Why I buy this one ?
- Expansion pack for FSX and FS2004 flight simulators
- Choose from 7 new aircraft to fly - F/A-18C Hornet, F/A-18E Super Hornet, E-2C Hawkeye, S-3B Viking, SH-60 Seahawk, C-2A Greyhound and the EA-6B Prowler.
- Takeoff and land from a moving carrier surface
- Super-accurate launch and recovery using 3WireX technology
- Five great missions and 60+ mini training missions

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What our customer's say!

"False Advertisement", Box states that the game is "enhanced for FSX". However many "important" features do not exist for FSX.

While Abacus brags that the carrier moves in FSX, they DON'T have the following for FSX:

1) Abacus had to eliminate IFLOS (Improved Fresnel Lens Optical System - carrier landing guidance by instrumentation on HUD). Dev was unable to program the instruments to work with a moving carrier. In other words, you will have to land on the moving carrier by sight (without the guidance system)...so much for realism.

2) There are NO LAUNCHING MISSIONS and you cannot INITIALLY LAUNCH FROM THE CARRIER IN FREE FLIGHT in FSX. Abacus had to eliminate this ability because they can't place your plane on the moving carrier. You have to land first and then launch.

Basically, you have to "start" every mission in the air, then land (without a working IFLOS) and then launch. SO if you can't land (which I couldn't by sight, go figure), then you can never launch. Does this sound like fun?

Tech support was very willing to defend this decision with "that's just the way it is" as a response to my concern.

I will never understand why Abacus released this game with such disdain for FSX users and then used false advertisement to solicit sales. On top of all of this, they continue to ignore the FSX deficiencies by producing a new game, "Strike Force", with the same lame launching protocol.

Unfortunately, one star is the lowest score I can give for this game. Fortunately, I was able to get my money back. For FSX users, look elsewhere; don't waste your time believing the lame advertising ploy from Abacus.


"I wish I had read the reviews here first", There are so many things wrong with this add-on:

- The aircraft models and textures are average. I could've easily gotten high caliber aircraft off of FlightSim.com or AVSIM's databses. (And I already do)

- The most atrocious thing about the aircraft though, is the cockpits. The virtual cockpits, again, are the same exact thing that you can find for free. Even worse are the 2D panels. They look like something straight out of FS98.

- There are so many bugs with regards to the carriers and the missions. During night missions there is no panel lighting or carrier lighting. Can't see a thing. It also doesn't give you waypoints during any of these missions. They call out the coordinates once and that's it.

- Whenver I try to take off from the carrier it detects me as crashing and I get the old "bounce up". (If I had crashes turned on I'd never get through this add-on)

- The documentation is poor quality. It mentions things that are common knowledge and leaves out items that are not.

"Unfinished Product", I'm having the same problem as others:

1. Nearly impossible to land on carrier because the LSO's directions are flawed, the "meatball" is totally wrong, and you fall through the carrier after catching the wires.
2. The flight dynamics are pretty unrealistic; need to tweak the performance envelope of nearly all the aircraft - particularly the hornet that gets airborne on 15% power and hits over 400 knots...

Abacus needs to patch this soon...

"Bug review is accurate", I've only played for about 4 hrs. Yes I have noticed strange bugs in this game. Some more serious than others. Such as the "TailHook" on the F-18E refusing to lower. Even if I click on the icon in the cockpit nothing happens. But it DOES work on the F-18C model. Maybe they switched the shortcut key? Who knows because I do not have a keyboard assignment manual. But you can't land on a carrier without a working Tailhook so basically I've never put the F-18E on the deck yet.

Graphics are VERY good. So if you like eye-candy you should enjoy free flights around the carrier. Just don't land, it might look ugly from the bugs you may face.

Voice communications in this game with the carrier is really great!

I would rate this game much higher if the bugs were fixed.


"Released with too many bugs", This game has way too many bugs and they should have tested it more before releasing it and wasting people's money. Fortunately I got my money back, but it looks as though the programmers lied to the boss when they said it was ready for the deadline. I'll have to wait for a couple of patches before considering buying this mediocre package again.

Problems:

You fall through the carrier if your landing isn't perfect. I mean you literally fall through the carrier!!!

And you can fly through it too!!

The LSO commands will tell you you are on glide slope then soon after waves you off.

They advertise that you can use line up markers on the hud via an ILS approach, but this doesn't exist for the FSX version.

The manual sucks. If there is a way you can use the Hud to assist you for landing then they don't explain how and I couldn't figure it out. And they advertise that this is a feature via their home page. It doesn't explain anything about how to land on a carrier. There is no keyboard legend anywhere.

It is a new game, but they don't even have a product support section for this game yet on their home page. They need too fast to fix the problems of this game

The F18C and probably some other planes don't release from the cables when u raise the tail hook like you should. Inevitably trying to manuever your plane you roll over and crash.

There is no working "meatball" which if you know the carrier lingo assists you onto the deck. There is one on the carrier, but it doesn't work and if it did you can't see it. How the hell are you supposed to make a night landing without one of those????? If they expect the LSO commands to get you on deck, then this won't work because it doesn't tell you your off glideslope "immediately" when you get off of it.




The Helicopter in the game doesn't work. It starts off in free flight mode with the engine off and you can't turn it on???

PROS: The graphics are good, the moving carrier is nice and the LSO is great once they get it fixed.


I'll post another review redeeming this game once they fix these problems.