...oh

...my

...god!

I was looking for a good modern aircraft combat sim a while ago and purchased LOMAC.  Love the game, though it's a bit on the simplified side.  Thanks to a gift certificate I also just bought Falcon 4.0 and, well I'll save the emotional reaction lest I repeat myself.

Let me start by saying I'm not a graphics junkie.  If I were I'd definately have a preference for LOMAC.  So what does Falcon 4.0 have over LOMAC?  Complexity.  If you, like me, enjoy playing with all the fancy systems in the fancy Jumbos in MSFS then you'll LOVE playing with all the fancy systems in Falcon 4.0.

I'm a long time flight sim nut.  Been flying PC based flight sims since Microsoft didn't need version numbers to differentiate its sims.  I've owned every version of the Falcon series of games.  I've got probably 4 hours in to Falcon 4.0, and even with my previous experience I think I've probably only learned 25% of what I need to know to fly and fight the Falcon.  It's really, really complex.

The complexity does have its downside: I think you really need to be in a methodical kind of mood to play the game.  If you just want a quick "blow stuff up" fix then this isn't your game.  LOMAC fits that bill so much better.

I don't want to knock LOMAC.  I'm very satisfied with that game as well.  It does have depth to it, just not as much as Falcon.  If you're a fan of the genre you really should have both on your system. 

But the best thing about getting a new flight sim, for me, is learning how to fly, navigate, (and fight) the planes.  LOMAC took me about an hour to learn everything I needed to know.  Mostly all I had to learn were which keys did what (after playing Falcon 3.0 LOMAC was about the same, systems wise).  I'm not nearly there yet with Falcon 4.0.

That said, the game is a bit buggy.  It's crashed on me twice so far and some things don't work quite the way I'd expect them to.  Graphics are dated.  Frankly though I like dated graphics. Textured polygons are all anyone really needs anyway, right?  Sure is a big step up from the wireframe Sears Tower in the original MSFS. 

If anything the game has left me wanting for more complexity and depth in MSFS, especially in the aircraft systems.  I hope MS developers take note of this game and incorporate more systems depth in to the next version of MSFS.  No, not weapons, but surely those big jumbos have fancier computers than we get to play with in our versions.

So perhaps this is a warning: If you like complexity, Falcon 4.0 can ruin you for other games.  You won't quite be the same anymore afterwards.