Innehållsförteckning för #236 February 2015 från PC Powerplay

DEVELOPER EATHERNECK SIMULATIONS PUBLISHER THE FIGHTER COLLECTION, EAGLE DYNAMICS PRICE $44.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM www.leatherneck-sim.com/dcs-mig-21/ Today’s jet fighter pilots have it easy. That’s the conclusion I came to after learning the ropes in the latest add-on for the Digital Combat Simulator World platform, the Mig-21 Bis. Forget glass cockpits, automated targeting systems and forgiving flight control; this bad boy seems designed to send you plummeting into Terra Firma at every opportunity. Considering this aircraft is made by a team of novice developers, the attention to detail is staggering. Nearly every switch, dial and lever in the cockpit of the Mig-21 Bis works, and there are lots of them. It’s one of the benefits of building an older aircraft, as all of the technology is no longer classified, allowing the devs…

DEVELOPER FRONTIER DEVELOPMENTS PUBLISHER FRONTIER DEVELOPMENTS PRICE US$59.99 AVAILABLE AT HTTPS://STORE.ELITEDANGEROUS.COM www.elitedangerous.co I’m rather confident that Elite: Dangerous (E: D) is set in the largest virtual universe ever created. As of the official launch, the entire Milky Way has been modelled in the game. Yes, all of it. I didn’t realise just how big the Milky Way is until I fired up the in-game star map; it turns out there are over 400 billion star systems modelled in the game. Each of these is a unique solar system, comprised of one or more stars, planets, moons, asteroid belts, space stations and other assorted planety bits. I’ll say it again, just because it’s so incredible – Four. Hundred. Billion. Insane eh? Obviously these aren’t all hand-crafted, as it would take a…

DEVELOPER SLIGHTLY MAD STUDIOS PUBLISHER SLIGHTLY MAD STUDIOS DUE 20 MARCH, 2015 www.projectcarsgame.com There’s simply no denying that PC racing simulators are an entirely different breed to the so-called sims found on consoles. While Gran Turismo and Forza claim to offer perfect virtual representations of the vehicles found within, their reliance upon control pads makes their physics models only slightly more realistic than Mario Kart. There’s also the fact that the PC’s brute force allows for much higher resolution visuals slathered in antialiasing, which makes all the difference when trying to spot a far-off corner or braking point. Throw in beefier internet connections, and our 24-player races make the 8-car races on console look positively primitive. Yet there’s one area where the consoles have enjoyed a substantial lead over PC…

DEVELOPER CLOUD IMPERIUM PUBLISHER COLOUD IMPERIUM DUE 2016 robertsspaceindustries.com A few years ago Chris Roberts of Wing Commander fame took his idea for a third-person open world space simulator called Star Citizen and pitched it to the internet. His goal? Raise between two and four million through crowd funding to make a prototype that could entice investors. It didn’t take long for Roberts to secure the cash but then people gave him more, and more, and a whole lot more. At last count, Star Citizen had amassed a healthy $65 million, an amount that’s set to grow as fans continue to buy upgrades for their ship in the small portions of the game that are available. Think of it as a do anything space sim, a universe where you can…

My journey into VR started with the Forte VFX-1, which arrived in the Hyper office for review in 1995. Everything stopped when it arrived. “Down tools, boys, the future has arrived.” But it was heartbreakingly shitful. The teensy 320x200 screen hung in space like you were sitting in the back row of a cinema, the lag was treacle-slow and it was heavy and uncomfortable. VR dropped me from a great height that day, but if you’d told me it would be 20 years before it was done right I’d have fainted on the spot. But here we are. Or rather, there I am. Inside the game world, grinning like a chump because I just tried to lick the paint on my sim racing car. Yes, I really did. There are…

PRICE $785 www.fanatec.com/au-en/ If you want to get your racing gloves on the newest version of Fanatec’s immensely popular ClubSport Wheel Base, you’re going to need to be invited. It’s testimony to the fact that demand will far outstrip supply when it eventually goes on sale in March 2015, and to be invited racers must be an existing customer of Fanatec. I’ve been the proud owner of the original version of the ClubSport Wheel Base for a couple of years now, and was very keen to see how v2 improved on what seems to be a near-flawless product. So when Aussie importer Endor offered to send me the only v2 available in Australia, I leapt at the chance. Opening the huge box reveals a base that looks very much like…

PRICE $329.95 www.fanatec.com/au-en Fanatec has a bumper crop of rims available for its ClubSport Wheel Base, but what if you want to bring your own real-world rim to your simpit? That’s exactly what the Universal Hub is designed for, allowing the use of rims from the likes of MOMO, SPARCO and OMP to function with the quick release latch of the Wheel Base. There’s no denying it’s a handy product, but it seems that Fanatec has gone too far with the pricing on what is a relatively simple bit of kit. Opening the box reveals a bunch of components that look more like a Meccano kit than anything designed for sim drivers. The main hunk of metal is the quick release mount, with a metal face plate festooned in mounting…

DEVELOPER MICROSOFT PUBLISHER MICROSOFT YEAR RELEASED 2000 METACRITIC SCOREN/A For its time, CFS2 featured some ground-breaking graphics and model-work, complete with one of the first real physics-based flight models. Planes could be designed from original blueprints, rather than an assembled list of flight tolerances. Combined with a great setting - the Pacific Theatre saw some of the most epic and ongoing dogfights of the war, and the most thorough use of aircraft carriers - and a detailed damage model, CFS2 really did have it all, including a campaign where you can play as either an American airman, or a Japanese pilot. There wasn’t a huge selection of aircraft, and no bombers or torpedo-bombers, but what was there was a lot of fun to fly, with every plane feeling remarkably different.…

DEVELOPER iRACING.COM PUBLISHER iRACING.COM PRICE Subscription AVAILABLE AT WWW.IRACING.COM www.iracing.com There’s something about beating a fellow sim racer that makes an online win infinitely sweeter than beating a few lines of AI code. iRacing’s unique online racing system means it has been the online racer of choice since first releasing back in 2008. It’s basically an MMO driving simulator, where players are assigned a license based on how few accidents they have, combined with their race results over a season. Every few hours the service hosts license-based races which are filled by some of the service’s 25,000+ subscribers, and the racing on offer is the best around. As an MMO it has evolved massively since it left pit lane six years ago, but has it changed enough to compete with…

ROBOT VACUUM SIMULATOR DEVELOPER: Stolidus Simulation There has been more than one iteration of Robot Vacuum Simulator. That in itself is probably one of the signs that modern culture is entirely bankrupt. Part of the collective PCPP mindset wants to believe that Robot Vacuum Simulator is a meta indictment on the gamification of modern day life, but when you consider that the whole point of robot vacuums is that they do their thing with little or no input from the owner, the whole idea of having to take control of what is meant to be autonomous may instead be an insightful commentary on people having to take responsibility of their own actions. ROCK SIMULATOR 2014 DEVELOPER: Ryan Schultz When the project was put on the crowdfunding site, IndieGoGo, Rock Simulator…

DEVELOPER EAGLE DYNAMICS PUBLISHER THE FIGHTER COLLECTION YEAR RELEASED 2008 METACRITIC SCORE 82 The Digital Combat Simulator family of games are just about the last word in high-end, military flight sims. Comprising craft as eclectic as the WWII classic P51-D Mustang, all the way up to the lumbering but powerful A-10 Warthog, this is not an easy series to pick up. One of the more challenging, and thus more rewarding of the entire series though is DCS: KA-50 Black Shark. It’s a painstaking simulation of what it’s like to pilot the Russian attack chopper, even down to the heli’s auto-pilot system, which allows a single person to act as both pilot and gunner. With laser-range finding, a video target system, and a helmet-mounted targeting system as well, this is a…

For years, V-Sync has been the goto software solution for smooth gameplay, but gamers are forced to play with a laggy, stuttering image. Even with V-Sync disabled, fast on-screen movement regularly results in distracting visual tearing. G-Sync is the ultimate hardware-based solution to screen tearing, providing unprecedented gameplay smoothness with none of the V-Sync drawbacks for NVIDIA-powered GPUs. The AOC G2460PG Full HD LED monitor is purpose-built for gamers, with G-Sync at the heart of a definitive gaming experience that boasts zero screen tearing and fluid gameplay. Armed with a compatible NVIDIA GPU, the G-Sync GPU driver and an AOC G2460PG monitor, players can literally watch their competitive edge level-up thanks to a speedy 1ms response time and a versatile 144Hz refresh rate. Whether you’re stealing pole position in Project…

The release of IL2: Cliffs of Dover (IL2: CloD) in 2011 spelt the end of an era for flight simulator development. The last big-budget simulator from a major publisher to ever be released, this sequel to the wildly popular IL2 franchise was rushed to market in an entirely unfinished state. What had promised to be the definitive Battle of Britain experience ended up being one of the most disappointing and broken releases PC pilots had ever seen. Abandoned by its developers after a year of patches introduced more problems than they solved, it was soon adopted by a group of hobbyist developers known as Team Fusion. Over the course of the last few years these talented coders have turned this utter failure of a release into the finest WWII combat…

We were recently invited to do a few laps of Philip Island’s famous racetrack with the Holden V8 Supercars team, courtesy of Dell. When we weren’t being squished into the racing seats at high G-forces, we caught up with team driver Nick Percat, former Bathurst 1000 champion and avid iRacing fan. Nick is just one of several V8 Supercars drivers who use iRacing as both a training tool and a way to blow off steam, so we grilled him on just how it compares to the real deal. PCPP: Can you tell us about your simulator at home? Nick: It’s a Simworx simulator with three screens, a special shifter identical to what we have in the car, a Fanatec steering wheel and a Simworx pedal box. This is actually a…

PRICE $169 www.naturalpoint.com When it comes to flying and fighting in the virtual skies, PC simulators have one major disadvantage compared to the real deal – scanning the view outside the cockpit is a clumsy, ungainly affair when managed with a hat on a joystick. Even spotting a bogey is hard, let alone keeping track of it in a high-g knife fight at altitude. There is a solution to this problem, and it’s a damn good one – NaturalPoint’s TrackIR 5 head tracking system. It’s been on the market for several years, but there’s still nothing out there like it… unless you don’t mind building your own. The way the TrackIR works couldn’t be simpler. A small infra-red camera about the size of a webcam sits in front of the…

DEVELOPER MICROSOFT PUBLISHER MICROSOFT YEAR RELEASED 2003 METACRITIC SCORE 88 The 9.0 release of Microsoft’s venerable non-combat flight sim was part game, part celebration of flight. Released in 2003, Flight Sim 2004 – aka, Flight Sim 9, and yes, that is confusing – came out during the centenary celebrations of Orville and Wilbur Wright’s famous first flight. In fact, that very same construction of wood, canvas, and cord can be flown in Flight Sim 2004, along with other famous aircraft, like the iconic Douglas DC-3. Though, be warned, the Wright Flyer is not an endurance craft – like the real thing it can only manage a flight of around 40 or so meters. As well as a wide selection of aircraft and airports to fly around, take off from, and…

DEVELOPER KUNOS SIMULAZIONI PUBLISHER KUNOS SIMULAZIONI PRICE US$39.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM www.assettocorsa.net Whether it’s their love of good food, fine wine or close family, Italian culture is renowned for being passionate. Developed by a tiny Italian studio named Kunos Simulazioni, Assetto Corsa is a love letter from Italians to the art of motorsport, alight with the fierce obsession many Italians feel for high-speed vehicles. There’s a reason that the world’s most recognised supercar manufacturer, Ferrari, calls Italy home, and that desire is celebrated in this wonderful simulator. At the heart of any good driving sim is an accomplished physics model, the complex mixture of mathematics, science and art that attempts to replicate the way each car interacts with the road. It’s here that Assetto Corsa absolutely shines, with every cars’…

DEVELOPER CODEMASTERS BIRMINGHAM PUBLISHER CODEMASTERS PRICE $49.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM, RETAIL www.formula1-game.com When Codemasters released the first reboot of the F1 series back in 2010, simmers felt blessed to finally have an F1 game built on current technology. It somehow managed to straddle the razor thin line between accessible and hardcore, and debuted as one of the most beautiful representations of the world’s premiere motorsport. We’ve had three more games since then, and each has been less ambitious than its predecessor. To put it bluntly, Codies has milked the franchise dry, and this year’s entry is sadly the worst of the lot. It’s not just because the game engine appears to be identical to last year, as are the majority of the tracks. If it wasn’t for the change in…

DEVELOPER NEOQB, 777 STUDIOS PUBLISHER 777 STUDIOS, AEROSOFT PRICE $49.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM, RETAIL riseofflight.com When Rise of Flight originally launched in 2009, it shared many of the issues that currently plague IL2: Battle of Stalingrad, which isn’t surprising given that the developers are one and the same. Buggy flight models and AI, limited aircraft, a non-existent career mode and poor performance had many virtual pilots ruing the day they ever sat down in this title’s primitive World War 1 cockpits. But as any simmer knows, today’s simulators aren’t static beasts: instead these simulators evolve and grow over time, with regular content drops bundled as expansion packs As a result, Rise of Flight 2014 is a vastly different critter to the wonky bird that took its fledgling flight five years…

DEVELOPER 1C:MADDOX GAMES PUBLISHER UBISOFT YEAR RELEASED 2001 METACRITIC SCORE 91 At time when PC gaming was thoroughly dominated by WW2 shooters, IL-2 Sturmovik was like a breath of fresh, frigid Russian air. It not only took the fight to the skies, but shifted the action from the overdone Western and Pacific Theatres, in favour of the grim dogfighting of the Eastern Front – in fact, the game’s name comes from the Ilyushin Il-2 ground-attack fighter. This aircraft was designed from the ground up for tank-busting, and was the most produced aircraft design in the world. Heavily armed and armoured, the plane was a beast. IL-2 had a wide selection of 31 flyable planes at launch, which expanded out to 79 with a range of expansions and add-ons. Even more…

DEVELOPER WARGAMING PUBLISHER WARGAMING DUE 2015 wargaming.net To say that World of Tanks has been merely successful is like saying World of Warplanes hasn’t quite hit its mark. Wargaming’s authentic armoured combat simulator is one of the world’s most popular free to play titles, while its airborne cousin continues to languish in rough air, with few pilots willing to master its troublesome control scheme. So far then it’s a hit and a miss for Wargaming, but its next release looks set to fit in the former camp. We checked out a recent build of its naval combat simulator, World of Warships, and think armchair captains are going to be in for a treat. AWAY ALL BOATS When the game launches, the sea-bound combat within will focus on the naval battles…

DEVELOPER MICROPROSE PUBLISHER MICROPROSE YEAR RELEASED 1998 METACRITIC SCORE 85 For almost any flight sim fan of a certain age, Falcon 4 holds a special place in their heart. This was a rich and compelling flight sim that paired an incredible amount of flight detail with one of the best campaign simulations in modern military gaming. Rather than simply have the player operate their craft in a more or less linear narrative, Falcon 4’s campaigns were dynamic, reacting to the achievements not only of the player, but also to the larger conflict around them. In this case, it was a rejoined Korean War, with North invading South and the US standing in to help their allies. Mission briefings involved not only careful planning of routes and weapons loadouts, but could…

Until recently, the three words “Free to Play” were deemed to be a plague on PC gaming. Any title that fell under this banner was designed for our aged parents to play, with deceptive micro-transactions waiting to empty any credit card foolish enough to be captured by games in this genre. My how times have changed. Considering how serious simulator fans take their beloved hobby, nobody could have predicted the merging of this genre with the Free to Play model. Even fewer could have foreseen just how successful this marriage would be. What follows are four of the most popular Free to Play sims on the market, though we should point out that serious grognards might refer to these as sim-lite products. Regardless, with an entry price of exactly zero…

PRICE $3,999 www.epson.com.au • Best in class contrast and black levels • Very detailed image • Low latency • Not exactly cheap • Laggy when certain image filters are applied Walk into any commercial simulator and you’ll notice that they don’t use piddly 30 inch monitors to replicate the outside world. Nope, when it comes to fully immersing trainee pilots, drivers or tankers, there’s only one display technology that can pump out an image big enough to fill the user’s field of view – projectors. I’ve been a huge proponent of using projectors for PC gaming for years, partly because I use mine so extensively when simming. Epson is easily the market leaders in projector sales in Australia, so I was keen to see if its latest consumer model had…

PRICE $485 www.thrustmaster.com Not everybody has a thousand bucks to blow on a simming wheel imported from Germany, which is where mid-range product like the T300 Ferrari GTE come into the picture. It’s still not exactly cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a long way off the price of Fanatec gear. Included in the box is the main wheel base, a detachable mock Ferrari wheel, and a set of pedals. Let’s get the nasty stuff out of the way first – the pedals are absolutely horrible. There’s no way to stop them sliding all over the floor, and they only include an accelerator and brake pedal. The brake operates identically to the accelerator, lacking the hydraulic components used in other pedal sets to replicate the sensation of…