| All depends on what you are looking for in a Flight Sim.
Falcon 4.0 (And the thousands of mods that go with it) make the game EXTREAMLY realistic. It does not look as good as some of the newer ones but you can be damn sure the jets are going to act about as real as a civilian flight sim gets.
Janes F-18 is another modern one that is not quite so serious but still has a pretty sharp learning curve if you want to actually kill people in Multiplayer.
If you don’t care so much about the time line, Combat Flight Simulator 3 is a one that I like quite a bit. It has options to make it pretty easy too, but you need a beast of a computer to run it at full graphics and still make it capable of flying well.
As far as hardware goes, also depends on if you are looking at “realism” or “easy to use and understand”.
For realistic hardware I suggest checking out the Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar. Very expensive, but worth it if realism is what you want. (They also make a HUGE line of realistic steering wheels and pedals for racing sims.
The X52 from Saitek is also a pretty expensive HOTAS joystick. Not quite as realistic as the Cougar (digital display and more buttons) and it can also be very confusing to use, but awesome if you like to NEVER touch the keyboard. These do have a tendency to lose some spring in the stick cable so make sure you keep the screw on the bottom pretty loose.
If you do not care about realism and just want a fun joystick, try and track down a Microsoft Sidewinder 2 (the 2 is important). Don’t get the Force Feedback version though because it breaks…A LOT.
I don’t play any racing sims (except for Gran Turismo and Forza Motor-sport on the consoles) so I don’t have any good advice there. |