Anti-aircraft fire blankets you. Blast debris hurls toward your propeller. And you wonder why you didn't join the navy. This ain't no free-flight, cloud-gunner, glory ride. This is ground assault: the real, gritty combat that can make or break a battle, and take your life in one massive explosion. Bombs shatter enemy airfields, trains, and tank columns as you streak across the European countryside in WWII's greatest planes, dodging small-arms fire, gripping your joystick with sweaty palms and white knuckles, pumped with adrenaline-living history.

As a U.S. Army Air Force, Royal Air Force, or Luftwaffe pilot in Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator 3 you fly in the historical framework of the tactical air war in northwest Europe starting in mid-1943, but there's a significant difference. The skill and perseverance you and your squadron or Staffel bring to each battle can alter the tactical situation and the timeline of the campaign. This open-ended and flexible campaign means you can influence events, alter history, and extend the timeline to add new technology to your arsenal. How you handle these tactical and technological advantages will determine the outcome.

In Combat Flight Simulator 3, it's 1943, and no one knows what's going to happen.

New features include:

• Enhanced campaign play sends you on involved tactical missions in a campaign where success or failure can move the frontline, influence the quality of equipment available, and even change the outcome of the war
• New collection of 18 aircraft featuring bombers with crews (fly medium bombers and take control of the bombardier or gunner position), stunning 3-D cockpit detail, accurate performance and damage modeling, medium bomber operations, WWII state-of-the-art aircraft (including the first jet fighters)
• Custom graphics engine powers super-high detail ground-attack targets and improved scenery with enhanced 3-D modeling and texturing
• Cooperative multiplayer missions and free-for-all dogfights via the Internet and LAN
• Reactive world: areas of the campaign world will trigger events, spawn aircraft, generate flak, etc. in response to your presence
• Role playing elements: pilots have qualities like Bombing Skill, Vision, and Health
• Strategy: you make decisions that influence how the war is fought, where to put the pressure on the enemy, and what aircraft improvements are crucial to the war effort

Choose to fly for the U.S., England, or the German Luftwaffe in 34 different and unique aircraft

You'll battle against tough AI-controlled opponents in the European Theatre Of Operations, or form squadrons with friends and go on cooperative missions

Switch positions between pilot, gunner or bombardier -- or fly in experimental jets that barely made it into combat

Reactive game world reponds to your presence -- trigger new events, unlock aircraft, and much more

Fantastic graphic displays with enhanced 3D modeling and textures, with realistic cloud and weather modeling make you feel like you're really 600 ft. in the air

Average Customer Review: ( 182 customer reviews )
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Unfortunately, this is not Microsoft's first shot and those of us who have loyally followed their series of flight sims, both combat and civilian, expect a certain progression with each new release. I, myself, was extremely pleased with said progression in both FS2002 and CFS2. Both games, I felt, learned from the mistakes of their predecessors, but at the same time, remained faithful to the series. And both greatly enhanced the look and feel of flight simming while not expecting too much from the machines they ran on. This is where CFS3 fails in my eyes.

So here are my major beefs.

Graphics: Where did they dream up this graphics engine? It looks and feels more like a first-person shooter than a flight sim. Is this really CFS3 or am I playing Counterstrike on a very wacky map? Sure it has nice clouds, but this game just does not have the visual cohesiveness of FS2002 nor CFS2. The virtual cockpits just don't look as good as in CFS2. The ground objects are also out of proportion to the aircraft. Do a little low-level strafing and things just don't look right.

Performance: My biggest gripe. If this new graphics engine was supposed to provide better performance by utilizing the video card more, they blew it. I have a P4 1.9ghz, 512mb rambus, with a TI4600 128mb Geforce4 and, with NO programs running in the background, the game stutters - especially when firing the guns. UNACCEPTABLE. The game just doesn't look good enough to justify such a drop in performance.

Damage models: These were supposed to be greatly improved. If so, I don't see it. Every plane I have shot down follows the same annoying pattern: pour tons of rounds into any part you like and eventually the whole plane blows up. No pieces of wings falling off, no tails detaching, no engines blowing, just one big boom. Would someone please go back to 1998 and look at the damage models in Activision's Fighter Sqadron? They did it right.

AI: I am getting so sick of computer pilots that have the uncanny ability - even as novices - to maintain control and maneuverability of their aircraft when you have damaged them, when one little hit on your alieron from their guns renders your aircraft unflyable.

Selection of aircraft: It was very thoughtful of Microsoft to include some oddball prototypical aircraft in their selection, but why oh why, at the expense of planes like the B17, Do17, He111, Ju87, and ME110? This is Europe, right? Oh, and thanks for the lack of compatibility with CFS2 aircraft.

Yes, all my griping makes the game sound a lot worse than it actually is, but with all the used copies of CFS3 I've seen on auction sites and the number of bad reviews it's gotten from other users like myself, I think it's obvious that Microsoft has made a boo-boo or two on this one. Let's pray they don't use this graphics engine on FS2004.

81 of 87 found the following review helpful:

Poor quality, not very rewarding !Dec 11, 2002
By joby
I agree with most other reviews. My machine is a new P4 2Ghz and a new GeForce4 Ti4200. This is the min hardware I would recommend using for this hog of a sim. Was also surprised that I had to update my video drivers just to get it to load. Gameplay: Make no mistake, there is alot of flight simming here. You can take off and land to/from your bases, and the flying, especially through the gorgeous clouds, is realistic. But this game lacks "rewards" for the campaign work that you will do, and I find that the quality control (many typos etc in the online manuals) is poor. Also, there is not enough detail about how campaigns work and the map detail isn't explained properly. I would not recommmend this. Even for a hardcore flight simmer like myself, when I enter a combat sim I want medals and advancement, etc. I am finding the campaign mode to be boring with little to no feedback on mission results. Its just not here. Microsoft has angered alot of folks with this release, and they seem to repeat these mistakes (remember when Flight Simulator 2000 was released? Everyone was so mad because the sim would not run unless you had state of the art hardware). Pass on this one UNLESS you have a P4, newer 3D video card and realistic expectations.

23 of 24 found the following review helpful:

Believe the bad news!Dec 28, 2002
By Robert L Turner
I'm glad I read these reviews after I bought the game! My machine is an AMD XP 2200+ 1.8 ghz with a 266fsb, 768mb pc2100 ram, GeForce4 MX 4200 64mb video card (ie top of the line system in the top 10%). However, yes I am having the same problems as everybody else. The game randomly causes my machine to crash (winXP) anytime the sliders are above 2 for the graphics quality. Besides this VERY annoying fact is that the gameplay itself is very unsatisfying. The quick combat is entertaining to jump in and go at it with several germans, but the campaign is depressing. I get very little feedback on what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong, it just seems that no matter what I attack (factories, fighters, bombers) the war goes against me. Microsoft's promised online support simply isn't there yet. Oh and u fans of jet flight simulators? be forewarned. Your sweet P-51 mustang is going to act like an A-6 in a CAT III config. (ie like a pig). The fact is that I actually have to say that it is to realistic. The planes of this day were so underpowered that stalling is always a problem. U get one pass, from 20000 feet diving down against your opponent, assuming u haven't ripped off your wings by overspeed, your turn around will rob u of all your speed and u wind up in very quick and hard vertical dogfight. Good luck. Horrible system requirements (you need probably a P4 2.6 ghz with 1 gb of ram and a 128 video card), confusing gameplay, and an all around unrewarding experience.

25 of 27 found the following review helpful:

What happened?Mar 15, 2004
By Art Vandelay
Utterly disappointing... And this from a chap who gave Microsoft's FS 2004, FS 2002 and Combat Flight Sim 2 - 5 stars respectively. The box notes claim that "Combat Flight Sim 3 was built using an entirely new graphics engine", if this is truly the case (and there's no reason for me to dismiss this statement as a bold faced lie) then my next burning question would be... "For the love of God, why?!" Although I love to fly (simulated that is) I have to admit I am first and foremost a graphics geek, so my eyes tend to bend that way immediately and on first inspection of CFS 3 I was struck by the lack of "pop" CFS 3 offers visually, sure the aircraft skins are top notch, but beyond that the textures are flat, the sky looks as if someone simply scattered a handful of cottons balls over a blue field, the menus look like something pulled off the shelves way back in the mid 90's (remember those days) matter of fact CFS 1 was a stellar achievement compared to the milk toast drabness of Microsoft's latest "combat" outing. And oh yes did I mention the panels, cockpits and pathetic gunner views of the fighters and bombers are so dated visually that I thought at first glance my graphics settings were on low? NOTE ON MY SPECS (for reference): Compaq Presario 8000T, Pentium 4 - 3.20E GHz processor, Windows XP Home Edition, 1 GB DDR / PC3200 Ram, 160GB 7200 rpm Seagate Barracuda hard drive, 16X max. DVD-ROM Drive, 256MB DDR ATI Radeon 9600 (Direct X 9), Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (needless to say I had the offender in question maxed out!). The poor visuals inside these buckets of bolts only compound an even greater problem... playability or flyability (are those real words?). The heads-up targeting display is arranged at such an awkward angle that training your sights on the enemy is like navigating a high-wire on the tip of your tong, you can't see where you're going and trying to think ahead of your enemy's AI is near impossible because you can't see him and the oldest trick in the book of leading your target simply doesn't apply here because your forced to blindly spray a line of bullets somewhere into space in a direction you think or hope your quarry might be headed! I could go on and on but I simply don't have the mental strength or enough negative adjectives to describe the horror that is found inside such a pretty box. Hopes were high, then crushed by nothing short of an amateur offering by an industry giant. It makes me wonder, does the design team responsible for this flagrant act of shoddy craftsmanship still have jobs at Microsoft and if so are they wearing gray uniforms and carrying buckets and mops? Microsoft should be nothing short of embarrassed by CFS 3, it's a tremendous set back for the true innovator of flight sim technology. Look out Microsoft UbiSoft's on your six with IL2: Forgotten Battles (which looks better, runs better and feels better), they've got four gold stars stenciled neatly on their fuselage and they're looking to make that five.

14 of 14 found the following review helpful:

Should be called Combat Freight Train Simulator 3Mar 09, 2006
By Brian "Brian"
I'm sorry, but the CFS3 flight modeling is really bad. I don't mean hard to learn, I mean just bad. Using what they call realistic settings makes flying an excercise in frustration. I still remember my fisrt campeign mission as a bomber pilot, take off in rain at night. No lights, nothing, you can't even see a taxi-way, let alone a runway. I made it off the ground somehow, eventually the sun came up. I got close to target, I'm supposed to launch a torpedo from a B26 into an enemy ship. As you can imagine, that is pretty close to impossible to pull off, especially with the way everything is modeled.

On a simple bomber intercept mission, I unloaded all of my ammunition into an enemy bomber at 500 yards or less and nothing happened. I mean nothing, no apparent damage. I'm sure I missed with 50% of the shots, but hit with more than enough to saw off a wing and kill all of the crew to boot!

Flying a fighter of any kind at any speed/altitude feels like flying a 747. If you enter a dive, your lack of manuverability means that you will probably pick up so much speed that you will create a new crater in the countryside. Roll response is not all that bad, but pitch is under modeled on almost all of the planes. There may have been some deliberateness to this because dogfights feel more like gun camera footage than a simulator like IL2. In other words they may have tried to give an authentic feel by dampening manuvers to the point that things happen in a slower motion that other simulators. I don't think this is a terrible idea, but they didn't get it quite right and with the gun damage being so under-modeled you will be frustrated with dog fights and intercept missions.

Air to ground is a little better, although the sluggish controls make pulling out of a strafing run a little too exciting. It also seems like strafing is a little too easy, a quick burst of bullets will obliterate an entire supply depot and end the mission. When I say quick burst, I mean just tap the trigger!

Overall, I think they could have done a much better job with this game. I like the idea of the big campaign, but it just doesn't quite come together and isn't worth the time. This game requires more patience than I'm willing to give it.

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