Rating: 
Summary: Great, but a little cranky and particular....
Review: 1. You need a good computer P4 with at least 512 mb ram is best
2. get a very good joystick...Freedom 2.4 cordless works well.
3. As stated on instructions... it is best to have higher resolution for combat. I would also recommend at least a 17" monitor.
4. download help/instruction file and print... also consider buying a seperate guide by MS or Sybex.
5.Don't load on a Hard drive that is nearly full (you need 2gb of empty space AND you should still have 15% free... or more)
6. Manuals suggest defragging etc BEFORE loading and using.
If you follow these and other basic "good practices". it is a VERY good and fun game.
Rating:
Summary: Lighten up everyone...
Review: After reading the reviews for MS-CFS3, the image that came to mind was the "Ishtar" or "Waterworld" of the gaming community. I recently bought CFS3, opting also for the MS Force Feedback Joystick, and I've been enjoying it thoroughly. I think the criticism is misdirected, in that the game is not easy to learn - it takes a bit of practice and experimenting to truly get the hang of it (by no means do I declare myself an expert yet). Simply changing plane types changes the reaction characteristics (which I find as a plus). If you're looking for an arcade-style, 2-minute learning curve requiring little or no advance skill - don't buy this game. If you want a flight simulator game that's challenging, realistic, entertaining, and most of all fun both single and multiplayer, buy this game. I find the graphics and detail excellent, and the realism shocking.
Rating:
Summary: Lighten up everyone...
Review: After reading the reviews for MS-CFS3, the image that came to mind was the "Ishtar" or "Waterworld" of the gaming community. I recently bought CFS3, opting also for the MS Force Feedback Joystick, and I've been enjoying it thoroughly. I think the criticism is misdirected, in that the game is not easy to learn - it takes a bit of practice and experimenting to truly get the hang of it (by no means do I declare myself an expert yet). Simply changing plane types changes the reaction characteristics (which I find as a plus). If you're looking for an arcade-style, 2-minute learning curve requiring little or no advance skill - don't buy this game. If you want a flight simulator game that's challenging, realistic, entertaining, and most of all fun both single and multiplayer, buy this game. I find the graphics and detail excellent, and the realism shocking.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad. Great graphics but needs a lot of set up time...
Review: Anyone who played Microsoft's previous title, CFS2 will know that it wasn't a bad title. So, for most people, CFS3 comes as a disappointment. There have been many complaints ranging from poor framerates and stuttering to lock ups and in my case, uncommanded reboots. Microsoft released an upgrade patch which was supposed to correct these faults but actually, in some cases, it created even more problems than it resolved.A bit of research, especially reading the Microsoft CFS3 site, will give a very good idea of how to set up the game and get it to run well. I was initially very disappointed but after uninstalling and reinstalling the game the way Microsoft recommended, most of my problems have disappeared. The game has become well supported now on the internet and anyone experiencing difficulties should check sites such as SimHQ for any solutions to their problems. A little patience will make a huge difference. Video drivers are a critical issue here but the specifics are beyond the scope of this review. The game is also very hardware hungry. You will need to be running a fairly high end system for it to look any good or you might have to live with turning off a lot of detail. A 2.0 GHz CPU and a 128 MB graphics card would be a realistic requirement but you can get good results with lower spec machines if you are prepared to live with less detail. Read the recommended sites for more information. Now for some good news. If you have set it up properly and you are running a fast machine, i.e.: over 2.0 GHz, it looks fantastic. The flight models are pretty good and the gameplay, whilst a little different from CFS2, is good in its own right. The aircraft detail is amazing and the clouds and terrain are like nothing I have seen before in any game. Microsoft also went to a lot of trouble to make online playing a worthwhile aspect of the game, which it was not with CFS2 because of that title's vulnerability to cheating. Lambasted for poor quality control, CFS3 is not a bad game. The biggest criticism I have is that a relative novice should not have to go to all this trouble to set it up and this is why I have marked it down. However, it is a very worthwhile title once properly installed and I have enjoyed playing it. It has become quite widely supported on the internet now which shows that there are plenty of people out there who have it running properly and have enough faith in it to develop it further. Those who give it only one star have a right to be disappointed but it would be grossly unfair to dismiss it out of hand.
Rating: 
Summary: A botched job
Review: As one who possesses and enjoys CFS, CFS2 & FS2002, I had high expectations for this game. They have not been met. The many faults of this game have been listed elsewhere and I agree with them all. Particularly annoying are the erratic and stuttering framerate that seems impossible to fix entirely, the myriad bugs in mission record keeping, the inconsistent cockpit graphics, poor flight models, and the very strange AI (my wingman shot me down while we were waiting to take off on one quick mission!). Post-patch update. Well, the patch has just come out as of this week (1st week of February), and it has helped a lot. The game is running much more smoothly, many of the more annoying graphical inconsistencies have been fixed, and it is certainly more stable. My 8-year-old son is having a blast with it as a 'line-em-up, knock 'em down' shooter. But for me it will remain a game and not a simulator - IL-2 is still tops in the realism & flight model department. But better than it was and certainly more fun.
Rating:
Summary: A Terrific WW2 Simulator
Review: Before I bought this game I was a little worried about the quality of the game. Many reviews I read efore I bought CFS3 stated that the game ran very slowly on their computers, it was too hard to install, and it was way too difficult to play! This was not the case for me at all. I have a decent computer (It is a 2-year old Microsoft Windows XP with the regular game and graphics card that came with it). The game installed pretty quickly, and it was up and running right after installation. It is up 30 seconds after inserting the CD. I will admit that it is very hard to learn. It really does help if you read the instruction manual that you can get through the help file. I did not have to tone down any of the realism settings that many of the other reviewers had to do. It also runs smoothly on my computer. If you want a game that will challenge you greatly, or if you want a game that has a very realistic WW2 campaighn, then this is the game for you. If you want a game where you spend most of your time dogfighting high in the skies, then this is not the game for you (The game is oriented towards tactical Air-to-ground attack). I recommend this game to any WW2 buff. Great Game!
Rating:
Summary: Accurate flight models, but less than stellar game play
Review: CFS: 3 should be a sweet game for those who appreciate realism. On my 2.5 Ghz Pentium 4, w/ 64 MB NVIDA, the scenery is dead on, the flight models are accurate, and when enemy fighters come on, one gets the felling they are right in the middle of a WW II fur ball. That said, campaign mode totaly betrays the CFS: 3's virtues. You can't win. It's as if there is no correlation between what you do on the battlefield and the movement of the campaign. I've run missions where I destroyed not just my target, but several targets, and stayed in the air until all my AI wingmen have destroyed targets as well. No positive change in the battle whatever. Microsoft says on its CFS: 3 website that it has fixes planned in the future, so if you are willing to be a paying beta tester, there are many virtues to the game, but as a complete experience, this game needs improvement.
Rating: 
Summary: The Best Flying Game Ever!!!
Review: Combat Flight Simulator 3: Battle for Europe is a great game. Its only fun when you have the joystick. You can pick from German, British and American planes. Its more realistic than Combat Flight Simulator 2. You can even fly bombers and be a gunner. The missions are alot harder than the ones in Combat Flight Simulator 2. Most of the time you get shot down by flack. Now you can crashland. It was anoying when you crash landed and just stayed there forever in Combat Flight Simulator 2. You can get medals. Its easy to get them. Its hard to live through bombing misions because the flack and the blast from the bombs make you crash. If you liked Combat Flight Simulator 2 you will probably like Combat Flight Simulator 3. Its impossible to shoot down planes with the amount of amo they give you but you can go to settings and put unlimited amo on. The fuel is very annoying. You allways get hit in the fuel tank. You allways lose all you fuel. Theres 3 bombers and alot of fighter planes. You can get topedos now. Theres almost no ships so there useless. Theres even multiplayer and campain mode. Theres also alot of locations to fly in. Combat Flight Simulator 3 is the best.
Rating:
Summary: Fly as or against the "Red Baron"
Review: Flight simulator 3: The battle for Europe is a lot of fun to play. It's so much fun to fly around and kill the AAF or the British Airforce. You can play as the German Luftwaffe or play as The Brittish Airforce or The U.S Airforce. It is a lot of fun to hunt down your enemies and shoot 'em full of lead. The camera angles are so unique that it gets very exciting to be in a dog-fight. It is a lot of fun and is a huge challenge to destroy your enemies. The game's graphics are impeccable and very realistic. Overview: Fun- 11/10 fun to kill the Germans and the Brittish. Gameplay- 15/10 a lot of fun and the camera angles make the dogfights very confusing and fun. Difficulty- 5/10 Not too hard. Graphics- 7/10 all the ground is the same except for key landscape features...pretty basic. Overall- 38/40 This game is a lot of fun, and it's just like you're there in Europe. The graphics are somewhat basic, but it's still a lot of fun to play, the jostick adds a nice kick. Try this game out.
Rating:
Summary: Poor quality, not very rewarding !
Review: I agree with most other reviews. My machine is a new P4 2Ghz and a new GeForce4 Ti4200. This is the min hardware I would recommend using for this hog of a sim. Was also surprised that I had to update my video drivers just to get it to load. Gameplay: Make no mistake, there is alot of flight simming here. You can take off and land to/from your bases, and the flying, especially through the gorgeous clouds, is realistic. But this game lacks "rewards" for the campaign work that you will do, and I find that the quality control (many typos etc in the online manuals) is poor. Also, there is not enough detail about how campaigns work and the map detail isn't explained properly. I would not recommmend this. Even for a hardcore flight simmer like myself, when I enter a combat sim I want medals and advancement, etc. I am finding the campaign mode to be boring with little to no feedback on mission results. Its just not here. Microsoft has angered alot of folks with this release, and they seem to repeat these mistakes (remember when Flight Simulator 2000 was released? Everyone was so mad because the sim would not run unless you had state of the art hardware). Pass on this one UNLESS you have a P4, newer 3D video card and realistic expectations.
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