When's the next great "Red Baron" game going to come out, if ever?

I was just watching "flyboys", a cliche piece of cinema to say the least, but it got me to thinkin...

The last good WWI flight sim I played was Red Baron II, which was one of my favorite games when I was about 10 years old (for those of you keeping track, that was 10 years ago). Even by today's standards I'd say it had pretty good graphics and gameplay. Of course, back then it was the Cadillac of flight sims.

Today, the great folks at Maddox Games have the IL-2 Sturmovik series, of which I have the original and every expansion pack, right up to Pacific Battles. It's definately one of the best games I've ever played and the best flight sim. I really wish they'd put out a WWI version. With Maddox' attention to lesser-known theatres (you can fly for Finland in one of the expansion packs), I think it would be great if they would make a WWI sim on the IL-2 model, but I hope they would use the expansion packs to go beyond the Western Front and into the Eastern, Italian, Greek and Galippoli fronts. Having some kind of campaign that goes from Imperial Russia's misadventure to letting you choose a side in the Russian Civil War would probably be asking too much, but hey, I can dream can't I?

Back to reality, is there a WWI flight sim on the horizon I haven't heard about. I'm really jonesing for some biplane action right about now, and *not* because of that inaccurate movie that was just one cliche after the other.

one of the greatest games ever. I think there is an IL-2 WWI mod in the pipeline. If not an official expansion then a community production.

Unfortunately aviation in the russian civil war never had the mass battles that happened over the western front. Raymond Collishaw, a Canadian pilot for the RAF, did add one kill to his tally after the war. The sheer size of Russia meant that air-forces were very useful but also meant there were rarely opportunities for two pilots to engage each other in air-to-air combat.

back in the day. Never really got into RBII though. I don't think I had the hardware required to run it at the time. What I'm really looking forward to, someday, is a new A-10 sim. The original "A-10 Tank Killer" from Dynamix was the bomb. I could also go for some "Aces Over the Pacific" or "Aces Over Europe" sequels. Flight sims just don't have the same following, in these 3-second learning curve days, that they once did so I'm not holding my breath.

Jay

But make sure you get the expansion packs. There's probably a "Gold Edition" out there that sells all of them as a bundle. You'd get the Forgotten Battles expansion with campaigns for the Finnish, Romanian, Hungarian and Slovak air forces, the Ace Expansion Pack with additional aircraft (both flyable and nonflyable) and the Pacific Battles pack with lots of Pacific theatre action with the Japanes, US, Austrailian and British forces. All of these have come out since 2002. Get them, you won't be disappointed.

I did play EAW, a WWII combat flight sim, beautiful graphics and excellent effects but it didn't have the romance of RBII.

I did condsider MiG Alley because of the pioneering spirit of the early jet fighter pilots but again it wasn't open cockpits and creaky crates.

Although only the I-153 and the Gladiator are flyable. So, there's something for you there maybe.

I would like to see that, a friend of mine has been raving about Sturmovik for years but although it looked very pretty it was a little too high-tech for me.

It's called "Knights of the Sky". You can read about it here: http://www.gennadich.com/id/69/. As for "IL-2", they've recently released the final expansion. It's called "1946". It's kind of a "Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe" for the Russians. It is an all inclusive release: everything from "Forgotten Battles" through "IL-10s Over Manchuria" on a single DVD. With well over 200 flyable aircraft from the Fiat CR 42 to the Me 262, there's something for every flight sim enthusiast.

I'll check out both of them.