Rating: 
Summary: Better than I expected
Review:
I had another B-17 game some years ago. This one is significantly different. This is a real challenge! First, the instrumentation and interior graphics are very good. They could be improved by allowing the flyer to operate the flight deck controls with the mouse, but that is nitpicking. The exterior graphics are not state-of-the-art, but they are plenty good enough to really experience the game. The sound is good and realistic.
I had better identify my equipment so that you can judge my viewpoint. I have a 1.8 MHz Pentium 4 with a half-gig of RAM and my OS is Microsoft Windows ME. Video is ATI. I use a CH Flightstick Pro USB and CH Pro Pedals USB with Control Manager. (The brakes do not work with this simulation. Everything else works fine and the loading was easy. As to my experience, I'm in my mid-seventies and made my first solo in the mid '40s. I've flown a variety of single engine aircraft over the years, but have little multi-engine experience, and that only as air crew, except on the computer. I've also built and flown a variety of radio-controlled aircraft. I have flown just about every decent simulator on the market since 1989, but my specialty is WWII aircraft since that is my generation. I'm partial to the Pacific Theater, and particularly love the F6F "Hellcat" as a fighter plane--it accounted for nearly 80 percent of all the Japanese aircraft shot down in air-to-air combat in the Pacific, and had a 19-1 kill ratio. Not bad. It also made more aces than any other allied single-engine fighter plane. I mostly fly fighters. I think the best combat flight sim (for graphics and flight characteristics) currently on the market is IL-2 Sturmovik. Jane's WWII Fighters and and Microsoft's Combat Flight Sim 2 are neck-and-neck for second place, and I'm looking at MS Combat Flight Sim 3 with high hopes. This is a good sim. It is very realistic in the flight characteristics of a large multi-engine prop driven aircraft. The sounds are very realistic as well, and for those who think it is a difficult game--it is! But then, so is actually flying such an aircraft, but it can be learned. Practice, practice, practice! The ability to move from one crew position to the next easily is not realistic, but it is great fun! One thing I appreciate is the very thing that bugs many; the fact that you can spend hours on a single mission--in fact, you can spend several minutes stacked up, orbiting your own airfield just waiting to land after a mission. Oh, you can avoid it by speeding things up to 8X time, but of course the actual aircrews were simply stuck with it. That's just the way it was! In real life, it was hours, weeks, sometimes months of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror. "Hurry up and wait" was as typical of WWII as "Kilroy was here." But, do you want to get a feel for how it really was (without the gut-wrenching fear, of course) or do you just want to play another game? One thing about the boredom of hours of droning engines--it lulled the crew, so that when the action suddenly started when a Bf-109 or FW-190 or (God help us!) an ME-162 suddenly bounced you out of the sun, it was all the more unexpected. This is of course not like being at war. Not even close. The people who really flew in these ships actually died, as you know. More than 50,000 men from the 8th died over Europe. That's the entire crew of 5,000 different aircraft. Losses were high. It was hard to get through the 25 missions required, alive. For the Luftwaffe, it was, if anything, worse! There was no limit to the number of their missions. They flew until they were killed or the war ended, whichever came first. I recommend this game if you have the patience and the equipment tofly it properly. If you are simply looking for something that will allow you to shoot down lots of "enemy" quickly, this is probably not for you. Joe Pierre, USN (Ret)
Rating: 
Summary: b-17
Review: My always crashes on my Windows-XP Proffesinal. If you buy one and get it to work, it ranks in the top 5 funest flying/fighting games ever. If you have an old computer with Windows-95/98 DO NOT BUY THIS GAME! But, if you have a new PC with Windows-ME and a lot of memory it should work fine. I don't think it works on Mac.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome game while learning some history
Review: I love this game! Technical glitches aside (in my opinion, minor), the graphics and playability are excellent, if you have the patience to learn how to fly the plane. This game is best suited for students of military history or who love the B-17 (and I fit both those descriptions being an Army Reserve officer). Too many of the reviews I have seen talk about the technical merits or the graphics of this game. I want to add the enormous learning experience this game has to offer. What impresses me the most is the historical significance of this game. There are few left who truly remember what it was like to fly these missions, and this is as close as I want to get. My hands get sweaty as soon as I see the flak or hear "fighters, 12-o'clock high!" I named my crewmembers after persons I know, and it is shocking when I hear that one of my "friends" is hit. It is also quite a sobering experience when you return to base and see the letters written by your squadron commander to the widows and grieving families of those killed "while engaged with the enemy over the skies of Europe." My hats off to the programmers of this game, who remind us that war is never without cost and sacrifice. Especially since the events of Sept 11, this game graphically illustrates what 10 men in a technically unsophisicated war machine (compared to today's hardware) could do to change history.
Rating: 
Summary: Repetative
Review: Same thing over and over. I played the OLD Microprose B-17 on my 486 20MHz computer, and other than a graphics improvement, this is not any real improvement. If anything, because the older game had to rely on good gameplay as opposed to eye-candy, the older game may be better in that respect. You take off, you gather in a group, you go to the target, taking gunner spots on the way there, you get on IP, you take the bombier spot, you drop, and you fly back home. Over and over again. It's fun for a while, but not for long. Even the fighters are not that much fun to fly, as it is the same thing as other WW2 fight sims. No improvemetns, no innovative items. Pretty much, this has all been done before, and done as well or better.
3 stars. It's as average as it gets.
Rating: 
Summary: This game stinks
Review: I can't believe they could make this game. I have more then the requirements. I spent [money] on the game and it won't work! I did everything that the one ... guy who said it was the users fault to do. Nothing worked. I think that guy is [mistaken]. All the game does is freeze my computer and I have to reboot it. This game ... has way too many bugs. We have downloaded every patch off the website and none of them have worked. If I were you I wouldn't buy this game
Rating:
Summary: Exasperating
Review: I agree with everything said in "They weren't kidding... SIMULATION"(earlier review). The game IS extremely complex. Stunningly realistic in its visuals, it suffers from overambition. You can be (and often HAVE to be) a fly on too many walls. You can view the formation in flight from outside your aircraft, or jump inside and observe or fully take over every position in your plane (pilot, bombardier, tailgunner, etc.)
1. The time it takes to play the game is a major irritant. Forget using the time-skip feature; pressing the key to skip large chunks of time will reward you by skipping into, and waking up in the middle of, a critical in-flight or combat moment. I have played the game now for 1 straight week and have yet to get more than three missions deep into a campaign, all because I lose patience with flying for hours over the North Sea. Skipping ahead, I "come-to" only to find that a crewman has been hit and lying unattended (you must manually send other crewmen to treat him with first aid) for heaven knows how long. Or worse, I discover my aircraft is losing altitude or suffering some calamity for no apparent reason. This is really bad if you've patiently flown a 1300-mile round trip and were just about to come in on approach. The game does not prompt you to correct the problem by telling you what's wrong with your airplane. You don't know whether you have structural damage or a runaway prop; all you can do is sit helplessly and watch as you crash or try to get everyone out in time. When you're game is over, you have to go back and restart and fly the same missions over again. Considering the flight time of each one, you should keep your medication handy. Another time factor: don't think you can exit the game in mid-mission. Although you can pause it (thank God), I have yet to discover a mouse click or keystroke that will allow you to save and quit; this apparently can only be done upon your presumed return to base. Nightmarish. That will be hours from now, if at all. 2. Realism is a bit lacking at times. Every game/mission I've flown, I end up almost over my home airfield, or at least well clear of enemy threats, only to have some crewmember start yelling that he's been hit. Hit with what? There's no flak, no fighters -- did he just forget to mention it earlier, quietly bleeding all the way back from Dusseldorf, or what? He just collapses, and you must tend to him -- sometimes, though, these mystery wounds end up in fatalities that seem unnecessary touches of "realism" under the circumstances. 3. Keyboard commands/controls. I also have this grudge against Microsoft's CFS2. Both games came with detailed manuals about which keystrokes are supposed to do what game action. The only problem I have is -- they don't. B-17 is a very confusing game to operate simply because the keystrokes don't work. For example, the manual says that ++ will order everyone to bail out. Not so. You must select a crewman, right click him; click another button, then another, then finally on a pop-up icon of a parachute. Although the manual says this maneuver orders only the selected crewman out, it actually orders everyone out. But it takes a considerable amount of time to click through the above, and if you're sprialling down and losing altitude fast, it takes TOO long in my opinion.I should add that I will keep playing the game, but it will take more to put me in the mood for it. It is accurate, and it has been very stable on my machine... no crashes. I am running the game on a 1.2GHz Pentium, with 256MB of RAM and a brand new GeForce video card. In short, I don't think hardware gremlins to be the source(s) of my gameplay problems. I rather suspect the game designers were trying to include so many details or aspects of the American daylight bombing raids that they left some important gaming ones out. Sort of like when the door says "PULL" and somebody's standing there pushing with all his might.
Rating:
Summary: WOW
Review: This game was by far the very worst game that i have ever seen. it was unbelieveable how stupid it looked. graphics were horrible, it was boring, all of the enemy planes and attack tactics were the same, and i cant stand how slow it ran, even though my computer is fully loaded with speed, graphics cards, sound cards, and lots of ram, memory, and free space. HORRIBLE dont WASTE you MONEY
Rating:
Summary: I love it!
Review: I love this game. But I'm sorry to say to those at Amazon.com, a great web site, mind you, that I got mine at a local store for the unbeliveble price... , althogh the box was creased and riped in a few places. But the game was in perfect condition. I probably learned more about the B-17 and P-38J in the manual than at Google. And let me say to those wimpy gamers out their, IT IS A PRETTY HARD GAME, BUT FUN. That's all.
Rating:
Summary: B-17
Review: From what I've read, it sounds like the best combat flight sim ever! Okay, I've finnaly got it and if i could, I'd give it 150 stars. I really recommend this game to B-17 game fans, but I don't think you should buy this great sim if you don't know how to operate a B-17 and you can't stand waiting for 31/2 hours just to fly TO Ludwigshafen let alone avoiding enemy fighters then going back to an airfield in England. Still I think it's the most realistic and fun game on the market.
Rating: 
Summary: Frustrated B-17 owner
Review: This simulator has great potential but the game needs a lot more ram than the published minumum. Infogrames technical support is totally non-existant! Also, number of additional aircraft is severly limited as is what you can do with them. All in all, a very disappointing product.
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