Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator: WWII Europe Series

The Good
Combat Flight Sim (CFS) set the standard for Combat Flight Sims when it was launched. The story line for single players is highly immersive with the option to fight for either the RAF, Luftwaffe or USAAF. Fight the Battle of Britain, defend London from massed bombers raids, ground attack over Europe after D-Day - all areas are covered. Strong multiplayer elements via the MSN Gaming Zone, although the attention has moved on these days to more modern sims.

The key strength of this title now that it is available cheaply, is there are thousands of add ons - missions, aircraft and entire mods which convert the place and time of the sim. Commercial and web based free downloads are abundant. For example there is a Korean war and cold war mod, a flying tigers pre WWII mod and a first World War mod.

Easy to fly without being completely unrealistic CFS gets you into dogfights and ground attack fast. An ideal introduction to this genre.

The Bad
Graphics are rather dated by 2002 standards, but this is OK if your PC is not the latest model.

Some of the flight models (the behaviour of the aircraft when flying) can be a little odd. Nothing too unreasonable though!

Adding many different aircraft can be difficult for the beginner.

The Bottom Line
Great introduction to seat of the pants WWII flight sims. Good value for money, still worth a go! Strong community support still available from the websites devoted to CFS and CFS2.