Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 2: WW II Pacific Theater

Combat Flight Simulator 2 was released in 2000 by Microsoft and developed by ACES Game Studio. Its engine was based on civilian Flight Simulator franchise - somwhere between MSFS2000 / MSFS2002 versions and interestingly all the global vector data (at least for coastlines and rivers) was included as you can see in the video when I do a round trip around the world map.

There were campaings for both sides - American and Japanese, but only small amount of fighter aircraft were flyable, no dedicated bombers or torpedo planes. At least there were branching missions (according to the information on the back of the game box). Although there were plenty mods available adding more planes, scenarios etc.

The flight modelling was pretty advanced, with complex engine management where you had to control the throttle, prop pitch, mixture, cowl flaps etc. You could also use simplified engine controls if you didn't want to be bothered with all this.

The combat is really enjoyable, and shooting down enemy fighters feels rewarding. Seeing fragile Zero decimated in mid air by your fire, or busting into a huge fireball (no self-sealing tanks!) is highly entertaining.

CFS2 was basically the last western developed flight simulator based on the Pacific Air War. Upcoming Combat Pilot is being develepod by Barbedwire Studio and its subsidiary Entropy.Aero, their site says it will be first western-developed combat flight-simulator in 20+ years (they are based in Sagunto, Valencia, Spain btw).

The game works fine on Windows 10/11, but you will need to use a nocd exe because the original used SafeDisc DRM solution which is no longer supported past Windows Vista.

One more thing - if you wish to use "Hardware Acceleration" I recommend using  DDrawCompat, just drop the dll into the game folder, otherwise you will be limited to software (no texture filtering) 16-bit color modes. Though all the modern resoultions are supported out of the box, but to preserve the 2d cockpit aspect ratio I recommend using 4:3 based resolutions (like 1440x1080 for 1080p) otherwise the 2d art will be stretched.
Here's the github page for DDrawCompat (expand the "► Assets" under the latest version and download the "DDrawCompat-v0.5.1.zip"):
https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompa...

More classic flight sims:
Flight Sim Showcase

0:00 Intro
1:43 Main menu
3:20 Showcasing global map:
4:33 Taiwan
4:38 Japan
4:52 Alaska
4:59 US west coast
5:09 US East coast
5:20 France and GB
5:29 Baltic Sea
5:37 Italy
5:45 Ukraine
6:00 Vietnam
6:27 This is from another mission - Midway
6:37 Campaign cutscene
7:28 Mission briefing
8:05 Mission start
27:37 Carrier landing
28:32 Debriefing

#RetroFlightSims #pacificairwar