I know there will be people that will disagree with my opinion here.....and that's ok. I've been playing microsoft CFS since the very first one they came out with. The first CFS started my trek into multiplyer games. I loved it from the start and recruited family members into it. We even joined an internet team and kicked ass in on-line tournaments. CFS1 didn't have the greatest graphics or a co-op option, but the modders came up with creative ideas and the game became refreshed. CFS2 was announced and we were all excited. better graphics....yet no co-opp option...many disappointments and options we had in CFS1 were taken away...until modders...not MS...helped us out. Ok..I'm hanging in there beleiving in MS....they came up with CFS1..a great game. Hooray...here comes CFS3...a co-op option and everything!......let's go spend the 50 bucks! What a hoax!...what a disappointment worse than CFS2! how lame! Probably what people wonder is what I run for a system. OK...Ihave a Dell Dimension 1.3 gig P4 512 RdRam 64 MB G-force3 DDR blah blah blah. A decent gaming PC above the required or suggested specs for this crap software. Latest patches...drivers..blah blah blah! This game sux. It's boring. It's slow. The co-op stinks. It hesitates. Frame rates suck no matter what tips and tricks you try...and why should I have to anyway???? This is microsoft...they're not dumb! The warp is hideous...anyone have to sit thru warping with crap square graphics on the ground while ships float past in mid air? I wasn't going to ever post anything because I know there will be people that might think this is a fun game. The truth is...it sucks. It sucks more than CFS 2. I was captured by CFS1. Microsoft CFS has become a disappointing money pit. I haven't enjoyed online flying since CFS1. No longer in the internet team. I saw a post where someone asked about CFS4...I didn't read it. I decided to register and post my opinion of CFS3. For me..I don't think there will be a CFS4. Has anyone who has been with CFS from the get go noticed that there are far lass fewer mods for CFS3 than for the last CFS's? Hmmm...there's a clue MS. MS has lost the edge on  WW2 era Air Combat gaming. Time to shop around.

I have to agree with Harmsway.  The subject of graphics issues has been pretty much kicked to death on this forum, there are huge problems that we all know about.

It is the game play I would like to expand.  The campaign game is simply dull.  Endless, unrealistic anti-shipping missions.  The game in my opinion is repetetive and boring.  It doesn't seem to matter where you put the ability points your pilot gains and you have no real control over the strategy on the ground.

I don't play it any more as I find CFS1 much more entertaining.

Will

valid points made here.


Smoke2much wrote "The campaign game is simply dull.  Endless, unrealistic anti-shipping missions.  The game in my opinion is repetetive and boring.  It doesn't seem to matter where you put the ability points your pilot gains and you have no real control over the strategy on the ground. "

You can choose other missions besides anti-shiping but in my opinion, you have to gain control of the seas before invading.

The hability points do matter! The greatest improvement is on g-force tolerance. It's nearly impossible to dog-fight with 25 g-force tolerance. I'm up to 40 and it's quite ok. Vision is very important to detect air targets at confortable distance.

but truth is that litle or no control is available in ground strategy. Britain always invades too soon. In the real war we had to prepare the path for the ground invasion. I cant help Britain invading north France and then losing it again and become weakened. 

To Harmsway:
CFS3 is about tactical bombing. It's not dogfighting, and I think dogfighting is the most fun out of flying sims. Focusing only on Fighter Sweeps missions wont win the war

       I haven't touched CFS3 much lately, I do the odd free flight but the campaign is boring and endless.
    The graphics and effects are amazing, if you crash into the ground in the middle of a railway station the visuals are amazing there is so much going on. Flack is meaty and all sorts of visuals, it has generally a much more meaty look to it than ever before.
   My history of flightsims are in succession Flight Unlimited 2, CFS2, FS2000, CFS3, FS2002.
     Flight unlimited was amazing, AI traffic, ATC, and a much more meaty feel to the planes and everything looked amazing in 97 with an 8mb builting graphics card.
   CFS2 (with the 8mb job) was a leep forward, I could shoot!!
FS2000 put me off Civil flightsims for a long time, it was rubbish and boring and I couldnt see a thing as the screen was a bit of a blur. (full stop). CFS3, then eventually because of all the stuff said and made for it I thought FS2002 must be good so I got it. (standard version didn't know about GMAX then) It was amazing, not as good as Flight Unlimeted 2 but it covered the whole globe and ATC and AI all over.
   The point of that was CFS3 is a change, a huge change from CFS2 and like FS2000  CFS3 isn't a refined experience, it is and improvement in someways and has potential in the future with clever modding people and future versions.
I don't play multiplayer and the campain is boring so a campaign would be nice guys.
The trouble with the present version: (in a list)

  Hideos warp
  Limited AI
  Boring campaign
  Limited options on Free flight
  And other stuff (so much for my list)


     Thats my opinion look to the future, I have more opinions but thats enough for now.

I strongly agree with Katahu on this. CFS3 is great dispite its draw backs. kdryan mentioned that the whole war is up to one pilot, not true. If you actually play the campaign, you'll notice that the AI does stuff on its own. Ie. it will launch ground offences without being told.

Another thing, I don't understand why people are so afraid of Gmax. I find it a very powerful and easy to use 3d design tool. You'll notice that major design teams (ie Project Opensky, Meljet) all use Gmax now. I find that some of the Gmax freeware for FS2002 is the best around. Technology changes and you just have to accept it. How would you feel if all we had in the ways  of PCs were Comadore 64s.

CFS3 is the best version of CFS (I hate CFS2, crap graphics, confusing keyboard layout). You also don't need a high end system to play it. I have a AMD Duron 950 with 512mb PC-133 ram and a Geforce2 MX440 64mb card. For me, CFS3 shutters less than FS2002.  In fact I get a stable 10-20 fps on CFS3 where FS2002 is all over the place.

The game is what you make it. You treat it like trash, its going to give you trash.

Well said in the Pro's & Cons dept. Having said that, I want, veary badley to be in the E.T.O. My roots are there also. That is the apeal of the game, time and place.
Can we have the beast of bouth?
that's what made CFS1 good for me.

I've said it before and I will again.  CFS3 is basically a warmed over version of the excellent 'Janes's WWII Fighters'  The gameplay is almost identical, right down to the virtual cockpit and the customizable guages you can display, the graphics are comparable but obviously more advanced on CFS3.  Jane's had red out's and black outs, sun glare, visible damage to the planes, and all the major features MS tried to incorporate here.  And they did it almost 5 years ago. 

In several areas Janes actually surpasses CFS3.  The flight museum is awesome to browse through and the mission builder is first rate.  You can customize a mission to include up to 32 AI aircraft from both sides of the fight.  There is no campaign game per se, but I think it's pretty much agreed that MS dropped the ball on the campaign in CFS3 too, so they cancel each other out.

No, when a 5 year old sim can go up against 'state of the art' I think I would have to to question the success of the new sim.  If anyone has any doubts about what I say, pick up a copy of Janes, you can buy them for about ten bucks now.

I have Janes WW2 and hated it. It had crap graphics and the keyboard controls were confusing. CFS3 is much better. Don't waste your money on cheap rip-offs of Microsofts winning series.

If I remember, Janes appeared before CFS, so it can't be a rip-off.  I remember the graphics in Janes being top-notch for the time.  They certainly out-clased FS due to the localized nature of the sim (not having to show the whole world)  The virtual cokpits were actually better than the current CFS is now too...  Think about that one! Also, MS is just now putting ground attack missions into CFS, where Janes had it to begin with.

I'm not saying Janes is a replacement for the current sim.  I just think there is more than a little in common between the two and for my money, MS could do a much better job considering the time and money involved here