Combat Air Patrol 2

[Jarhead0331]

I've been following this very closely. I'm pretty skeptical. I'm hoping for the best, but...you know.

[JudgeDredd]

I am sceptical too

The reason for the scepticism is I've heard very little about this.

In fairness, I haven't gone looking but if I was creating a realistic flight sim which was the only one to have a Harrier and the only one to have a dynamic campaign which included a strategic layer, I think I'd be shouting about it.

Seriously - their website shows an impressive list of items for a sim that has been pretty quiet since I first heard of it. All that for £20?? That just does not sound right.

I can't see me not buying this on Monday though in all honesty. A Harrier? With a dynamic campaign? In a realistic, believable setting? TrackIR? Training? Co-Op Campaign? Strategic fleet control?

What's not to like? Believable is another matter but for £20 I'm going to throw my money at the screen

[Grim.Reaper]

I am not expecting the game to walk on water so I don't have any illusions it may not turn out as good as advertised...but still looking forward to giving it a chance since personally I would love a "lighter" sim like Strike Fighters as long as not too light and unrealistic.....games like DCS are a little above my ability so hoping this may fill the gap for me.  Although I will certainly have the desire to purchase, I won't be able to do it until at night at the earliest so hopefully there is some feedback first to base my decision on.  And assuming I can pry myself away from playing HOI4:)

[Hofstadter]

I'm a little bit nervous about this, I checked out their youtube and theres almost no actual gameplay. Red Flags

[Toonces]

I'm with jarhead on this one.  Where's the gameplay footage?  I'll be waiting for reviews.

[Jarhead0331]

there is a complete lack of anything showing actual gameplay, I mean, there is a single screenshot of the strategic interface floating around out there somewhere, and nothing showing actual combat, enemy forces, or even allied units working together. The environment, which is supposed to be crowded with civilian traffic is utterly lifeless, as is the flight deck of your LPH. Furthermore, communication with the developer has been a ceaseless struggle and the project has been plagued with inexplicable delays.

Anyway, we'll see soon enough....

[Grim.Reaper]

Nothing earth shattering, but a few videos showing some of the gameplay...not much and no actual combat or interactions, but something...we'll see, would be nice for it to be another flight sim option..time will tell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F02z7dxwRE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I3CpNKOj50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xawkNjIDrd0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5v6R6Ne6bY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS1L2CM74WU

[JudgeDredd]

Three hours and counting as we write this email!

Ahead of the 6pm launch (GMT) we wanted to give you a more detailed heads up on what to expect from the launch build.

You can read all about it over at Ed's blog: http://devblog.sim155.com/2016/06/like-phoenix.html

Thanks for all your support!

And that was an hour ago!  :D

[Yskonyn]

let's first deliver...  ::)
There are a lot of promises for the builds after the release build. 

[JudgeDredd]

ok - I've got an hour and 30 minutes into this and I think that qualifies me to warn inform you all

It's early access as you all know - so what I post here is taking that into account.

Setting up
Controls
What a freakin' nightmare. It detected and reported by X52 Pro and said so on the screen but the controls were mapped to an Xbox controller. So I went through and changed them. That took some time and they reset when the game crashed (later)
They don't always work either - F1 is tied to the cockpit view and also the weapon view but it never actually went to the weapon view. Also, for some reason, some keys simply could not be used. I had no idea why...the couple I tried that couldn't be mapped didn't seem to be mapped to anything else

Graphics
Again - nightmare. These also reset on restart and also crashed at one point whilst setting up. Options are pretty limited and they started out on the lowest. TBH though, I'm not entirely sure I noticed a huge difference when I switched them all up - but I could be being harsh here.

TrackIR
I gave it a brief try to check out the capability and it was incredibly sensitive to the profile I had setup for DCS so I didn't go back to it. That was the end of looking round the cockpit because I couldn't be bothered to map keys to look about and the mouse wouldn't work as a view panner.


Gameplay
Graphics
Pretty poor tbh. Everything has a god awful dark wash over it. Your aircraft is "acceptable" as are some of the other 3D objects - but overall, very disappointed. Of course, I suppose that was to be expected as the videos showed - but I had hoped they were older
The ground is poor and the cities/populated areas are not great. Very samey

Sound
Almost a case of "what sound". Very little immersion from a sound perspective. I have volume 100% and music off and still I can hardly hear a thing. Speakers aren't all the way up - but they are up more than for other games. What is there is pretty meh.

Flight Feedback
Non existent. No visual sensations. No immersion. The flight model itself is ok...nothing to shout home about. Actually iirc similar to Strike Fighters.

Tutorials
For the Take Off tutorial you are told in the briefing what you are doing but it's essentially set your flaps, nozzles, take off, get to 3000ft. You are able to change the weapon loadout and fuel state...but again, it's all basic stuff and implemented in a basic manner.
The first couple of times I took the Take Off tutorial, I was presented with a list in the top right when I did something right...like Close Canopy...the list displayed top right and Close Canopy went green. Same with Setting flaps. However, it wasn't clear what things you had to do and the list only popped up briefly.

So - they called themselves tutorials, but imo they were lacking instruction and direction.

Also - subsequent times I took the Take Off tutorial, the list at the top right did not show for some reason.

Campaign
The one time I tried it I was looking at the map....about 1 or 2 minutes in, I apparently failed!  :))
I got out of the campaign.


Overall
I would liken this (in flight model) to Strike Fighters in that it's pretty simplistic. In fact, I'd say it was at least a step below that...though I haven't played Strike Fighters for some years - but I remember it being too simplistic for me and the graphics reminded me of some late 90's early 2000 game with really bland looking ridiculous hills...I'm trying to think of the Iraq special forces game - a bit like that.

I did manage to take off a couple of times and flew around for a short while. I even managed to drop some bombs on a ship (friendly)...just for a look. Explosions, sound, visual effects were all poor.

I was hoping for something solid here but unfortunately what I saw was a flight sim for youngsters on a console.

As a flight sim fan I was hoping for something else, something more. But I feel I wasted 90 minutes. I won't be rushing back but I will keep my eye on it in the hope something happens to make it at least a bit more of a sim.

It's not that I want "study sim"...I'm all for a simplistic flight experience...but a bit like DCS Flaming Cliffs 3 is as lite as I'd like to go - and this is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off that mark.

Also - don't think the fact it's a Harrier will rescue it - it won't. It just really didn't feel like a Harrier...it was just quite a bland plane with VSTOL capability.

This was on an early access game and it was only 90 minutes. Someone may find an option that I missed for graphics or sound or TrackIR sensitivity or whatever - so go easy on your replies if you think this is the best thing since MS Flight Simulator 2.

Also bear in mind I didn't get a huge amount of playtime and didn't try other weapons, avionics or proper combat (the 90 minutes was mainly setting up and crashing on take off)....but what I did get to play did not fire my belly in the slightest to go back.

:(

[Yskonyn]

Yeah, at this point I think they might have just pushed it out now to generate some funds. I will not be surprised if it goes belly up afterall.
Lots of promises for 'what's to come', which makes you wonder why release now instead of releasing a proper feature rich build.

[Jarhead0331]

I've heard the avionics are non-existent, with the only options for radar, for instance, being next and previous target.

I would say reviews are "mixed" so far, but your complaints are entirely what I was afraid of and exactly what I was expecting, to be honest. The developer was mostly silent during the development process which was drastically delayed and when tidbits of information were released it was always extremely vague. Like I said before, none of the videos really showed off anything of substance and I guess now we know why. Its going to be a struggle not to be buy this tonight, even with all the negative feedback, and even with HOI IV out there. I just don't think I'm going to have the wherewithal to dig into HOI after a grueling 12 our day.

 

[JudgeDredd]

I actually totally forgot about the option for a refund on Steam - and I will be looking into that option. Honestly, it's that bad - at least for me.

I would/will give the guy double the amount I paid for this if he gets it to anything near what the marketing suggests. But I've bought a few games recently and I'm not willing to waste £22 on this I'm afraid.

[JudgeDredd]

Some unsuccessful take offs

[Hofstadter]

Well bugger, ive been looking forward to this and from what ive been reading its a piece of crap.

Yaaaaay