what do you think is the most realistic wargame on the computer, i think it's brothers in arms especially the new one. sadly enought they prosponed it to 2007

I never played it, but I heard the most realistic PC game was "Allied Force 4.0," which is essentially "Falcon (F-16) 4.0" but with campaigns and other planes included.

For instance, the instruction manual in PDF online format is 800 pages! Imagine typing out 800 pages---that'll cost a small fortune.

The instructions tell you how to operate the radar, ECM, chaff/flares, radio call signs, read the MFD screens' symbology, transfer fuel between tanks, communicate with AWACS, interpret treat indicators, land and take off, communicate with tower, read enemy threat radar sweeps, jam enemy radar, and other things, including how read and use every single instrument and control on the cockpit display. Also, I read that all the instruments and lights on the cockpit display work, just as the real F-16. On Amazon, players say that the learning curve is obviously super-steep.

but allied force is only in the air, right? i like brothers in arms because you also need to command a team. you really need to use tactics, like flanking moves. otherwise you can't get the enemy killed.

died

I couldn't agree more the brothers in arms series is the best most god damn realistic game in all of the universe may the series live long and prosper!!!!!


trev

p.s. was that to geeky?

BIA IS the most realistic game in my eyes. You are right on the fact of using tactics. The first time I played it after beat all the CODs out at the time I tried to use the same charge forward and kil method thinking that my guys couldn't die like the maincharacters in COD. That didnt work to well :-) :-) .

Died - it is 2007

Matt

I'm with Peter. By the time you become good enough to truely play the game, you are all but qualified to fly the F-16. It takes about 10-15 minutes to start the aircraft up (Inertial Navigation System takes forever to load!). Complex strike packages are performed and the AI (which is really good) conducts both friendly missions and enemy missions separately and with little input from you. It seriously feels like you are only a part of the bigger war going on rather than the star of it. And the manual IS 800+ pages. Each subsystem of the F-16 is scrutanized and carefully rebuilt. Graphics are basic, but for the true combat aviation enthusiast, this game is superb.

Check out Gamespot's review of Falcon 4.0: Allied Force

I agree that Brother's in Arms is a great ground game and revolutionary in its availability to use real tactics, but the game is too linear and specific. BIA was built for gamers, so realism suffers in areas that would compromise gameplay. Falcon 4.0 is all realism and is built for the aviation enthusiast in mind not the gamer per se. I'm playing it both right now and primarily play land combat games, but Allied Force is hands and feet above BIA.

Jeff

F 4.0 is definitely not at all a wargame but a very in depth simulation, so much so that it really takes a dedication most gamers don't have to master and enjoy it.

I love Silent Hunter III, that along with Steel Beasts are pretty darn realistic and wrong moves will get you killed pretty quick. Tried the BIA games after hearing all the high praise and found them terrible, hit locations are nerfed so you are forced to use flanking tactics as head hits don't really work well. The idea is great but the execution was pretty flawed IMO, lost interest halfway through the game when I found the missions to be repetitive in tactical nature. With some tweaking it would be better but for ground combat I prefer Red Orchestra, great game with lots of action all around.

I completely forgot about Steel Beast. If you can get over the graphics, then you have a VERY realistic modern tank simulation. However I found the friendly AI to be pathetic and the enemy AI too hard to kill by yourself.

Jeff

i know it's 2007 but, the realease date is halfway 2007 or something like that. so we still have to wait. by the way what do you mean whit BIA IS,
i never heard of a IS?

I believe that the "IS" was for emphasis rather than an acronym.

Jeff

yeah the "is" was just emphatic

Matt

I have played a few wargames in my time. BIA is good but does get a bit boring once you get the flank and outmaneuver tactic down. While this is key to modern infantry combat it still gets a bit old scenario after scenario. I much preferred the more dynamic situations presented in COD2 for example.

My answer would be an older game that is not a first person shooter, because really...an FPS may *look* realistic but it's always showing you a limited sphere of existence that just isn't real. You want to go through that door over there. Doh! That door doesn't go anywhere. How about that field. Nope...that field is out-of-bounds (with mines! lol). My choice would be Sid Meier's, Gettysburg. The most realistic war simulation I have ever come across. In fact I am rather inspired to note that Medieval 2 (which I am playing a lot of lately) has a lot of features pioneered by Gettysburg (rally, morale, formations, etc). I don't think I ever killed an enemy soldier in an FPS game and though... awwee.... poor guy. But watching a whole company of men get routed or decimated in Gettysburg always made me a bit sad.

Cheers,
Jim

I'm going to say Operation Flashpoint (and Armed Assault, basically the sequel) is possibly the most realistic wargame I've ever played, largely because of it's unparalleled freedom. There is none of 'that field is out of bounds' or 'you can't go through that door because there is nothing there' that Jim mentions, you have complete freedom to go anywhere on the maps (which are huge), freedom to use any vehicle, and freedom to complete objectives however you want (when you are squad leader anyway). It is perhaps slightly weak on the tactical side, the AI don't understand flanking and so on, but they do lie down when shot at, shoot back effectively, and don't give you the impression of 'the AI should really be better than this.' And you don't have any annoying health meter, or anything else for that matter, to tell you how injurd you are. The only clue is the blood on your character, how still your gun stays, and whether or not you can walk. It also takes a sensible number of rounds (usually 1-4, depending on hit location) to kill anyone, AI or player.

Got a bit carried away with the mini-review there. I'll stop typing now.

Dave

with brother in arms that's is less the point,with the small playing area. with cod2 it's smaller and only one way to go. and with the new BIA(hellshighway) then you have got different ways to choose, and in the beginning you even don't know what your objective is, you just got to found it out.

died

I don't have much time for computer games these days but 'Sudden Strike' is still on my computer.

I think that's hard to judge because there are very few wargames as a whole. Most wargames are FPSs or simulators. There were some that dealt with real Army symbols to denote squad, platoon, company, armor, tank, etc. by small companies that no longer exist. These were very realistic, crunching numbers to see if the Soviets or NATO would win. Such as comparing 16 LAV-ATs against eight T-80s, what will be the outcome?

If I had to put my finger on wargames, "M1 TANK PLATOON" was very good and realistic. Yes, it was a sim, but it was also a war too. If you did well, the Army would give you fewer resources. If you did poorly, the Army would reinforce you...all that for a Pentium I like 16-color VGA based game. If you were kicking booty, the Soviets will send their Elite Forces to kick you back. If you were being kicked, the Soviets will send the Reserves and Second-Line Troops because you're not a Hot Shot. If both sides were kicking booty, then your battlefield would be the central focal point of the war.

"Jane's Apache LONGBOW 1 and 2" were also very good in that the wars were dynamic in North Korea. If you messed up, the war wasn't over. The controls, radar, "Betty-in-a-box" (female computer voice saying damage warnings) were nice. You get to escort Kiowas, Blackhawks, and Longbows on missions. If you killed extra on each mission, then those things won't appear in the future.

"ACES OF THE PACIFIC" was also very good too in that it combined history with flight sims. Planes were introduced as the war dates and game progressed. For example, you won't see a P-51D in 1941.

Most of the above games will not work with today's fast CPUs and Windows XP.

The "Ghost Recon" and "Rainbow Six" games were also very realistic before Clancy sold his Red Storm Entertainment and his name and got out of the business. The aiming, shooting, flash-bangs, sneaking around, etc. were all very real although the main gripe was that the enemy were superhuman and didn't die easily. But one AT-4 or M203 grenade can wipe out 12 bad guys it fired in the right spot---heh ! "Ghost Recon Advanced Warrior" is not by Clancy; they only use the Clancy name.

I think what makes for a good realistic wargame is losing AI comrades. If the game is really good, you feel the true hurt of losing a wingman, tank, soldier, or comrade next to you. Some games are the opposite...you didn't feel for the loss of a wingman because that friendy AI didn't do much anyway.

Multiplayer-only games like BATTLEFIELD 2 and AMERICA'S ARMY are still relatively new.

I think the Combat Missions series are probably one of the best PC wargames done. I know some people think their Combat Mission Beyond Overlord has issues but still think it's a great game.
Eric

This is just me and my opinion.

Why would you want to have a game be realistic? Is war and fighting to the death something to look forward to? I just don't get it. Why would I want to be able to see a realistic body after it being mutilated by a weapon? I'm all for tactics, I'm all for playing general, but Risk and Chess are perfectly game like for me. Anybody who has been there for real, doesn't want anything close to realistic. I just don't get it, and I probably never will.

I''ll take a stab - probably in vein, because its hard to describe - but there is a movement for realism happening. Wargaming, like racing games, like anything else is a simulation, putting one's self in a situation and emulating it without actually inheriting the risks. Realism is a selling point to make you feel like you are actually in war, or actually at Daytona winning the NEXTEL cup or the star quarterback at the Superbowl. What current wargames do is make the player feel like a bad ass. This is partly a limitation of programming - ie, making the computer do its part - but I believe it has more to do with emulating hollywood actors in a fantasy-type setting rather than showing the horrors of war. And again, the limitations of programming - that is a soldier getting his leg blown off by an artillery round - looks comical and hardly can be taken seriously.

For me, as a future Army officer, realism to me allows me to almost academically recreate battle drills and to practice visually what I'll be doing shortly for real. But that's just me.

And as for understanding it, look at it this way: if you can't understand why youths recreate and simulate war in the graphic ways that we do, then I wonder what the youths 30 years from now will be doing that I'll be struggling to understand. Evolution.

Jeff

Good question, in which there are no good answers.

To me, a "realistic wargame" doesn't have to show blood and guts and gore although the free game AMERICA'S ARMY has gotten a bad rap because it doesn't show blood when soldiers get hit. Anyway, that's not the point.

I equate any game to the amount of thinking that goes into it. Most games are like DVDs...it plays forward and came jump here and there, but it's still a pretty linear program. Many wargames got bad raps because the AI can fire forever and not hit anything. That's not realistic.

Just like modeling in which the modeler may devote 100 hours or 0 hours to research, a "realistic wargame" can devote 1000 hours or 10 hours to historical research. Most wargames fail that because the level and amount of research isn't invested. Chess and Stratego are games that don't use any historical research, just math codes to crunch.

As for why people are so engrossed in wargames, that's just like the newspapers: war, sex, violence, scandals, affairs, and gossip sells.

Thought Id' throw in my 2 cents.

Before they stopped making them, Janes (the military hardware publisher) put out three or four flight sims along the lines of Falcon 4.0. I have three of them, AH-64 Longbow, F/A-18 Hornet, and F-15E Strike Eagle. These are three of the most realistic games I have ever played, especially the last one. Every switch in the cockpit is functional, the equipment all works, and the missions are very realistic; extreme amounts of preparation, followed by long boring flights into the battle, brief periods of sheer terror, then another long flight out.

Unfortunately, none of them were written for Windows XP, and they don't function very well it. I can't integrate my X45 HOTAS, which has 3.4 million buttons, knobs, and switches. I keep wishing someone would do something along those lines again.

As for FPS's I would go with MOH Pacific Assault. I keep getting killed, so that's about as realistic as I get. My arm is still sore from all those shots from the medic.

The Army's Close Combat Tactical Trainer is pretty good. There are pneumatic driven recoil and vibration, weapons loading and jams, vehicle mounted weapons and multiplayer capabilities. And they pay you to play. Of course, you've got to enlist.

In reflection, I would think Microsoft's "Close Combat" series of games ranks as pretty high in realism because the maps are somewhat realistic to the battlefield and the PC does crunch numbers in terms of stats and power. The PC reinforces the AI and the player according to dates and times just like the real war.

"Close Combat" seemed to be the fulcrum of a lot of WW2 games such as "Company of Heroes" and "Call of Duty."

Of course it's just a game and not 100% accurate.

Well, I cant say it is the most realistic war game, but IMHO, Battlefield 2 is pretty realistic. Playing against the computer is a joke, but playing online is pretty fun, and can be pretty hard if you play against a good opposing team. For those of you who havent played, you can choose your professions like medic, sniper, support (machine gunner), Spec Ops, assault, engineer, and anti tank. Battlefield 2 is basically a capture the flag game with huge boards and multiple flags. You can play solo, or play as part of a squad, start your own squad and be squad leader, or play as the commander and control artillery, satellite, re-suply, vehicle drop, UAV, etc. Vehicles include Tanks, Humvees, LAV25's, Cobra Attack helicopters, Black Hawks, DPV's, F15's, and F18's, along with their soviet and chinese counterparts. Some boards are biased towards one side or the other, and there is plenty of room to fight. If you play smart, and use solid tactics, you can smoke most of the other people playing who are just running around aimlessly trying to shoot everyone. Thats the part I like about the game......the human factor. I like not only being faster then a lot of people, but outsmarting them as well. The longer you play, and the more kills and points you score, the game moves up your rank, and unlocks better differant realistic weapons. The better weapons make a big differance in game play. For example, I usually play sniper, and the silenced Lee Enfield sniper rifle is way better then the standard M40. When you play online, its usually a pretty hard corp gaming environment, so you really have to use your head and pay attention to win and not get your butt smoked! I played some of the other games like COD, and MOH back in the day. So far, I like this one the best, and Ive been playing off and on for over a year now. The only advice I would give anyone wanting to play online is to avoid the boards with like 60 some odd people playing. The game gets entirely too crazy with that many people, and generally no one lives long with that many players. Stick to 30-40 player servers, and you'll have a lot of fun.

I loved the Close Combat games, largely for that reason. I'm a fan of CC5, Normandy, and when me and my dad visited the area around Utah Beach a couple of years ago we amazed by just how close to the real terrain the game is. We even had lunch in a building on one of the maps, the large house by the bridge on the 'Mederet' map, that's been converted into a restaurant. The developers were really going for realism on that game. Shame about the multiplayer bugs, though.

Dave