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The game has all the markings of a first-rate WWII flight simulation.

I’ve never been a big fan of writing previews of soon-to-be-released games, especially when the article is based on a beta copy. You never know exactly how much stock to put in a developer’s notes about how close the beta is to the final version.

I’ve always been afraid of overly complimenting or disparaging a game that might undergo a level of repair or modification in the final stages that could completely alter my beta derived conclusion. It hasn’t happened often, but it has happened.

That said, I’ll step boldly out on a limb and say that Microsoft’s Combat Flight Simulator 3: Battle for Europe (CFS3) has all the markings of a first-rate WWII flight simulation. It looks like Microsoft’s best effort to-date.

CFS3, like it’s two predecessors, will appeal to a wide-range of virtual fighter jockeys. You can set up this puppy to be an easy, gravity-defying arcade romp or make it almost as challenging as the real thing.

After you boot up the sim an intro movie is supposed to play and establish an authentic atmosphere. According to Microsoft’s Previewers Guide “it captures the feel of what Combat Flight Simulator 3: Battle for Europe is all about”. If it’s about trout fishing they succeeded. For whatever reason the intro movie would not play in my beta copy.

The next thing I noticed was the brand spanking new user interface. My glass half-empty side asks “What was wrong with the one in CFS2?”. I rather liked it. It was easy to understand. Now I have to get used to another one. And it’s not easy. It took me a few seconds to realize I could not keep just any of these tricky windows open and still start the game. This was a lot more cumbersome than it needed to be. However, everything isn’t a downer.

My glass half-full side noticed something cool about the interface: The entertainment provided by what is normally wallpaper behind the menu choices. This time the gamer is treated to a full screen close-up of a fighter pilot in full WWII regalia standing, kneeling, squatting and scratching his head just yards away from an aircraft. What’s so cool about that? After you run your first mission and come back to this screen you will realize the wallpaper is alive.

You hear bombs crashing into the ground somewhere nearby. Bullets may start hitting what you thought was a static shot of a plane. You haven’t even named your pilot and you’re already hearing the great sound effects of CFS3. The aircraft might even start smoking and catch on fire, all while you’re dilly dallying in setting up the fun via the menus. The first time this happened I panicked, thinking that the plane being turned into Swiss cheese flambé right in front of my menu clicking eyes was going to be the same plane that I had to fly.

Finally, I clicked “fly” and a quick dogfight mission loaded.

CFS3 will ship with 34 flyable aircraft. There are actually 18 different types plus their variants. That is still more flyable aircraft out-of-the-box than any other flight sim.

The most interesting of the available aircraft have never been seen in a flight sim and for good reason: they appeared too late in WWII to contribute much for the country that built them. Examples: the British Vampire I, a single-engine, twin-boom design that was the first Allied jet to match the performance of the German Messerschmitt 262; the German Go 229 (Gothaer Waggonfabrik), a twin-engined fighter-bomber shaped like a bat; the American P-80A Shooting Star, a jet that saw much more action in the Korean War.

For this preview I flew missions in the Go 229, the P-80A and a B26 Bomber.

A.I. in CFS3, as in the previous versions, can be adjusted for skill level to provide an increasing challenge as your skills improve.

To be honest, dogfight missions flying the P-80 against a pair of German ME 262s was not all that much fun. I had the A.I. set on medium and I was treated to a reasonably tough battle. The A.I. attempted a number of aerial tactics and didn’t just engage me in a turning battle. But there was something missing in this encounter that I remember enjoying so vividly in Jane’s WWII Fighters, a game four years old and almost as pretty to look at as this one. I couldn’t put my finger on it so I just moved on to the next aircraft.

I tried several bombing missions piloting a B26C. Being the pilot of this elephant with wings was not fun, so I toggled the F8 key and jumped to each one of the gunner positions (side, top turret, lower waist and tail). This wasn’t much better. Even the failed B17 Flying Fortress II offered more excitement and thrilling action from the gunner positions. I still couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly what was wrong, but let me say that there were some clipping issues, delayed reactions after input with my Logitech Wingman Force 3D, and I had extraordinary difficulty locating enemy fighters. Once I did it was still difficult to see them without hitting a key to remove the “cockpit” view of that gunner position. But when I did that I could no longer see my guns or shoot them.

Finally, I tried the Go 229. Forget this innovative aircraft for dogfighting. The dog is there but not the fighting. This scary looking, poorly maneuvering jet performs well only as a bomber. Still it was fun taking it aloft and into battle to learn its shortcomings and capabilities.

CFS3 seems to have so much going for it: a sick number of flyable aircraft, outstanding airplane graphics, scalable flight model, excellent sound, and all the other bells and whistles typical of a complete product in this genre like 3D cockpits, multiple weapons load outs, pretty explosions and aircraft coming apart in more ways than you can imagine.

You can even customize your plane with nose art, colored stripes, and other snazzy markings. And there are spiffy weather effects that you can turn on, including rain, snow and even thunderstorms complete with lightning. But we’ve seen all of this before. Microsoft even brags about the detailed terrain graphics created with what it claims is breakthrough technology in order to enhance low-level flying. Frankly, I didn’t think the low altitude terrain graphics were “all that,” but beauty, as the saying goes, is in the eyes of the beholder.

Microsoft even threw in something I don’t think exists in any other flight sim: the ability to play God and hit a couple of keys to cause enemy A.I. pilots incremental damage (like sticking one pin after another in a voodoo doll) and, eventually, death, just in case they prove to be a little too tough.

CFS3 also offers a dynamic campaign engine. At least it’s dynamic in parts. Only the sector in which the player is currently operating will react in response to the player’s successes or failures in his current mission. Nevertheless, this is a welcome enhancement.

This may be the first flight sim to incorporate elements of an RPG. Your pilot will have qualities like vision, bombing skill, ability to withstand G-forces and health that you can increase or decrease as you accumulate experience. Some gamers will absolutely love this feature. I confess that I’m not an RPG buff, so this feature will be less important to me.

For me the best thing about Microsoft’s military flight sims is their expandability. I now have add-ons for CFS2 that allow me to re-fight Pearl Harbor for either side, hunt the Red Baron himself in summer or winter as an ace in WWI, patrol the DMZ during the Vietnam Conflict, or fight to the death in the skies over Korea in a Sabre Jet. It’s like having five superb combat flight sims instead of one.

With excellent graphical enhancements, a stunning collection of flyable planes, a new dynamic campaign engine, and the addition of RPG elements, I can’t wait to see what developers come up with to add-on to CFS3.

Despite having everything a virtual combat pilot could possibly ask for or think of, Microsoft seems to have left out one critical ingredient. Like Dr. Frankenstein they may have created an impressive looking creature, but it’s a creature that lacks the one thing to be truly alive -- a soul.

I never felt immersed in the world of WWII, despite a prodigious amount of detail and available options. The beta of CFS3 seems to be devoid of personality. Right now it feels like a sim heavy on content but light on style. The beta failed to grab this virtual pilot by the throat and pull me convincingly into another time, another world. There are moments of great fun and challenge, but it didn’t really consume me. It lacks the quick but electrifying gratification enjoyable in the four-year-old WWII Fighters, or the stunning, near flawless implementation of hardcore combat flight simulation obtainable in IL-2 Sturmovik.

In all fairness, some flight simmers may not care about immersion or may define it differently. The opportunity to take a Vampire I into combat over the skies of Europe and waste a few bad guys in spectacular fashion, while a dynamic war unfolds on the ground below, may be all the immersion some people need to feel they are flying the greatest military flight sim ever made. For me, perhaps all that’s really needed is a working intro movie.

We’ll let you know the full story after the game is released.

Preview by Walter Hurdle.