Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 2: WW II Pacific Theater

Combat Flight Simulator 2 was released in 2000 by Microsoft and developed by ACES Game Studio. Its engine was based on civilian Flight Simulator franchise - somwhere between MSFS2000 / MSFS2002 versions and interestingly all the global vector data (at least for coastlines and rivers) was included as you can see in the video when I do a round trip around the world map.
There were campaings for both sides - American and Japanese, but only small amount of fighter aircraft were flyable, no dedicated bombers or torpedo planes. At least there were branching missions (according to the information on the back of the game box). Although there were plenty mods available adding more planes, scenarios etc.
The flight modelling was pretty advanced, with complex engine management where you had to control the throttle, prop pitch, mixture, cowl flaps etc. You could also use simplified engine controls if you didn't want to be bothered with all this.
The combat is really enjoyable, and shooting down enemy fighters feels rewarding. Seeing fragile Zero decimated in mid air by your fire, or busting into a huge fireball (no self-sealing tanks!) is highly entertaining.
CFS2 was basically the last western developed flight simulator based on the Pacific Air War. Upcoming Combat Pilot is being develepod by Barbedwire Studio and its subsidiary Entropy.Aero, their site says it will be first western-developed combat flight-simulator in 20+ years (they are based in Sagunto, Valencia, Spain btw).
The game works fine on Windows 10/11, but you will need to use a nocd exe because the original used SafeDisc DRM solution which is no longer supported past Windows Vista.
One more thing - if you wish to use "Hardware Acceleration" I recommend using DDrawCompat, just drop the dll into the game folder, otherwise you will be limited to software (no texture filtering) 16-bit color modes. Though all the modern resoultions are supported out of the box, but to preserve the 2d cockpit aspect ratio I recommend using 4:3 based resolutions (like 1440x1080 for 1080p) otherwise the 2d art will be stretched.
Here's the github page for DDrawCompat (expand the "► Assets" under the latest version and download the "DDrawCompat-v0.5.1.zip"):
github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompa...
More classic flight sims:
• Flight Sim Showcase
0:00 Intro
1:43 Main menu
3:20 Showcasing global map:
4:33 Taiwan
4:38 Japan
4:52 Alaska
4:59 US west coast
5:09 US East coast
5:20 France and GB
5:29 Baltic Sea
5:37 Italy
5:45 Ukraine
6:00 Vietnam
6:27 This is from another mission - Midway
6:37 Campaign cutscene
7:28 Mission briefing
8:05 Mission start
27:37 Carrier landing
28:32 Debriefing
#RetroFlightSims #pacificairwar

[@ChristopherMundahl]

i remember playing this and loving it, but then playing il2 and loving it more!

[@KindaGross]

dammmmn I remember the frames being so much higher fidelity. Love to see it thanks for uploading

[@raymondyee2008]

Omg the memories of this old PC game.

[@CueDriver]

I am right there with you. So many memories and friends made through this game. I still have the Sidewider FFB stick.

[@westilldontknow3407]

played this with my dad when i was like 5 years old. simplers times. they don't make games like this anymore.

[@ralphmunnich]

I was in college when this one came out. Played it and downloaded all the mods I could. Good times. Great video.

[@WatchRayPlay]

Game was fire at the time, loved it and played the hell out of it. More realistic settings became quite difficult without good setup, many times completed a full mission just to land on a runway, hit the brakes on my Zero and just go head over heels and crash dead.

[@Coot]

I remember this one pretty well too. I think I bought it around 2001. I've always loved the Pacific theatre and naval operations along with all the Grumman aircraft. I remember liking the comic book/storyboard style presentation of the game's presentation as well as I recall loving the way guns sounded in the sim. They had a unique punch to their sound design that made me feel as if I was almost using force feedback though I've never owned a force feedback flight stick. I forgot about the little landing signal officer screen when landing which is pretty cool. Thanks for sharing all these great old sims damson. You've got a nice little software video museum going here.

[@davepleus7945]

Hundreds of hours in this classic!

[@kinnertubbyson]

Same, brother. this and CFS3 were top tier. id love to be able to play these again.

[@xBruceLee88x]

I used this game as an interactive project for history class. Checked out an older ibm thinkpad with a 16mb ati chip, loaded this game, and had a tri fold board listing facts about ww2 air war. Even bought a saitek flight stick for the laptop. Got a 105 on the project. Back in 2006. As far as I know, the only interactive project ever for the school. One that could be easily reset for anyone interested. Due to a render issue though kept the game in cockpit view

[@Negostrike]

I still got the CDs. The global scenery is probably imported from FS2000, although with different ground textures.

[@JohnTheBodge]

I just installed CFS & CFS2 on my Win95b machine and they are better than I remembered. I have a number of payware add-ons for CFS2, mostly for the Korean War but also the Harrier and MiG-21 from Just Flight and Captain Sim respectively. JF also did a great Mosquito add-on for CFS2 and there is/was a wealth of downloadable add-on aircraft, too. Plenty to do.

[@stevenc485]

I still have my copy that I bought when it came out. Was there ever a patch that fixed the damage bug? From what I remember if anything on your airplane was hit then aileron effectiveness was reduced by 90%. I remember a lot of people upset about this on the old SimHQ forums.

[@Universal_exports87]

Microshit, we don't need a new FS2024, we need a new Combat Flight Simulator that covers Europe, North Africa and the Pacific, you have the technology to do it.

[@DankNoodles420]

We have one already... It's called DCS. (Digital Combat Simulator)

[@semiauto25]

Whoa, this is taking me back. I definitely played this.

[@rwd76]

A true classic and a blast from the past.

[@RealDarko]

It was a great sim, loved the comic scenes and the interview with Mr. Sakai, that was a very nice plus.

[@fraggerfragsolot9285]

Ah, good memories

[@LowRCS]

Memories......👍

[@mikeschmidt1996]

oh el viejo simulador combate fue como el primer simulador realistico tuvo exitio ademas simviation todavia hay aviones para Combat Flight Simulator 1,2,3 ademas mas y FlightSim

[@thejetfighter]

It's been a while since the last time I played this game. Was one of my favorites back in the day. Nice video 😀

[@TEXACO83ITA]

Ooooh i love this game, my favorite❤

[@Perich29]

I've played the 1st one but not the 2nd one. the 1st Combat Flight Sim when I was playing it on the battle of Great Briten, we talk about the Battle of Great Britten in U.S. History class back in my high school. so I got some of the history lesson from this game as well.

[@DankNoodles420]

I am surprised that you even made it into high school with spelling like that! "Briten"? and then you even spelt it wrong the second time as well!!! "Britten" it is even wrong in a different way the second time. Dude didn't even spell the word wrong in the same way consistently, which at least would have shown that maybe you just thought it was spelt that way even though it is wrong but the fact you failed to even spell it wrong the same way two times makes it seem like you do not even know how it is spelled what so ever and literally just had to guess and sound it out. smh how can someone not know how to spell "Britain" in the era of auto correct, auto spelling check, Google access on mobile high speed wireless networks, online dictionaries, Google Translate. Etc.

[@Leon-bc8hm]

@@DankNoodles420 Nothing can beat the American educational system LOL

[@DankNoodles420]

@@Leon-bc8hm The sad part is that when you look back at all 12 years of school and break down everything that they taught to you young you, who didn't know anything at all basically... I could have learned all the subjects that I recall being taught to us throughout the entire length of school entirely myself easily in like a couple days.

[@Universal_exports87]

19:52, fantastic shot!

[@lefteristzanetis8220]

AMAZING!!!!

[@RaptorCallOfTheShadow]

Mega dobra gra. Zresztą jak prawie każda z tamtych czasów 😊

[@fingers5944]

remember using to gps gauge to fly across the pacific, just for fun,as a group.

[@TEXACO83ITA]

Ah another think, i have again the CDrom 😁

[@oldy27]

👌

[@andrzejp4207]

Serwus. Jakoś specjalnie instalowałeś grę, Używałeś dodatków w stylu dgvoodoo? U mnie odpala się grafika bez wspomagania hardware

[@damsonn]

Zwyczajnie, aby mieć akcelerację sprzętową użyj DDrawCompat - link w opisie do filmu ;)

[@EJ205T]

What about physics and systems there? Are 2D cockpits clickable?

[@damsonn]

As with MSFS from this era, 2d cockpits indeed are clickable.

[@EJ205T]

@@damsonn flightmodel feels like MFS?

[@damsonn]

@@EJ205TI would say it's more refined. At the time it was good.

[@Spacegamejunkie]

Oh man, how did you get this one running?

[@damsonn]

This only needs nocd exe because of SafeDisc DRM not being supported on modern Windows and ddraw wrapper to enable hardware acceleration. Otherwise it installs and runs just fine. Check video description for more info ;)

[@Spacegamejunkie]

@@damsonn Oh nice, thank you!

[@bcarreon6409]

Where can this be played in 2024?

[@ahmadmuzaffarzafriy1234]

Do you have every cutscenes for this game? And how do you record CFS2?

[@damsonn]

The way the game builds its cutscenes is interesting - it reuses some short clips while overlaying spkoen lines depending on how you do in the campaign. So you could say they are dynamically built. I used ShadowPlay for recording the gameplay.

[@ahmadmuzaffarzafriy1234]

@@damsonnDo you know how many missions are there in campaign for CFS2?

[@damsonn]

@@ahmadmuzaffarzafriy1234 I'm still playing the US campaign, so not sure.

[@AIexanderthefake]

Can this be made for Google play

[@redwolf1647]

The zero in this game turns almost 90 degree while in cfs1 the me109 was a brick to turn. Microsoft sucks at combat flight sims.

[@rodolfohernandez3303]

I completly agree with you. In fact for me the 3 MCFS sucked. One thing that was only good was the intro of MCFS3

[@redwolf1647]

@@rodolfohernandez3303 cfs3 was exclusively ground attack, the most boring of all 3

[@executrix2224]

It was a very good game​@@redwolf1647

[@julthefool150]

To be fair … bf109 are not meant to turn. While they are more agile than for example a Focke Wulf they are still energy fighters meant to sweep in from above dive on their target fire a few volleys and then climb back up above your prey using the energy gained from the dive and converting it back to altitude. The zero is meant for slow-low energy turn fighting. Similar to the British spitfires

[@Leon-bc8hm]

@@julthefool150 Replace FW190 with P51 and you have a better example.