Combat Flight Sim 2: Air War in the Pacific.

• Author: Silbergeld, David L. L.
• Position: Brief Article - Evaluation

During World War II, the United States took young men from every walk of life and made combat pilots of them. That's something that this sim will do. You start out as rookie pilot, enter flight training, develop a sharp level of combat skills, become seasoned in challenging individual combat encounters, until you become skilled enough to be an ace, with five enemy kills.

Microsoft's first iteration, Combat Flight Simulator 1 (CFS-1), stepped into air combat in Europe. Now, Microsoft introduces an improved, and--believe it or not--a more challenging sim, Combat Flight Simulator 2 (CFS-2), air combat in the Pacific.

This sim is designed to make you a fighter pilot. It is complemented with inputs from Gen. Joe Foss, Congressional Medal of Honor winner and U.S. ace, and Saburo Sakai, highest-scoring surviving Japanese ace, who helped to shape this sim into a realistic flight experience. You get to meet them both in the sim, via the Pilot's Handbook that tells each of their stories and sets the background for the Pacific air battles that are part and parcel to this sim.

You get to fly both U.S. and Japanese aircraft in more than 120 challenging missions. These include such aircraft as the U.S. Corsair-- Pappy Boyington's favorite, nicknamed the "Ensign Eliminator," or the Japanese A6M2 "Zeke" or A6M5 "Zero." Actually, there are a total of seven different aircraft that you can fly. The others are the P-38 Lightning, F4F-4 Wildcat, F6F-3 Hellcat, and N1K2-J George. Each has virtual cockpits and working gauges.

You can experience exciting carrier takeoffs and landings, while relying on the LSO (Landing Signal Officer) visual signals and your flying skills. If that doesn't test your skills, add realistic cloud cover, haze, rain and turbulence to this exciting sim, as well as high-resolution terrain with outstanding detailed geographic features developed from Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2000 Sim (soon to be covered in this magazine).

CFS-2 is no easy-ride-in-the-sky simulation. You must be always sharp and alert while flying a mission because of the sim's unique artificial intelligence (Al) feature. AI is a self-motivated program that never gives you a break, constantly creates challenging situations and action, and seems to have a single-minded drive--to get you.

Constant awareness, flight skills, navigational decisions, and imminent air-to-air combat will put you in a cold sweat. If that doesn't keep you busy enough, add visual features such as...