DC S World - Now this is a real Simulator

Many of you allready heard of it – talking about the DC S World sim. It is called 'The Simulator OS'. So, in fact this will only be a little review compared to what could be said about this upcoming video game. 

(Wow, look at that plane, wow that plane)

Gameplay
Very simple: this feels real! You are inside that plane, you can only leave it with the eject seat and theres nothing you know about that plane except you took a look at the manual. This is for pro sim gamer enthusiasts and what awaits them is no 'casual gaming experience' at all. Getting to the runway takes approx. ten minutes and only in case you learned how to move that plane on the ground. There are a lot video tutorials on YouTube and they should be considered in case you want to take-off at proper safety. You have to manage your flying aswell as that planes onboard systems and Fly-by-Wire only helps in case your plane has that specific feature in real life. The multiplayer mode is a great feature and nothing that could be descibed as mandatory for such a ambitious 'non-game'.

A good reviewer should allways give a minus point, too: The buttons in the cockpit can only be pressed using the keyboard and you can not click on modules directly with the mouse. Maybe this gets improved and this ain't even a minus point since that game offers a variety of input devices.

Vehicles
One word: DLCs. But you can start for free with the Su-25, a nice solution to enter DC S World. I still don't have a clue how to fly that thing, I guess I should RTFM. You can find plenty more air vehicles, also helicopters and tanks. The most fascinating one could be the F-15 but it depends on you. In total, currently 14 vehicles (at the moment) are offered for a price that is exactly below 10 bucks.

Graphics
This game needs good graphic cards (so I can't play it). The model quality of this games vehicles is for real the max. you can get so far. DC S has a Insanely HighRes mesh and texture quality. However, the ground level detail ain't that high.

Game Engine
The developemet is steady going and makes this Simulator better – step by step. This video game, ehm I mean Simulator has great capabilities and we should give it a place in the Hall of Fame of all-virtual Simulators. The all-over aviation physics and the capability to add different input devices along with Multiplayer support speaks for itself.

Summary
This game gets my 4.8 rating out of 5 so we can assume it's a 5 Stars triple-A title worth a thousand words. It has originality and as a standalone Simulator Operating System it's definitely a good thing not needing much more extras and stuff. Since this game has a better broadcasting scala than past or unkown simulators, we can expect to hear more from DC S in the future. See you in there (you can find me parking on the ground, scratching my head on how to close that canopy).

Heres a 'trailer' kind of video from YT:

For more info, go to: digitalcombatsimulator.com

Wing Commander Saga – The LOLCATS strike back! Most epic game ever!

A true Hall of Fame entry:
The LOLCATS strike back! The Most epic game ever: Wing Commander Saga!



Cat's are fun: A Cat on the ISS would be the most ever clicked YouTube video I guess.
I don't know how, but cat's somehow appeared in space, they call themselves Kilrathi now.
And they evolved to be lovely monsters. Yep and we and them became equal so watch it, they fly spaceships. BTW: The cute angry cat on the left actually ain't a Kilrah (those look more like tigers).


Oh yeah, so linear story based gameplay can be big fun, entertaining and thrilling. It's about atmosphere and you can feel it even theres no atmosphere in the vast of space. The storyline is like this: A Squadron, Carriers that house you, lot's of cat's everywhere. They call us furless freaks (maybe because we freaked out on funny cat-vids, yeah no doubt). They have CapShips / BigShips and lot's or medium and catsize support crafts. They fight hard but they don't risk too much. They entirely blame your flight skills (at least till right before you finished all campaign missions) + they hit hard.

The seven lifes thing works for cat's even in space, be it as if you need to restart a certain mission or because they can eject their ship just like you could. You pathetic descendant of monkeys! ...that's one of the more gentle things they said to me. Since they really make you want to find arguments (because of their flight skills or what they say) you can enjoy listening to what your taff wing mates have to counter. Fly in groups of 8 or more or do a recon mission with only one wingman. Play all those "I always wanted to" things. De-stabilize the Kilrathi presence at different sectors of space, get them away from any resources, aim for their Carriers and whatever (try damage it part by part, if they let you).

Having a great time:
Do two atmospheric flights, safe people, safe your Carriers. Encounter a loyal Monarchy of cat's following their Kings / independant leaders and say miaow to many high society cat's. A couple of the interesting stories and sceneries know from the various Wing Commander releases await you behind the ingame part where you have to stand them while you and they play hide and seek. This is no old-to-new: It has been made from A-Z for it's pilots. This also means the storyline introduces you the the world of Wing Commander. It's a tribute to Chris Robert's Wing Commander (which many of you might played before as it was the first top seller PC games, had movies and merchandising decades ago). WC Saga is made by fans for fans. Unlike Battlestar Galactica Diaspora – which also is a very epic game based on the FreeSpace2 Engine – Wing Commander Saga feels a bit more comfortable. I recommend flying only with "Glide Mode ON" (adds fun and simulator charecteristics). Meet famous cat's (you will get to know them). Have a little dogfight, the cat's have awesome ships (absolutely). Now they don't just look frightening sweet – unfortunately they are your target's (oh behave, cute cat's) . You will experience stunning briefing sequences, great music, voice-speech and radio-comms. the AI's will become your friends. Even the graphics are not state of the art the visuals have been all over raised to the maximum possible that the FS2 engine can master! If you haven't played it yet, trust me, everybody is saying this is trully thrilling and totally entertaining.

One or two pictures:

Download it here for free – have some fun:
http://wcsaga.com

Notes:
– Play it or never even think of calling it wack (it's Open Source, it was meant for something)
– This ain't a Multiplayer but they're working on such a thing at the moment
– I can't wait till we can pilot the cat's ships ourselves. They're on it, too!


This entry has been written by Simulator Miaow, meet her, she is here on this blog (on the right side), she wants to play a bit and she is a cute non-monster cat. 

Battlestar Galactica Diaspora – The trickiest game to play! Something for the Hall of Fame of game industry

This time around I would like to tell you about another masterpiece of Open Source software power. Introducing Diaspora, a dream that came true!

Created not so long ago but with years of development it features 99% real space flight Physics with the aim to recreate the handling + look and feel showed in the award winning TV series Battlestar Galactica. That's why the developers just claim that this is no real physics Simulator, only a BSG Simulator (strike, we all agree). Other than that it does act like a true space Sim. Believe me, what the guys from Hardlight Productions created is truly one of the best games ever saw the light of the day (if not the best).
It wants to combine old BSG with new BSG elements so theres plenty of ships for you to play with. And in multiplayer chat messages can set to be voice-speech (big fun because it's a computer voice talking).

Sit inside a Colonial Viper MK VII or how about a Cylon Raider (an organic ship and you will see it's blood veins for example). The ships are very exclusive, not based on random BSG mods made entirely from scratch and they designed new ships you never saw before (this way they did a favour to BSG). The Engine used to make this dream of a game come true is based on FreeSpace2 which wasn't a big seller (shame on all of us, the game studio behind it got broke long long time ago). But the original developers saw the power of their engine and granted access for further improvements. The graphics and detail level are state of the art looking awesome even the former FreeSpace2 engine is an old sailor (FS2, existing since more than ten years). I recommend flying with the so called Glide-Mode which makes the game act like a hardcore Space Flight Simulator. You need lots of training to be able to manage a dogfight. Limited ammo makes you feel tiny. The ambient is dark and cold. I never saw a game that delivered that experience!

The storyline of the campaign mission set is epic, BSG fans gonna love the thrilling end. Spoiler: it's all about fate. It features voice speech briefings and great cut scenes, the music is great, too. It has TrackIR support. The Multiplayer part is the biggest fun – I call this the most tricky game to play ever! After a ten minutes online session I end having an epileptic seizure (or at least it feels like that). Said with others words: It's breathtaking, it's sick, only skilled gamers gonna enjoy, you can't be a n00b pilot on this, it ain't your average game! ;)

The community behind it is strong, more and more mods appear, many missions and maps are in the making. A powerfull mission editor is included. A lot of ships known from the game Battlestar Galactica Online have it's origin from one of Diaspora's lead artists. This game is about quality.

Five stars rating on this! Get it here for free while it's hot:
http://diaspora.hard-light.net

Coming soon: My first Mod pre-release for this game, an fps intensive map for skilled manuevers (WIP). 

Note: It ain't easy to find people in the Multiplayer mode. That's properly because only a few of you even know about this game. It's worth it, let's play it togheter – go spread the word! 

BTW: I loved FreeSpace2 the game. It was the most exciting childhood game I ever played and it had the so far unseen most epic ending even it was sad and almost made me cry (the Carrier beeing the players home just blows up and meanwhile, in real life, the game studio called "Volition. Inc." is no more).