X-Plane

A is for A7V action WWI armour sims are such rare creatures, I can't bring myself to say anything negative about 79p work-in-progress Cry of War. Currently boasting one tiny cosy map and three tank types (the A7V, Mark IV, and Renault FT), the game combines amateurish quirky presentation and crude forgiving movement physics with surprisingly sophisticated ballistics (shells can ricochet... system damage is determined…

Tagged with Armored Brigade, Armoured Commander 2, Art of Combat, Assetto Corsa Competizione, Cold Waters, Command: Modern Air Naval Operations, Command: The Silent Service, Contraband Police, Cry of War, Deadstick Simulator, Diesel Railcar Simulator, FlightGear, Metro Simulator, mudspike.com, Panzer Strategy, The Flare Path, The Tactical Art of Combat, Train Sim World, wargamer.com, Wars Across The World, World of Aircraft: Glider Simulator, Zulu Dawn, Close Combat: The Bloody First, Project Wingman, theHunter: Call of the Wild, X-Plane.

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. I enjoy flight simulators, but I admit I lack the patience for learning the exact purpose of each cockpit switch or the correct terminology for actual air traffic interactions. I'm in it for the sightseeing and the occasional drama, and X-Plane [official site]…

Tagged with feature, Have You Played, laminar research, X-Plane.

A is for annus mirabilis 2016, you've an awful lot to live up to. I've been computer wargaming for over three decades now, and I can't recall a better year than the one just gone. Vietnam '65, Rule the Waves, Pike & Shot: Campaigns, Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa... for any grognard partial to bold designs, unusual settings, and absorbing, plausible action, the temptations were many.

Tagged with Art of Combat, Combat Mission: Final Blitzkrieg, Combat Operations, DCS: World, Dead Hand, FSX, Graviteam Tactics, IL2 Battle of Stalingrad, iRacing, Iron Warriors, John Tiller Software, outerra, PicaSim, PT boats: knights of the sea, Slitherine, Steel Beasts Pro Personal Edition, The Flare Path, Theater of Operations: World at War, TitanIM, Vehicle Simulator, pinball arcade, X-Plane.

The last time I tried my hand at flying a plane on my PC was while exploring multiplayer Grand Theft Auto V. I couldn't master the craft at all and crashed and burned my way through a wind farm as friends expressed horror and mirth. I suspect that my own utter incompetence in the face of flight versus the skill of others is part of…

Tagged with feature, flight-simulation, interview, Justin Friedland, Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition, Prepar3D, VATSIM, Microsoft Flight Simulator X, X-Plane.

Ready to discover once-and-for-all whether X-Plane is better than FSX? Whether Falcon 4.0 is better than Milk Float Simulator 2012? Ready to read the word 'realism' 46 times in a single hour, and spit feathers on discovering that the sim that caused got you through your divorce has been cruelly cold-shouldered by an idiot with a bus fetish and a sci-fi blindspot the size of…

Tagged with Assetto Corsa, B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty Eighth, Battle of Britain 2: Wings of Victory, Best Sims, Best Simulations, bestest games, DCS: World, Enemy Engaged: Comanche vs Hokum, Falcon 4.0, Farming Simulator 15, feature, FSX, Grand Prix Legends, IL-2 Sturmovik, IL-2: Cliffs of Dover, iRacing, Richard Burns Rally, Rise of Flight, Silent Hunter 3, Steel Beasts Pro Personal Edition, steel-fury, The Flare Path, Train Simulator 2015, Wings Over Flanders Fields, Arma 3, Euro Truck Simulator 2, Microsoft Flight Simulator X, OMSI, Rising Storm, War Thunder, X-Plane.

...having spent the last seven days touring Scotland in an SA Scamp* on behalf of the 'Better Together' campaign. If you live in Dumfries, Stranraer, Ayr, Kilmarnock, Glasgow, Falkirk, Edinburgh, Perth, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, Ullapool, Stornoway, Portree, Fort William or Balamory, you may, at some point during the past week, have seen/heckled/pelted a corduroy-suited Sassenach while he teetered on a soapbox and rambled about the…

Tagged with The Flare Path, Train Simulator 2015, Volo, Volo Airsport, Naval Action, X-Plane.

The walls of the FP office are plastered with pictures of iconic war machines. When I yaw left I see the elegant elliptical wings of a Supermarine Spitball, the slab prow of a Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiepin, the yawning bomb-bay of an Avro Lankystreakofpiss. When I yaw right I see swarms of side-slipping Sopwith Camelots, HMS Hoodie steaming at full speed towards the Denholmelliot Strait, a…

Tagged with Achtung Panzer: Operation Star, Austin Meyer, Conflict of Heroes, demo, Graviteam, Paradox, The Flare Path, X-Plane.

It's that time of the week again, that time when Shermans and StuGs stop squabbling, Albatrosses and Camels play football together in no-man's-land, and rust-streaked U-boats sidle up to exhausted Victory Ships and start nuzzling them like thirsty calves. The Flare Path has been lit, and today its flickering rectangular finger points towards an important flight sim demo, some classified campaign intel, a festival of…

Tagged with Combat Mission: Battle For Normandy, demo, Demos, Rise of Flight, Simulation, VFAT, wargame, X-Plane.

  There's a lot of news to pack into this week's Flare Path and 80% of it has wings. If you want to  make yourself useful, start loading those crates marked FlightGear. Stack them neatly and there should be room for the sacks of Rise of Flight on top. I've got these boxes of X-Plane to stow, then I really need to get those barrels…

Tagged with Achtung Panzer: Operation Star, Cliffs of Dover, FlightGear, free games, Rise of Flight, Simulation, The Flare Path, wargame, X-Plane.