Anonymous says:

Combat flight simulations for personal computers have been around for more than 25 years and have evolved in a multitude of ways. Some flight sims became arcade games in order to appeal to large segments of gamers (i.e. Ace Combat for Playstation 1 and 2). Others remained hard core to their roots (i.e. Falcon series) requiring players to read a 500+ page manual in order to master both flying and combat. Somewhere along this multi pronged pathway, on-line gaming developed from simple head to head modem encounters to small scale on-line battles… J.W. “Wild Bill” Stealey, who founded MicroProse with Sid Meier in the early 1980s, had a vision of massive aerial battles taking place over the Internet. Nothing like that has been done to date and Mr. Stealey, a retired USAF pilot, decided to form a new video game company with that vision in mind. iEntertainment Network was born in 1995 and its focus became creating large on-line air wars. Over the past 11 years, Mr. Stealey’s game development team unleashed numerous blockbuster titles under the TotalSims banner covering both World War I and II. One of the top titles in the series is WarBirds 2006, which after more than 10 years of continuous expansion is a great success story in materializing Mr. Stealey’s vision of large-scale on-line aerial combat.

A few days ago I had the honor of joining Mr. Stealey a.k.a. Wild Bill for a test flight of his latest combat flight sim: Flyboys Squadron. This game was developed specifically for the MGM Motion Picture, FlyBoys and as such will be available with the film’s DVD albeit in the demo form. Flyboys Squadron is a World War I flight sim that covers a range of aircraft that were dominant between 1914 and 1918 on both sides of the conflict. These fragile machines have been recreated with painstaking detail in the game. At the same time Wild Bill’s programmers made sure that the flight model is as realistic to the old birds as possible. Flyboys Squadron was built on the solid graphics engine behind WarBirds 2006 and as such offers performance balanced visuals and superb network code, which result in smooth and fun battles. Aside from the multiplayer aspect, the game offers an in-depth single player campaign. The Single Player missions tend to be a very good training course for the true challenge: going mano a mano against human opponents across the globe. FlyBoys Squadron starts with basic gunnery, teaches the player how to solo and survive in combat, and then sends the player out to take on the Baron or to defend Paris from the enemy Zeppelin bombing attacks! FlyBoys Squadron players also get three Easter eggs located on the main screen of FlyBoys, which allow players to choose aircraft from 1915 to 2006, from Sopwith Camels to the modern Predator UAV, geographical terrains from Flanders to Randolph Air Force Base, Texas to make their own missions and single player games. If the player can survive the 12 exciting and multilevel (from novice to ace) difficulty missions, then he should go online against real players!

Flyboys Squadron is part of the TotalSims on-line subscription service which for a bargain price of $13.95 per month offers three Total Sims games. The first month is free and players should take advantage challenging human players to see how good they are. Another good move after joining the TotalSims on-line subscription service is to find an Online Squadron to be a part of when you are on-line. It is a good way to stay alive as I found flying with the =4th= Fighter Group on-line! TotalSims membership offers two more battle tested combat games including the previously mentioned WarBirds 2006, which is a World War II flight sim, and Armored Assault, which is a World War II tank sim. Another great feature of the TotalSims series is that it is continuously updated. By the time most new FlyBoys Squadron pilots get their games, the game will have at least 2 new airplanes, a new terrain, and other new features from the online update feature. FlyBoys Squadron gamers will get additional missions when they update over the next few months!

What started as a one-hour test flight with Wild Bill quickly turned into a five-hour fun blast. The first thing that I noticed is that all three games share more than the same graphics engine. There is a seamless intuitive design present in all three games, which helps a novice player gain experience quickly. For example, in Flyboys Squadron the training missions are structured so that you get to fly with the AI instructor and learn along the way rather quickly. The difficulty setting in the single player campaign can be set to either normal or difficult mode while a truly innovative setting is called: progressive difficulty. This feature starts the player with fewer challenges early on in the game and increases them as the player progresses. The crown jewel of the gaming experience is the on-line mode.

Wild Bill, his friend Bombr- (a retired Air Force Colonel and real pilot), and I flew couple of sorties over the battlefields over Verdun lurking for the unsuspecting German aeroplanes. Within a few minutes of patrolling the skies, we ran into a German fighter (on-line friend BlueMax) who in the spirit of Manfred von Richthofen taught us a quick lesson in not using teamwork. As we were all shot down one by one in an engulfing inferno of fire and smoke we agreed to collectively avenge our digital deaths by working together. The next time we took off and met BlueMax, he was at our mercy and quickly became another casualty of the on-line carnage. I highly recommend using TeamSpeak while playing the TotalSims games including Flyboys Squadron.

As we finished a very in depth tour of Flyboys Squadron, Wild Bill invited me to meet the very friendly, helpful and fun TotalSims community of gamers. It just happened that the day Wild Bill and I flew there was a huge event, taking place on one of the special iEntertainment Network’s Total Sims servers. This massive on-line event is the recreation of a Luftwaffe raid on the group of airfields in Southern England. The on-line battle attracted over 170 players on-line from all over the world with regulars coming from Madrid and Brazil. We were divided in groups on both sides following strict rules of gameplay engagement. This event is one of the many highly anticipated recreations of historically accurate aerial battles that are available as part of the monthly subscription. I have flown combat flight sims since 1987 and must admit that I have never experienced the intensity of air war as I have flying along side many of the die hard fans of this game. This is the kind of thing that I expected Battle of Britain 2 and IL-2 to deliver. Those games focused too much on the single player component as their developers forgot that as humans we tend to have more fun playing against each other than against the computer.

The overall gaming experience with FlyBoys Squadron and the TotalSims games is outstanding. The single player game is great fun with lots of missions and player options. The on-line play is lag free and the games run very smooth on the majority of mid to high-end computes. I highly suggest joining the TotalSims on-line community and seeing how much fun massive multiplayer air war can be.

Umatilla says:

The realism, both in the flight model and the graphics, is phenomenal. The action is fast and accurate to the period. If I were to make some suggestions to the software writers, they would be: 1) have a “disappearing” cockpit option for the user. The lack of a “realistic” peripheral view and the upper wing consuming a large portion of the screen is somewhat limiting (and frustrating) when trying to lock on to quick moving opponents. 2) The French had several aircraft available in their inventory. Alternative flying machines might be made available for the player of this Flight Simulation, including SPADs. The Sim includes Fokker DR1s for the Germans, which is historically inaccurate for the 1916-17 time frame of the Lafayette Escadrille, so the addition of more advanced Allied aircraft should not be a problem. Other than these deficiencies, which might be corrected with a downloadable patch, this flight simulation is well worth having.

Yukiko says:

The Flyboys Squadron CFS game was easy to install and set up. I’m using a Logitech control Stick, so some fine tuning was required for playing the game. The flight models of the WWI aircraft seem to be quite accurate and are actually more difficult to fly than the WWII Bonus aircraft included with the game. Updates to the game are easily accessed from the game itself and install seamlessly. There are many types of missions to fly, so the hard core flight sim pilots should never be bored. I’ve not tried on line playing because I feel that I’m still a novice (flying as a cadet)and have much to learn.
The graphics, realism, sound effects and challanges are exquisite. I’ve “flown” many combat flight simulators in the past and have found the Flyboys CFS to be one of the most demanding and realistic I’ve ever flown. Flying a mission always results in sweaty hands and an increased pulse rate. The illusion of flight and combat is very well simulated.
For the ultimate in flight controls, I recommend the Thrustmaster HOTAS system. I have one, but as my computer peripheral space is currently quite limited, I am using the Logitech wireless control stick. I’m curious to find out how this game will compare to “First Eagles”.
As background information, I am using a computer with a 3.2 gig processor, 2 gigs of RAM, 250 gig hard drive, Radeon 9600 video card and a Sound Max Digital Sound Card. For the most part, my system is adequate, but at times, the video is ‘jerky’. Keep in mind, however, that I set the video to the the highest possible setting so the game is not at fault at all. If other users experience this ‘jerkyness’, I suggest that some of the video settings be adjusted to minimize or eliminate it.

Timothy says:

3.0 out of 5 stars
FLYBOYS
Not exactly what I was expecting. But still fun only 12 missions. Would have been better to be able to pick a person from the movie and play that role out…. not too bad though.

Valkyrie says:

3.0 out of 5 stars
A little disappointing
This game has a lot to be desired. The graphics are good but the scenarios are too short and very easy to navigate through.

Tybalt says:

1.0 out of 5 stars
WORST FLIGHT SIM EVER
I’m a satisifed veteran of many, many good flight sims and this is the worst one I’ve ever tried.