Rating: 
Summary: Believe the bad news!
Review: I'm glad I read these reviews after I bought the game! My machine is an AMD XP 2200+ 1.8 ghz with a 266fsb, 768mb pc2100 ram, GeForce4 MX 4200 64mb video card (ie top of the line system in the top 10%). However, yes I am having the same problems as everybody else. The game randomly causes my machine to crash (winXP) anytime the sliders are above 2 for the graphics quality. Besides this VERY annoying fact is that the gameplay itself is very unsatisfying. The quick combat is entertaining to jump in and go at it with several germans, but the campaign is depressing. I get very little feedback on what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong, it just seems that no matter what I attack (factories, fighters, bombers) the war goes against me. Microsoft's promised online support simply isn't there yet. Oh and u fans of jet flight simulators? be forewarned. Your sweet P-51 mustang is going to act like an A-6 in a CAT III config. (ie like a pig). The fact is that I actually have to say that it is to realistic. The planes of this day were so underpowered that stalling is always a problem. U get one pass, from 20000 feet diving down against your opponent, assuming u haven't ripped off your wings by overspeed, your turn around will rob u of all your speed and u wind up in very quick and hard vertical dogfight. Good luck. Horrible system requirements (you need probably a P4 2.6 ghz with 1 gb of ram and a 128 video card), confusing gameplay, and an all around unrewarding experience.
Rating: 
Summary: I'd Give it 0 Stars if it weren't for multiplayer capability
Review: It does run fine on my P4 1.6GHz, 512mb SDRAM, GeForce4 4200Ti.However, the gameplay is aweful. You can't influence the campaign much at all even if you fly around for hours with unlimited ordinance. Seems oddly unrealistic that reincarnation seems to be normal among ships in a sector from mission to mission. Flight dynamics are OK. I'm an instrument-rated pilot and find it's close to what I'd expect in a video game. Multiplayer is the only thing worth playing and even that is full of bugs.(i.e. Aircraft crashed in water sit on top for a while and you are able to run into them). Documentation is terrible...especially regarding campaign gameplay. You have no idea what you must do in order to advance the campaign in your favor; if it's even possible to affect the campaign at all from the cockpit, and I have no evidence to suggest that it is. Spend your money on something else!!!
Rating:
Summary: What a bomb!
Review: Microsoft should have put all the effort into Combat Flight Sim II, Pacific Theater, now that's a fun combat flight sim. Anyway buy either of the IL-2 Sturmovik combat flight sims. Those games get 10-stars. You're wasting your money on CFSIII, I'm sorry I did.
Rating:
Summary: Pure Garbage, get CFS2!
Review: No way near the quality and realism of CFS2. Feels more like an arcade game. I'm very disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Great game
Review: READ THIS FOR A REAL REVIEW!!
Any real gamer knows that it is pointless to buy a flight sim without first having a joystick. Also any gamer should know a game isn't worth getting if you don't have the RECOMENDED REQUIREMENTS. Isn't that why they recomend them?!?! When people are looking at reviews for a game they don't want to see if "your" crappy computer can run it or not, they want to know about the game itself. I have a GeForce 4 and a pentium 4 1.99 Ghz, the game runs fine.
Now for my review, if you like games where you can see bullet holes in your plane in the spot where enemy shells hit you, and the plane flies as it would in real life with these holes, get this game! You get hit in a fuel line and you lose fuel (and you can see it spraying out), or if you get hit baddly in the engine fire shoots out of you lifeless motor. If you want nearly lifelike graphics, I'm saying when your parents come down they will ask you what DVD you are watching on the computer, when they see you playing this game! If you like the sight of a sinking ship that looks like it came straight out of the movie Titanic, get this game! Or if your pilot gets hit with a shell, he is hurt of killed, you can also kill enemy pilots by shooting up their cockpits. You do get medals and you also get points for how well you do. These points can be used to buy planes as they are developed. Your sucess at certain points on the front line can actualy drive the enemy back! If your landing gear are damaged (you can actually manually pump them down, it doesn't always work though) you can do an emergency belly landing (watch for trees!) or ditch you craft in the water, just don't hit too hard or you will explode. There is too much to go on and I want to go play it right now. So if you want the best combat flight sim, get this game. Don't listen to stupid people. What is the last word of the title of this game? Simulator! How about you go and try to fly a real P-38 with its flight stick removed and see how much you like it!!! And if you can't even play the game smoothly (or at all) DON'T REVIEW IT and say it sucks... I swear some people are just brainless!!!! IT IS A FLIGHT SIM SO BUY A JOYSTICK!
Rating:
Summary: What were you thinking, Microsoft?
Review: The copyright date on MCFS3's box should be 1993. Enough said?
Rating:
Summary: Wow...REALLY BAD
Review: The only reason I play it at all is because I got it as a gift, thus it was free, and that's about all it's worth...nothing. Buy another sim. I am an instrument-rated pilot so I have experience in aircraft, though no warbirds yet, and the flight dynamics are mildly close to what one would expect them to be. The campaign (i.e. Bulk of game) is worthless. I did an experiment and gave myself unlimited weapons and flew for hours destroying ships and bridges in different grids only to find that they were still there when you returned on another mission. It's as if you do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to influence the campaign. CFS3 is also poorly documented and the only thing that is even worth using is multiplayer fighting. However, the multi is full of bugs too. It doesn't keep accurate track of your kills and deaths and people regularly fly through the ground. I also just recently ran into an aircraft and crashed after it had already crashed into the sea yet remained above the water and took my wing off when I got too close. NOT RECOMMENDED. I'd give it zero stars if I could.
Rating:
Summary: Good, Bad, Ugly
Review: The planes look good
The cockpits are bad
The ground in ugly Message to those persons responible for the ground textures...get out of the business. Please!!!
Rating:
Summary: Save your money
Review: The promise is great but I can't even get the thing to run. I have a brand new HP computer and it tells me my graphics hardware is not up to par. This has been the most difficult program to install/run I have ever encountered. I've had every prior version of FS/CFS to date. MS needs to fix it. Very Disappointed.
UPDATE: It won't run because MS does not support Intel graphics. How much more mainstream can you get than Intel!? And MS doesn't support it!?! I hope a fix is coming for this soon.
Rating:
Summary: One step forward, two steps back.
Review: Things are often very relative in the gaming world. If CFS3 was actually Microsoft's first shot at a combat sim, it probably would merrit much higher reviews from the simming community and myself. After all, the game does boast an interesting campaign engine, a good variety of different planes to fly, including bombers and prototypical aircraft, some nice atmospheric effects, and the ability to man different positions on the bombers. Of course, many of these pro's have already been implemented in other WW2 combat sims of years past. Unfortunately, this is not Microsoft's first shot and those of us who have loyally followed their series of flight sims, both combat and civilian, expect a certain progression with each new release. I, myself, was extremely pleased with said progression in both FS2002 and CFS2. Both games, I felt, learned from the mistakes of their predecessors, but at the same time, remained faithful to the series. And both greatly enhanced the look and feel of flight simming while not expecting too much from the machines they ran on. This is where CFS3 fails in my eyes. So here are my major beefs. Graphics: Where did they dream up this graphics engine? It looks and feels more like a first-person shooter than a flight sim. Is this really CFS3 or am I playing Counterstrike on a very wacky map? Sure it has nice clouds, but this game just does not have the visual cohesiveness of FS2002 nor CFS2. The virtual cockpits just don't look as good as in CFS2. The ground objects are also out of proportion to the aircraft. Do a little low-level strafing and things just don't look right. Performance: My biggest gripe. If this new graphics engine was supposed to provide better performance by utilizing the video card more, they blew it. I have a P4 1.9ghz, 512mb rambus, with a TI4600 128mb Geforce4 and, with NO programs running in the background, the game stutters - especially when firing the guns. UNACCEPTABLE. The game just doesn't look good enough to justify such a drop in performance. Damage models: These were supposed to be greatly improved. If so, I don't see it. Every plane I have shot down follows the same annoying pattern: pour tons of rounds into any part you like and eventually the whole plane blows up. No pieces of wings falling off, no tails detaching, no engines blowing, just one big boom. Would someone please go back to 1998 and look at the damage models in Activision's Fighter Sqadron? They did it right. AI: I am getting so sick of computer pilots that have the uncanny ability - even as novices - to maintain control and maneuverability of their aircraft when you have damaged them, when one little hit on your alieron from their guns renders your aircraft unflyable. Selection of aircraft: It was very thoughtful of Microsoft to include some oddball prototypical aircraft in their selection, but why oh why, at the expense of planes like the B17, Do17, He111, Ju87, and ME110? This is Europe, right? Oh, and thanks for the lack of compatibility with CFS2 aircraft. Yes, all my griping makes the game sound a lot worse than it actually is, but with all the used copies of CFS3 I've seen on auction sites and the number of bad reviews it's gotten from other users like myself, I think it's obvious that Microsoft has made a boo-boo or two on this one. Let's pray they don't use this graphics engine on FS2004.
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