Software

• Fly 24 different airplanes, including Ultralites for when you don't want to deal with all the knobs and dials
• Authentic road layouts - fly over your home town and navigate by the streets below
• Deeply immersive world to providing more structured gameplay elements

• Dynamic weather system based on realistic atmospheric physics, with true three-dimensional clouds that form and dissipate
• Enhanced interactive air traffic control (ATC), including traffic at all airports around the world
• For 1 or more players over LAN or Internet

• X-Plane 9 provides Ultra Realistic Flight Simulation
• Design the plane you want to fly-from instrument panel to fuselage to weapons
• Land at any of over 18,000 airports, as well as on aircraft carriers, helipads on building tops, frigates that pitch and roll in the waves, and oil rigs

• Fly 24 different airplanes, including Ultralites for when you don't want to deal with all the knobs and dials
• Authentic road layouts - fly over your home town and navigate by the streets below
• Deeply immersive world to providing more structured gameplay elements

• Pilot three different variants of the F-16 Fighting Falcon.
• Simulate an entire war with the most advanced and truly dynamic campaign engine ever made for your PC.
• Bomb damage may or may not be repaired, depending on enemy resources and command.

• You'll be amazed at the exquisite detail of the aircraft, cockpits and scenery
• Jungle hillsides and majestic coral reefs are yours to explore as you face off agianst the enemy over Papua New Guinea, The Marianas Trench and Midway Island
• Enhanced 3D objects and high-resolution terrain combine with incredible weather effects and sound, to bring you the ultimate in WWII realism!

After choosing to fly for the Japanese or American forces, you can pick from a selection of seven ultrarealistic aircraft. Experienced flight sim fans will drool over the plane models, accurate down to the number of rivets. Newbies will appreciate the excellent flight and landing tutorials.

There are over 100 missions to fly, many based on historic missions from the war. This unusual level of realism and attention to detail comes from the game developers' personal love of flight: many members of the CFS2 team are pilots. Their extensive research included interviews with Japanese and U.S. aces from the real war in the Pacific. The missions themselves are lengthy and often complex, and are just as accurate as the planes; players take part in history, but cannot change the outcomes of battles.

Because the action takes place in the South Pacific don't expect to see a wide variety of ground scenery. Not that you'll miss it: the water, small islands, planes, aircraft carriers, and battleships are always very sharp and detailed. However, if you expect to play with the graphics at their best settings, be aware that you'll need a blazing fast machine with a fast video card. On lesser computers, the graphics in Combat Flight Simulator 2 start to degrade from stunning to merely ordinary.

The between-mission story arc is told through 1940s-style comic book panels. The artwork does a good job of moving the story along while giving the feeling that your character and his fellow flyboys are aware they're never far from instant death. That the game also allows you to fly the full Japanese side of the campaign gives the player an interesting glimpse at the Japanese perspective of the war.

While the game does include such famous planes as the U.S. Corsair, Wildcat, P38F Lightning, and Japanese Zero, its mere total of seven craft left us wanting more. We were impressed with the vastly different handling of each plane, but the lack of variety is disappointing.

But this is a relatively small shortcoming in an otherwise deep and involving game. If you have a powerful enough PC, Combat Flight Simulator 2 is a delight, and is sure to please both war historians and flight sim enthusiasts.--Mark Brooks

Pros:

• Easy to get into, but can be adjusted to become very difficult and realistic
• On highest-quality graphics settings, the game is simply gorgeous
• Plenty of missions and great tutorials
• Full Japanese campaign adds depth and historical balance

• Only seven flyable aircraft
• Steep system requirements

• Choose to fly for the U.S., England, or the German Luftwaffe in 34 different and unique aircraft
• Switch positions between pilot, gunner or bombardier -- or fly in experimental jets that barely made it into combat
• Fantastic graphic displays with enhanced 3D modeling and textures, with realistic cloud and weather modeling make you feel like you're really 600 ft. in the air

• Choose from nine combat aricraft from the U.S. or Russia -- from the tank-killing A-10 Warthog to the masters of the sky, the F-15C Eagle
• Use the Dynamic Battle Generator to create your own combat scenarioes
• Multiplayer excitement for up to 32 players, via LAN or Internet connection

• Microsoft

Flight Simulator 2002, Standard Edition includes a wide variety of aircraft for you to fly--from a new Cessna 208 Caravan floatplane to the Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet. You can splash down in a lake, hover in the Bell 206B JetRanger III helicopter, practice aerobatics in the Extra 300S, or fly like a famous World War II fighter ace in a Sopwith Camel. FS 2002 Standard includes a total of 12 aircraft.

The most dramatic new features common to both the standard and pro editions are the interactive air traffic control system, crowded skies, and auto-generated scenery.

The interactive air traffic control feature adds a new dimension to Flight Simulator. Now you can ask for takeoff clearance, get vectors for an instrument approach, and hear other traffic as you fly. In fact, the "other traffic" is itself a new feature: a new artificial intelligence system generates air traffic around and between airports.

It'll be hard to pay attention to the air traffic, however, as the scenery in FS 2002 is so attractive. As you fly above cities, towns, farmland, and dramatic landscapes, Flight Simulator adds buildings and vegetation appropriate to the terrain below. Office buildings, factories, homes, farmhouses, and trees smoothly blend in on the horizon and fill the entire area with detail that adds unprecedented depth and reality to the game.

Other features include more than 21,000 airports, multiplayer capability, improved weather effects, a moving map and GPS system, in-depth flight analysis, and more.

• WWII flight combat game
• Take off from and land on aircraft carriers; try to take down enemy aircraft carriers in combat
• Online multiplayer option