Agiel Posted February 5, 2013 Posted February 5, 2013 So finally caved and shelved out $136 dollars for a Steel Beasts Pro: Personal Edition license and upgrade, since after playing DCS: A-10C, Black Shark 2, Dangerous Waters, and ArmA 2, there was still a Leopard 2-sized hole in my simming experience Some of you may remember about 10-15 years ago that PC gaming was as much , Enemy Engaged: Comanche vs. Hokum, and Operation Flashpoint as it was Quake, Baldur's Gate, and Total Annihilation. Hopefully with the release of 3rd party modules for DCS: World and those people buying ArmA 3 (if only for DayZ) will revive interest in the genre. 1 Quote “Political philosophers have often pointed out that in wartime, the citizen, the male citizen at least, loses one of his most basic rights, his right to life; and this has been true ever since the French Revolution and the invention of conscription, now an almost universally accepted principle. But these same philosophers have rarely noted that the citizen in question simultaneously loses another right, one just as basic and perhaps even more vital for his conception of himself as a civilized human being: the right not to kill.” -Jonathan Littell <<Les Bienveillantes>> Quote "The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete." -Rod Serling
AGX-17 Posted February 6, 2013 Posted February 6, 2013 (edited) Some of you may remember about 10-15 years ago that PC gaming was as much , Enemy Engaged: Comanche vs. Hokum, and Operation Flashpoint as it was Quake, Baldur's Gate, and Total Annihilation.No, those simulations were a niche genre for a specific niche of "military enthusiasts." The only person I ever personally knew of who owned any of those "Jane's X" programs was a friend's "Real America" dad in the mid 90s. Edited February 6, 2013 by AGX-17
Deadly_Nightshade Posted February 6, 2013 Posted February 6, 2013 Loved Jane's U.S.A.F. - in fact I've still got the discs (I just wished it ran better on XP-forward). I think I've also got their F15 and F16 sims somewhere as well. "Geez. It's like we lost some sort of bet and ended up saddled with a bunch of terrible new posters on this forum." -Hurlshot
Agiel Posted February 6, 2013 Author Posted February 6, 2013 (edited) Jane's USAF was a good midpoint between the low-medium fidelity survey sims (the estimable Fighter's Anthology) and the license's more intensive ones (the excellent F-15, F/A-18, and the Longbow series). I suppose its closest modern analogue would be the Strike Fighters 2 series and Flaming Cliffs 3 that plugs into DCS: World. Nowhere near as intensive as A-10C (no 50-step cold start procedure), but the flight model, radar fidelity, and missile behaviours are pretty top notch nonetheless. Edited February 6, 2013 by Agiel Quote “Political philosophers have often pointed out that in wartime, the citizen, the male citizen at least, loses one of his most basic rights, his right to life; and this has been true ever since the French Revolution and the invention of conscription, now an almost universally accepted principle. But these same philosophers have rarely noted that the citizen in question simultaneously loses another right, one just as basic and perhaps even more vital for his conception of himself as a civilized human being: the right not to kill.” -Jonathan Littell <<Les Bienveillantes>> Quote "The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete." -Rod Serling
Rostere Posted February 7, 2013 Posted February 7, 2013 Squad- based military sims are great for LANs. "Well, overkill is my middle name. And my last name. And all of my other names as well!"
Agiel Posted February 9, 2013 Author Posted February 9, 2013 Ah yes, I remember the days when I kept dropping hints to my parents about having Rogue Spear for Christmas, with my cousin doing the same with his. And I shall forever hold fond memories of Raven Shield. This past year the tech club at my university hosted a "LAN Party" and I was fortunate enough to find someone else there who happened to have SWAT 4 as well, though while I was content with the pepper-spray paintball gun, he was relatively trigger happy with the M4A1 loaded with FMJ rounds to the point that Darryl F. Gates would be proud. Quote “Political philosophers have often pointed out that in wartime, the citizen, the male citizen at least, loses one of his most basic rights, his right to life; and this has been true ever since the French Revolution and the invention of conscription, now an almost universally accepted principle. But these same philosophers have rarely noted that the citizen in question simultaneously loses another right, one just as basic and perhaps even more vital for his conception of himself as a civilized human being: the right not to kill.” -Jonathan Littell <<Les Bienveillantes>> Quote "The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete." -Rod Serling
Gorth Posted February 9, 2013 Posted February 9, 2013 Not so much "action" sims, but I miss the glory days of SSI and all their strategy wargames. Microprose were the ones trying their hands at "dumbed down" strategy games with pseudo realtime (Nato Commander, War in the Desert and Conflict in Vietnam). Nice games, but their (Microprose) claim to fame were the early military flight sims. Utterly simplistic by todays standards, but damn, they were advanced for their time. Only "sim" I remember playing at LAN parties would be the original Delta Force. That was before games used 3D accelerators and what have you (what was that thing called, voxels or some such?). “He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” - Albert Einstein
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