One of the world's biggest icons

[Art Blade]

Ah good god, wings of prey, if I'm not terribly mistaken, it was the only game ever that I returned and got refunded for it. Reason: warranted characteristics or is it guaranteed features? They failed to deliver. There was NO OPTION to calibrate and map the joystick and its buttons. Unacceptable for a flight sim.

[nex]

I have a Win95/98 EA WWII Fighters game (Jane's Combat Simulation) released 1998 with the P-51D Mustang, P47D Thunderbolt,
Lockheed P38J Lightning, Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX, Messerschmitt BF 109G-6, FW190A-8 and the Me262A1
All I can remember of the game is how difficult it was getting the other Aircraft in your sights, wonder if it'll w0#k on modern PC's

[Art Blade]

among those planes you listed are a couple of cool ones that I recognise Might be worth trying..

[fragger]

@Art, there were things that annoyed me about Wings of Prey too, but my biggest gripe was the lack of a non-conflict "free-flight" mode, which just about every combat flying simulator ever made has had, which allows you to familiarize yourself with an aircraft without getting shot at and lets you practice take-off and landings. In fact missions would just end after you'd met the objective or shot down the last enemy or whatever, so you never got a chance to truly navigate or attempt landings. Also, most missions started you off already in the air, so you didn't get to taxi and take off either. But for quick in-and-out dogfights, it was quite well done, with near-photographic environments and effetcs.

@nex, I've still got that game too, somewhere. Are you sure it's not called "Jane's WWII Fighters"? That's the one I have, and it has exactly the same aircraft in it that you listed. The whole main interface was made to look like you were in an air museum, with all the flyable aircraft roped off on the floor of a big hanger, and was beautifully rendered even then. And being a Jane's title, there was a wealth of information on each aircraft's history. The game was set late in the war, in 1944 over the Ardennes during the "Battle of the Bulge", which was a kind of bizarre choice of setting since in reality the weather was so bad during that conflict that there was almost no flying conducted by either side.

I also had Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator, which was another WW2-themed fighter sim, and that wasn't half bad. Not as graphically nice as Jane's, but had more flyable aircraft and more accessible "quick combat" options.

That Jane's one is an oldie. I remember some years ago I tried to install it under an earlier OS (might have been Vista) and it didn't want to know. It is a 21-year-old title after all. I'd be very surprised if it allowed itself to be installed under any OS later than XP, or even Win2000. Dunno how it would handle a wide-screen monitor either.

I wouldn't mind a good WWI dogfighter, actually. With the tech available today, there's no reason why somebody couldn't make a really good one, since they don't have to model radars and missiles and computer-controlled nav systems and such, just a bare-bones cockpit with about half a dozen crude instruments. Don't even need to depict a canopy The old Red Baron game from way back in the early 90s was fun, but nobody has done a good one since. There have been a few attempts but they've all been crappy in one way or another. I quite like that simple, twisting, turning, seat-of-the-pants aerial scrapping Just as long as they make it easy to be able to look around...

[Art Blade]

ah, those were the good old times.

[nex]

That's the one fragger   

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[Art Blade]

haha, look at the MINIMUM specifications at the bottom right

Pentium processor P-200, whoa  
graphics: 3D-accelerator 
sound card DirectX 5.0 
IPX-compatible (yeah, that was local area network protocol, you'd more likely play on a LAN than online)
Internet: 28.8 Kbps 
CD: 6x Drive 
HD: 250 MB (M, not G )
RAM: 32 MB (again, M, not G )
Input: keyboard & mouse (!) playing with a mouse was still revolutionary.. keyboard only was still common, or joysticks

Ah man, that's just too good

Maybe it's not such a great idea to try that on a modern PC.. unless you find some kind of emulator

[nex]

Some of today's mobile phones have better specs than that

[PZ]

 

[Art Blade]

yep, you might find it converted to a mobile app

[fragger]

Dunno why internet access speed is listed as a spec. I wasn't on the internet, didn't even have a connection, when I had that game and I still played it. Didn't need it for registration or activation. That was back in the days when you'd enter the rego code that was printed in the game manual or on the jewel case and away you went.

I'm pretty sure online gaming was still in the future then, and the only multiplayer option was over a LAN. I don't recall the game even having that capability.

Correction: Had a closer look at the cover in the picture Art posted, there was an online multiplayer option available as well as LAN play (up to 8 people). God knows what the online game was like.... Rather laggy I suspect, depending on where you were and what kind of connection you had

[Art Blade]

I didn't post it, it was nex. I only examined it closely

And back then you didn't have internet connections built in just like that, it needed to be IPX compatible, which was the LAN standard, and for online gaming you needed IPX servers and clients. I believe GameSpy and similar services provided that, I think battlenet was another known service.

[fragger]

I didn't post it, it was nex. I only examined it closely

By gum, you're right Why did I think that? Must have been early morning caffeine deficiency.

[Art Blade]

 

somehow your excuse reminded me, kind of the same thing with a charismatic situation..

"What? I've got charisma? I must have picked it up from a toilet seat."

[mandru]

^