Comments on: Interview: Matt Wagner On Black Shark

By: Serondal

Serondal — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:58:43 +0000

I broke down and baught this game when I saw some videos on you tube (one where a guy lands a blackshark on a moving train and another where he attacks a convo rambo style ((I.E. flying back and forth with high banked turn abouts blasting ground vechiles with his cannon ALA the Rambo VS Hind battle))) O.o Wow heavy use of brackets lol.

One thing that is NOT mentioned here is that there are two modes. Realistic mode, which is talked about here, and Game mode which is not. In game mode the game is more like an action sim say like HAWKS or Aircombat, the targets are all lit up for you and you can use buttons to target nearest, the flying isn’t so hard you can’t jack yourself by over reacting to the controls as easily ect.

I played one quick mission in game mod and had some fun blowing up ground units then getting chewed to death by an enemy sam site because I couldn’t firgure out how to arm my missles lol.

I highly suggest if you’re thinking about buying to watch youtube videos of the sim in action, it is so good.

Blackshark = One of the few attack helicopters (maybe only) that can get its tail blasted and still fly since it doesn’t have/need a tail rotator to stop it from spinning out. There is a video of someone landing one without the tail, it crashs at the end but it’s not his faut ;)

Also interesting to note there is some very advanced connection between you and your wing man/men. You can send him target info that you’ve gotten with your laser and then have him attack your targets. you can send him out on recon and when he returns he can upload what he scanned with his sensors into your computer O.o Very awesome. You can play the entire game just clicking the buttons in the cockpick wtih the mouse.

I think the last good helicopter combat game I played was one where you fly a Havoc , can’t remember what it was called but this is certain a big jump forward for me lol.

By: psyk

psyk — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:35:24 +0000

Thinking of getting this, will you be doing a wot i think.

By: ruggbutt

ruggbutt — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:12:44 +0000

BS is head and shoulders above ED’s previous incarnations Lock On and Flaming Cliffs. It’s a lot of fun if you’re a button pusher and takes quite a bit of time to skillfully fly, attack and survive the battlefield environment. With the announcement that they’re attempting new modules every 9 months (or so) I can only hope that they will continue to support previous modules. ED has a history of patching their sims, breaking things that are just unacceptable then abondoning the previous title altogether. I hope this isn’t the shape of things to come from ED. I understand moving on to a new module but to not patch glaring issues in a previous module smacks of “we already have your money so too bad” syndrome.

IMHO Black Shark gets an 82:100 from me. Issues that score it that low are allegedly being addressed in a patch but there is more that needs to be done than what’s been publicly discussed. Dedicated server software is a must. The last time I had to have a video card to run a game on a dedicated server was for Ghost Recon in 2003. The net code isn’t bad but there are still issues with server glitches, player placement in the 3d world and a whole slew of things that were wrong with Lock On/Flaming Cliffs. These are stuttering because of sound card processing, keyboard sometimes stops working for no reason, crashes to desktop when you meet certain parameters for video processing and sound combined.

I have confidence that ED will fix these issues eventually. Hopefully they’ll fix their business model as well regarding abandoning previous titles completely. It doesn’t take very long before flight simmers figure out that type of behavior and take offense to it.

By: Slaine

Slaine — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:49:15 +0000

@Punisher:
Aren t You being a little bit JacKrear on the edges? DCS BlackShark project is stated to be happening in the early 90 not today. Don t say you don t know that or you ll loose total credibility.

And realism is not in the campaign, your arguing is just a nickpicking to try to find false flaws on the product, find the real ones. If you want realism on campaign, then you ll sit your ass in barracks and die of boredoom.

If you knew better than what your saying, you would have taken account of pissed pilots at surveillance sistem operators that constantly gave false alert and weren t able to give real threats. You would also take in account so much FF in recent wars accounting for unperfect IFF systems, lacks of proper reconaissance etc etc.
Do you really think that every ground sortie has a full SAM system on their backpack?

I understand you re trying to save your old games with models based on excel sheets, i still look foundly at ef2000 v2 Manual and disc even not being able to play it.
But unfortunatly those games as LB2 are a joke.
About campaign, TAW was so ridiculous it hurted, i could down near a hundred S27 in a lone misison just landing and rearming refuelling, and the country wouldn t go bankrupt or stocked out, this got boredooming.
Its sad, but DID only got right on the spot with EF2000, TAW was a total miss as WARGASM, and TFX was in crawling stage of flight sim, and Typhoon was a mixed thing.

I agree that Dynamic campaign even if unrealistic has more charm and appeal than canned stuff, no matter how good the can is, and that Eagle should try it nonetheless.

Unfortunatly time has changed and there s only 2 Russian companies doing, the mighty americans went doing Microsoft crap(CFS, Blazing angels), Poney care, and gods know whatever more of the same FPS/RTS.

We live in sad times for Military Flight sims fans.

By: Redman

Redman — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 03:36:29 +0000

Played this game it’s crap. SF DRM so uninstalled it within 1 day. If you want to to try this game I will sale my activation key for half price ($25) email me at il2longjohn@hotmail.com

By: Seymore Butts

Seymore Butts — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:31:43 +0000

Rivet counters, get lost!

By: Flighters

Flighters — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 15:50:51 +0000

… december 2008, sry… lol…

By: Flighters

Flighters — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 15:50:02 +0000

I bought the english online version of the game in december 2009 and I must say it´s absolutely amazing and thrilling. So much detail, crystal clear sharp gauges at 1920*1600 Res and extrem realism. Guys, give it a try!

By: Punisher

Punisher — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 16:42:59 +0000

@HardRocker: Think what reality is first! Yes, Ka-50 lacks modern ECM but it does not matter for you that in DCS campaign this helo must fight against NATO forces??? This is realism??? Of course not because in reality Ka-50 would be shattered to pieces in a matter of minutes after entering enemy NATO airspace without any anti-radar protection systems. However I suppose DCS campaign designers intentionally created very unrealistic battle environment to improve player’s chance to survive. Otherwise nobody would like to play this game. As for old Mi-24s sent to Georgia in 2008 one should know these choppers had RWRs installed after leaving factory. However now they are so old their RWRs had broken down and were dismantled. So this is completely different situation than Ka-50 case. In fact real Ka-50 was tested several years ago with a lot better ECM package but in DCS Ka-50 has ten years old and useless from practical point of view self-protection system. Even if this is reality – successfully flying Ka-50 against NATO forces is not real at all! Simply you would be very happy after returning from one such mission – not a hundred kamikaze campaign missions!

By: Rosco

Rosco — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 07:53:49 +0000

Excellent interview questions. I find this to be very rare. Thanks!

By: HardRocker

HardRocker — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:58:35 +0000

Punisher, you contradict yurself. You say it unrealistic, but then you say the real Ka-50s doesn’t have RWR, ECM, or missile warning and jamming sensors. That’s right, none of these things real Ka-50 has and so we don’t have them in DCS. Some Ka-50 testing prototypes have these, yes, but only testing.

What you have in DCS is what Russian army has. If the Ka-50 goes to war tomorrow, it will be like the you see it in DCS.

Sorry, but welcome to realism. This is how Russian army went to war with Georgia in August last year. No Ka-50 that we know fighting there, but Mi-24s did and those also did not have RWR, ECM, or missile warning and jamming system. But still they win the war in 5 days… Not so crazy, is it?.

LB2 may be classic, but it’s like stuck in the 90s and you can’ts bring it to the present and DCS standards or realism. I don’t want to call it arcade, because back then we thought it was “hardcore” but it depends. Compared to DCS, LB2 is very “softcore.” I like it, but it’s not the same playing field of simulation anymore.

Also, about what you say about military simulations, I think ED’s want to develop both, because this way they have very accurate information and also helps them finance more development. I think they feed each other, the military sims and the public sims.

By: Punisher

Punisher — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:02:35 +0000

1. Yes, Ka-50 flight-sim was also done for Russian Army Aviation.

2. As for RWR: DCS Ka-50 was based on real Ka-50 prototype which was very incomplete. It is true Ka-50s with in-game ECM suite were used in Chechnya ten years ago but now they are fitted with mostly up-to-date ECM equipment. Even very good “Kolchuga” system was tested on Ka-50 five years ago! Unfortunately in DCS we got unrealistic Ka-50 in ECM aspect – how can you imagine modern gunship without RWR? It is very vulnerable on present bettlefield (modeled in DCS also!) so I do not know how you can fly Ka-50 in this game without RWR and chaff dispenser against NATO forces? Normally such gunship would be shot down very quickly. However it is true real Ka-50 do not carry FLIR, radar and similar modern equipment. There is two-sit Ka-52 version equipped with them. Unfortunately Ka-50/52 number in Russia aviation is very low and their production have been stopped now because Army chose Mi-28N gunship to replace old Mi-24 fleet. That is also indirect answer why Ka-50 details were declassified and released on public in this game…

3. I did not compare F4 and DCS graphics but avionics. I only stated DCS has in fact six years old Lock On graphics. Yet the worse is Ka-50 fly at very low altitudes where terrain graphics now looks quite ugly.