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Combat Flight Simulator 2: WWII Pacific Theater
By Jim "Twitch" TittleGraphics
My doubts in the pre-Beta of scenery details have proved groundless. This version has all the palm trees and texture you should expect. But it is not too much so as to overwhelm the flying. All ground positions are evident. And when the detailed Japanese destroyer off Wake Island sends up ack-ack your strafing pass can't be over soon enough. There is a point when there can be too much ground detail and the sim balance shifts to a land war focus. Not so here. But you must decide if it is enough for you.
The aircraft weathering is still tops and the machines look fine at all resolutions. The scenery is spectacular. I think it is refined even more from medium altitudes over reefs and islands. Those shallow aqua areas bordered by lush island greenery will make you start saving for that tropical vacation. I just can't see "modders" making demonstrable changes there.
My machine is very old at 300MhZ with 96MB RAM and a 32MB graphics card and it ran smoothly in all but the highest scenery resolutions. Newer hardware should be great. Super-detailed scenery has never been the highest priority for me and I usually turn it down to keep the distractions at a minimum. But even on low settings the planes' details are excellent.
Island terrain
Sound
I maintain my position in the pre-Beta review: sound is excellent but you get less than 50% of the joy without a feedback cushion or chair. There are so many sounds that are "every sim" lackluster without the "feel." If you get one thing for your combat flight simulation area it must be a sensory feedback device, not just a force feedback joystick, to experience CFS2 as it should be.
The weapon "thwumps" feel superb and each is very distinguishable from another. The 20mm's sound (and feel for me) much more powerful than the machineguns, as they should. Subtle things like flaps and landing gear sounds are non-events until you feel them. The couple of weaker pre-Beta heavy cannon FX all sound correct now.
Betty's stinger damage
The radio chatter still has that feeble WWII era resonance of pre-printed circuits and transistors in sets with huge power ratings. And as a Japanese pilot you get on-screen translations but not on everything. This lends to the immersion. As you fly both sides, you'll get to know what the Japanese are saying as it is similar to the English. And the excited and frightened inflections are also there. This add to the realism in place of that monotone stuff in some other combat flight sims. Without reading the script you'll know whether Nakamura is getting his butt shot off or is happy about a kill.
