-detailed in just about everything except the most important aspect: performance. For example, you can break the sound barrier in an A-10 or go straight up full 90 in an A-6. As an arcade game, they're great, especially with killer story line. They were never really ment to be simulators.

I don't really know about specifically about good F-16 sims, but a great general one is "X-Plane" for Mac - tons of different planes, including F-16s. Some great stuff on their.

the new Falcon 4.0 Allied Force fixed many of the problems of the first 4.0. It is by far the most realistic combat simulator sold to the general public. New AI can be frickin smart. I love the use of TFR in that game too. Makes ingress to SAM and AAA infested areas much less scary as the mountains block their shots.

What the name of that new sim coming out if it hasn't already?? I have seen the web page for it but i can't remember the name. It looks pretty cool. But I would go with falcon 4.0 also

Enthusiast Joined: Jul 13, 2003 Posts: 49 Status: Offline

FigterOps: http://www.fighterops.com Wink

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