In my grubby little hands and getting loaded in about 5 mins. Muhahahahah...




TX-BlackKnight
Black2

 

Slap a review up here when you have a chance, I'm interested, skeptical, and excited all at the same time.   If the flight model is comparable to IL2, I will have to go grab a copy for sure.Thanks,TX-Deck out.

I just called GameStop and they're holding a copy for me.  They're supposed to get the FedEx this morning.... Regards,TX-Rahman"BLUE 3"

I will be going to pick up myself a copy sometime today/tonight as well.Man can shopping really wear you out.  Been doing Car, Baby, Furniture, and Christmas shopping all week.Finally finished fighting the insurance company about our corolla being totalled, while parked at my wife's office.  Now I am fighting Federal Express for the package that was overnighted on Tuesday.  Here it is Friday, and once again they say tomorrow it will arrive.  Hope they don't screw up the game shipments like they have my important one.S~TX-CageBlack 5

Come on, you've had it now for over 5 hrs and no review!....I can't take much more of this.Ahhh,TX-Chuckar out

I am a huge nerd. I have my preordered copy of CFS 3. I might never get laid again. If only I could install it here at work. Flying by keyboard wouldn't be fun. Anyway, I took the flight stick home. When last I played CFS 2 it had lousy arcade flight models, silly cartoon interludes, and an inflated damage zone. I could shoot down planes from half a click out.  Will it hold true to the axiom that quality decreases as quantity increases? I'll have to try it for at least a week to give it a fair review. If it stinks, Forgotten Battles is out in a month.Regards,TX-KingsnakeWhite 1

It is definately based on the first two, cfs1 and cfs2. The Uber planes will be the Spitfires. The German Planes are dogs. I have graphics turned up to 1280 X1024 and it looks sharp as hell. The crashes are a little hokey, but the bail outs look a lot more realistic than IL-2. I think it's worth the bucks ( comes with a $10 rebate if you have cfs1 or cfs2 or Flight Sim ). Takes more hits to bring down planes than IL-2 and the bullets definately have to be led.In a nutshell..so far I like it. 100 times more locations to fly at than IL-2. In quick combat after you kill alll the bad guys more come up, not like IL-2 when you kill them the mission is over. Ground scenery MUCH better than IL-2. Planes ? can't really tell yet..all the ones I get close to have flames comming from my guns...lolTX-BlackKnightBlack 2ps. 1.47 GB of space is needed for it..compared to 635 MB for IL-2

Lmao... if you were to record the convesation I just had with Game-Stop....Deck "yes, I called earlier today and spoke with Rachael about reserving a copy of CFS3, has it come in yet?"Salesman " oh yeah, we got em in here a little while ago"Deck " outstanding, well could you pull back one for me just in case Rachael forgot to?"Salesman " what, you mean put your name on one?"Deck "why yes, what else?"silence........Deck "they are not exactly selling like hotcakes, are they?"Salesperson "ummm, no....   and we have plenty."Deck " ah, ok.   I'll see you in a while, thanks"Salesperson " ok, thank you"Not exactly Neverwinter Nights or Battlefield 1942, is it?  Regardless, I'm gonna go pick up a copy... if it blows my father-in-law is a big CFS fan, I'll give it to him.TX-Deck out.

I have discovered a bunch of bugs in it. Not cool. And I loaded it on my daughters setup with the Geforce3 ti-500..doesn't look or play near as well as on my machine. Not cool. Played a lot on-line today in the bombers at gun positions. The shots don't line up with the sights after a while. Not cool. Major lag in any game with less than a great connection. Oh well.....TX-BlackKnightBlack 2

If you like flat diorama skies, fire that looks like jello, bottom rudder for 1/8 second of knife edge, yank and bank with no spins and few stalls, super lag in big dogfights, a boat load of bugs. . . its a hot number!!I feel like sending a few copies of IL-2 to Microsoft, show them whats up. . . a cool little dude in Russia ate them for dinner. . . on at least two consecutive releases!if Oleg could add more to the campaign stuff (not that I have EVER flown any offline missions) and fix that dadgum (he he) dihedral modeling, this sim and the upcoming Forgotten Battles would be absofriggin'lutely unfriggin'touchable.  I had to try CFS3 anyway, as I really am hurting to fly some american steel (well. . . it sounds better than aluminum)  and at least the P-51 I flew was a nice version, the P-47 was a looker too. . . . But the Flight models were straight out of FS2002, and in some respects I wonder if CFS2 wasnt better in the FM department. . .seems that every new MS offering screws up pitch modelling even more. I gotta say though, its nice to  have to hold opposite aileron in the turns. . . .For those with the high end machines (dont belive that crap about system specs that micosoft puts on the box, they were saying a 486 all you needed to run FS98)  who enjoy the offline play, this one has potential, and the graphics aren't bad (the machine I used it on has a radeon 9700) but there still isnt any depth to the sky, and the ground looks comic booky to me. but I'll probably buy it anyway. .  .. . Sorry for the ranting. . . S! TX-Emuerr. . . . .EcoDragon

Just played the game with video set to 1600X1200. Wow ! What a difference!Played over London and I have to say that the graphics kick butt over ANYTHING in IL-2. Maybe this game is only good on high end machines.. I don't know, but I'll put any screen shot from CFS3 up against any from IL-2 any day of the week. The planes and the cockpits look amazing at this resolution and I was still getting 70 fps most of the time. true, there are a bunch of bugs in CFS3 and I hope that they are fixed but how many "updates " has IL-2 gone thru to get where it is now ?..and we still know that there are bugs in it we'd like fixed. If someone is biased against MS then no matter what they do it will never be enough. I admit that I am slightly biased against them for all the cheats in their games but so far I am enjoying the hell out of CFS3. With the game set to 100 percent I still manage to stall or damage my flaps. If I crash into someone or they into me..we BOTH are dead. Every time.I hope that people really give it a fair shot. This game has some serious potential. The German planes are far less maneverable than any other plane is the game..so when I blast someone out of the sky in my 109-10 it is just that much more sweeter.For the record...the first time that I played IL-2 I thought it was the most suck ass game I ever played. But I gave it a shot and well,......Now, I'm just burnt out on it and tired of all the BS that I have to put up with in the game..shooting the crap out of people and it does nothing...chasing around all the planes that are "lag " zipping across the screen, chasing someone and having them shooting me ( my all time favorite ), and chasing Yaks that could only be caught with an F14.Plus, one thing that disturbs me is when I first joined TX we were tight. Training, everyone was there. Now if we get 4 people on-line at the same time it's time to mark that date down on the calender . It seems others are getting burnt out on it too.TX-BlackKnightBlack 2

I have no particular bias either way, I look first at the flight physics, then graphics. . . for me the nice selection of add on aircraft is only of limited interest anymore, as they all have the same flight physics hiding in there and they aren't to MY style, I like the "3D" maneuvers, the stalls and spins, knife edge, the hammerheads etc. that IL-2 provides. It would be really awesome if the MS FM had that ability, as it would be oh so cool to have more US aircraft to fly, and the ability to fly in a limitless world, not to mention to fly against SO MANY people over there at the Zone. . .but the current MS FM isnt there yet, and strangelly the FM in FS98 was the most realistic that MS has had, since then its been funkified.   I have heard of one aftermarket addon Citabria (aerobatic trainer) for FS2002 that is advertising as having a realistic stall spin profile. . .but I haven't flown it yet, and its @30.00 just to get the dowload key. . . point is, that aftermarket designers like the VB and 1% crew may be able to work the physics some more. . .so I will wait and see.Getting burnt out?? bummer. . well, a change of scenery may be in order, I for one really dig this sim, sometimes I am shocked that I still trip out on it. . .it has seemed like lately the energy has changed with the general rooms, I hope that the things that have been erking you stop, as you are a great dude to fly with here.S!EcoDragon

Tonight I actually did a total reinstall of XP, and a fresh install of IL-2 to see if I could find out why my game is lagging so much lately. Neither fixed the problems. I got rid of DirectX9 and went with 8.2 from the cfs3 disk. No difference. I turned off all sound. No difference. I am at a total lack of explanation as to why I can be in a game of IL-2 and everyone has pings of under 100 and this "lag" crap is still going on. I think that narrowed it down to the obvious, but I could still hope.Went into another squads game under an alias and used a nifty little program I have called IP Tools so I could actaually look at each connection and each port. Was amazed to see that when I was on certain peoples tails and I could not seem to get a hit on them that the port for them went from "active connection " to " time_wait"..which means the connection was there but for what ever reason stopped exchanging data packets. I deleberately let them get around to my 6 and watched the connection go to "active" again. Isn't that just an amazing coincidence? Hope the next football game I bet on has odds like that.Only problem with running IP tools is it lets you have a frame rate of 12 while its running in the background. Could the IP tools program actually be causing the seen "lag " Yes, but could the sun also technically be not putting out light but sucking in darkness ? You get my point.If it ever gets down to the point that someone has to run one of these programs at all times to insure an honest game then what's the point ?My point is we all know what's going on out there..even in our own server but choose to look the other way or gaff it off. It's just getting harder and harder for me to look the other way, turn the other cheek, or gaff it off.Where did I get the idea to use this program? Hyperlobby. They also said that by pressing the "printscreen " it temp puts you into a "suspended" mode while windows sends the data saved to the clipboard. I asked the gentleman that told me about these "manipulations " ( we both called them that because we KNOW that no one in the IL-2 community would stoop to such an awful thing as cheating. That kind of thing is only done in MS games )Sure hope since this information is being spread around so freely that Oleg and comapany have taken note and will address in next update. One thing I have to give credit to IL-2 makers is for fixing bugs ( as much as feasable ) in the game. That is something that MS would never do. If you ever get a chance to read the tucker hatfield interview ( cfs3 ) look at question asker number 12 and see why cheating is a sore subject for me.TX-BlackKnightBlack 2

BK,          Just fyi man... I'm not burnt out on the game or the squadron.  I haven't been around for a number of reasons.  The main one is I built a new box and have been working out the bugs with it.  Using XP and XP doesn't support my rudders like 98 did....  plus, just bought a new place and am still painting etc....  Plus just got engaged...spending alot of time working on arrangements for the wedding etc....            So....I can safely say I'm not burnt out on the game or this great bunch of guys we call a squadron.  (To which I had the pleasure of meeting Tornado, Razor, CUDA, Cuda Jr., Cage & wife yesterday!!!)  Hang in there bud...I for one will be back online more in the very near future. Salute,TX-RahmanThe NEW BLUE2

Just a couple of thoughts on CFS3...I bought it on Friday of last week, played for 20 minutes, then put it back in the box and returned it for a credit on Saturday night.  I simply wasn't impressed.I'll be the first to admit that 20 minutes isn't enough time to judge any software product, let alone something as hyped as CFS3.  I had a couple of other reasons besides the CFS3 package...First...  my time just like everyone else's is fairly limited.  I let the sloth mode kick in and I really didn't feel like troubleshooting and tweaking the game to my liking.  Yes, I was just plain lazy on this part.Second...  IL2 only has a couple of aspects which make me grit my teeth, the online lag spurts, and the overmodeled Russian aircraft.   Both of these I have learned to deal with and really don't bother me that much anymore.  I'm not upset with IL2 and realized that the current product is still hard to beat, even with some of the lesser appealing qualities.Third...  While we haven't seen the growth in the squadron like we saw back in July and August, I felt that moving to another online sim just wasn't the right thing to do right now.  I'm still gung-ho about building our squad and the relationships within.   Until the decision to move to CFS3 is a majority, then I'm fine with hanging out in the good ole TX-OC3 server for the time being.  After meeting with the guys this weekend at the airshow, my interest is severely renewed and I can't wait to get back online tonight and fly.I've already decided to take the credit I got on CFS3 and slap it towards my copy of FB, whenever that comes out.  The credit doesn't expire, so I will give Oleg all the time he needs to work out the details and improve upon IL2.Just some food for thought,TX-Deck out.P.S.    Blacknight,  I need my wingman!!!  Come back soon!!!!!

I'm not in NO WAY suggesting that TX squad move into another flight sim. I'm just a little peeved at the total take over of the Message boards by the Blitz hogs and the over the top thrashing that they are giving CFS3. I'd be willing to lay out hard earned cash to bet that 99.9999999% of those that are thrashing the gameso vocally never even tried it but are jumping on the bandwagon with their buds. I also bet the ones that have actually tried it never took the game out of the default modes to see what happens with graphics turned up, the weather turned ON, or the game set at 100 percent. With the game set at default ( as it was after an install ) the game clouds lack depth ( agree with Eco ) but go into locations and set them to anything other than default ( ie..turn them ON ) and they are far better than IL-2. You can actually see the rain falling down from the thunderheads and the thunder sounds are awesome.Except for the cheating, IL-2 is still a killer game/sim. M$ tilted their game away from the germans just like Ubi did. Only MS didn't do it so blatantly.The German pilots have to rely on skill more than their aircraft. Probably with the release of FB a lot of " bugs" in the game will be addressed. Which we know is a good thing. Understandably people have a life beyond IL-2. If they don't, they need some serious therapy time. I just hope that maybe one day a week or, every two weeks, we can get together in force and fly as a squad again.The cheating is always going to piss me off but from now on when I fly IL-2 I'm just going to expect it and make sure that I take two of my pain pills before ever launching the game again. I also made sure that I made 5 back-up copies of the game and hid 2 in my kids room...for those times when the meds wear off and Mr Hammer and Mr. Ubi disk meet.....P.S. Angels Win the World Series....probably selling hot chocolate in hell right now.Glad a bunch of you got to meet face to face and actually put faces to the voices we hear on GV( except for seeing CUDA, I bet it was a positive experience !  :) ). I bet you guys had a blast !TX-BlackKnightBlack 2

I hear ya BlackKnight, and need to drop off an apology of sorts.   I was not trying to suggest that you were driving everyone away from IL2.   My original thoughts before I bought CFS3 is if it were a good enough sim that everyone would probaly migrate that way soon in a natural way.I'll be the first to admit that IL2 is not the only game I play.   Since the inception of the IL2 squad earlier this year, I've probably touched on 4 or 5 different titles on the side.   Some games I completed, others I didn't.   MECHWARRIOR 4 was a hoot, played it just to give the Cougar Hotas a change of scenery  (btw, the rudders, throttle and stick ROCKED for MW style of game)MEDAL OF HONOR is currently in progress.   Fairly good game, nice AI, but less than adequate graphics.NEVERWINTER NIGHTS has been saved on the hard drive for months.  With 100 hours or more hours of single player campaign available, I'll probably never finish it.  (I've put in about 25 hours so far)CIVILIZATION II.   What more can I say?   first thing I do when I rebuild a machine and load any microsoft OS is delete sol.exe and replace it with civ.exe.   Classic top-down strat if there ever was one.As far as online gameplay goes.... solely IL2.  Even with all the online cheats, hacks, and drama, I can't seem to lose interest in the game nor the squad.  I'm not to the point of therapy yet, but if I ever get there I don't have to travel far for help.  Lucky for me the misses has an MD in psychology!Deck:  "Honey, can I go to happy hour this afternoon with the guys from work?"The Wife:  "You don't need to go to happy hour this afternoon with the guys from work."Deck:  "I don't need to go to happy hour this afternoon with the guys from work."The Wife:  "Move along..."Deck:  "Move along!"TX-Deck out.

"Except for seeing Cuda.I'll bet that was a positive experience! ;))".....what in the world you mean by that?!!....I wan't wearing my Motorhead T-shirt and was fairly  low key!.....LOL....Rocky...TX-CUDA on UBIhemicudatex on HyperLobby

Tornado here, it WAS a blast bro, things is , yall were missing ! So here it is, i dont think any of us fit the bill "Wealthy" , but im in favor of kicking in several dollars for the next time to make sure you west coast "yanks" can join us! New yrs. Party @ Zen's ??? lmao S~ All.P.S. This is a Great group of people all the way around, glad im involved !TX-TornadoBlue 3

Well, I'm laughing my butt off at those that thrashed CFS3 over in the ubi forums that a) never bought the game and now are admitting it AFTER thrashing it so vocally or b) also never changed any of the settings in it. I'd have to say that 50 percent of those that were really ripping it to shreds now admitted to never even playing or owning it....... and at least half of them now are saying they love it. LMMFAO !Got to love the IL-2 fans.........TX-BlackKnightBlack2

Personally I have no plans to buy cfs3, in part because of some of the reviews here and mostly because I enjoy IL2 for the quality of the FM. Let me say that I am not into flight sims in general. I prefer some types of first person shooters and am mostly into turn based strategy games. IL2 for me was really on a suggestion from a friend and was put into effect after Deck and Rahman and I had a discussion about what kind of games we wanted to try out. After getting the game and playing it, I was impressed enough to keep on playing it. As Deck and Rah know, I bitched endlessly about the performance of the aircraft because I felt there was a clear russian bias in there. I have spent the last 22 years studying all manner of warfare, and WW2 fighters was one of my favorite subjects. The two of the them kept me from becoming too extreme with my ranting and raving and are primarily the reason I continued to play. For me, IL2 is probably it. I will be interested in Lock On since I have a bit of hankering for jet fighter combat, but another WW2 flight sim is really not in my picture right now. I spend enough time (perhaps too much even) on IL2, adding another game is not going to help that. When TX was formed, I had some ideas that I wanted to put into effect because I felt that the game mechanics in IL2 were realistic enough to attempt real tactics. We formed TX and recruited our first group of members. The comradierie then was what (and still does) make TX for me. We were out there doing some pretty cool stuff as a team, learning the game together and making a decent impression on the lobby.We went through a low period for a bit when mainly Cuda was the only one flying for a variety of reasons, and TX might have been perceived as being on its way out. Hardly so, but real life can and does interfere with gaming. After that low spot, a new TX was born with a more focused group of members which has led us directly here today. In recent weeks we have seen somewhat of a drop off in participation again. Many of the people who used to fly on a regular basis now do not, but the core of TX is still there. TX, like any online squadron, is dynamic and will have its ups and downs. It's a cycle just like everything else in life. The key I think is to understand the cycle and know that sometimes we will be red hot and other times we will be lukewarm. Does having fewer people online right now mean we are on our way out or that we have lost what we had? I think not. It simply means that things are changing again. Already I see we are picking up speed. The airshow gave a lot of us a boost, Kingsnakes script has done us a world of good and we will have FB coming soon also. Training has suffered primarily due to my lack of participation (for which I take all the blame) but after realizing that I wasn't able to stay committed to it as I had in the past, I decided to designate someone else to do the training which I think will help restore the sense of discipline we had before. In short, I have seen the slumps in our squadron before and the most recent one is relatively short lived. In any other game I have played a long slump is usually the end of it, but in TX, we keep coming back. I do not expect that we will be able to sustain playing IL2 for years and years, but hopefully between new improvements from the designers and our own igenuity, we can take it for a long ride, as we already have. It's been over 6 months now that we have been doing what we have, and many of the things we have done are ones that no one else has. We continue to set standards for UBI in the way we run our server, the tactics and teamwork we demonstrate, the innovations that we come up with and the way we handle ourselves in a crisis. Keep those things in mind, we have quite a bit to be proud of. The next month should bring a renewed sense of purpose to TX with FB coming out, Training nights being put back into effect and possibly some new recruits. How long will it last I do not know. It doesn't even matter to me, we have done some very cool things which I will see as the standard for online gaming for many years to come. To me I have achieved what I set out to do with TX and I owe it to each of you, current and former members included. My time with TX has been fantastic and I look forward to many more months although at a somewhat reduced level due to personal commitments. Just my thoughts on the subject of cfs3 and getting burned out. TX-Zen"Black 6"TX Squadron CO

Roger that Zen!Personally I think the forums are on fire right now, and it seems the interest level is on the upswing again.  Lets keep up the good work.Here are a few things I'm focusing on at the moment... and I'll be darned if I'm not going to wrap them up soon.1.  Update member skins, insure everyone has the most current version of the more popular planes2.  Posting all the interesting pics I got from the airshow this weekend3.  Gamevoice SOP.  I've spent alot of time thinking about this and it turns out to be quite a nice little puzzle of logic.   Multiple channels and different aspects of each pilot designate the need for set channel assignments according to your role in the squadron.  (More on this later)4.  File distribution and document control.  I've been thinking about how to effectively distribute files such as skins, maps, cougar hotas configs, etc....5.  Ladder play or squad vs. squad competition.  If we can't find a ladder to play on, we'll start our own UBI round robin league or something.  When I played TFC we participated in the "Friday Night Fights" and it was a blast.  All this training is great, but I think it is time for us to put it to use.TX-Deck out.