I'm really excited about this... so I thought I'd share incase any of you are interested?
Incase you didn't know, "Lock On" (Lock On: Modern Air Combat --- aka --- LOMAC), was a flight sim, released a few years ago. Its basically the best modern combat flight sim you can buy, still. Anyway, they where going to release a new expansion for it, called "Black Shark", that let you fly a helicopter. It was exciting because the game was already really good, and very realistic with realistic physics and whatnot. So this was not only going to update the graphics and stuff, but it was going to give us a real helicopter combat simulator (which can also be played as a more arcadey action game too).
But now, they have decided to make it a stand alone game, rather than an expansion. And not only that, they seem to be making it into a whole new.... experience... The official statement basically explains that they where doing so much improvement to the Lock On engine, that they decided to just make it a stand alone game. Which is good news (to me atleast), because it means they will hopefully be less restricted to working with the now (slightly) ageing graphics of Lock On. And Lock On was kind of buggy (and still is a bit), so basically.... we probably have a better chance of Black Shark being more awesome, now that they can just focus on making it a game that stands proud on its own - rather than just a flyable chopper in a pre-existing flight sim.
And not only is it starting to look uber, but they seem to be giving it a LOT more scope than it originally had.... The old page on the Lock On website, has been removed, and it now gives you a "Page Not Found" message, and now, it links to a whole new website.
They are calling it "Digital Combat Simulator", and it seems they are making a new simulator environment. The Black Shark chopper is just the first step. The next step, is having the AH64 Apache Gunship to fly too. But on the forum, when asked about the significance of the "Digital Combat Simulator" rather than just Flight Simulator, the guy in charge admitted that they can (and hopefully will), add all kinds of other stuff to the mix - not just flying things. So they might end up adding in a few jets, but they also might end up adding battleships, tanks, even a first person shooter. The header of the page has a UAV, fighter jet, chopper, tank, and a ship, so with a bit of luck, we might end up being able to use one (or all?) of those things in the same game. Its not that far fetcher either when you consider that Lock On (and its expansion), let you fly more than half a dozen different fighter planes. So in this next generation of game, it could allow all kinds of stuff. He said its too early to promise anything, because they are still only working on getting the basic game out with the Black Shark chopper. But he has already said there will definitely be the Apache, and then beyond that, he hopes there will be other things. Some people are already getting really excited about how far you could go with that. I saw one person say something like, "Imagine if my brother could be playing a special forces first person shooter, and then he calls for air support, and I am the air support...".
I'm especially interested in all this, because the company behind all this, evidently spent the last 18 months or more, working for the US government, to create some kind of uber realistic flight simulation for them. Not only did they probably get a ton of cash for doing that, but it sounds like they have learned a LOT in that exercise too. So I've got pretty high hopes for this being a great game.
Note: It also says somewhere that it can be played as a hardcore simulator, but it can also be played as an arcadey fun chopper game. (Big selling point I think).
P.S. You can read the FAQ on their website yourselves, but incase you need some motivation to go reading FAQ's, heres a few things that might help:
1) Full damage modelling on the chopper. So where you get hit, the chopper shows the damage properly.
2) You can look around the cockpit in real time, and not only is it modelled exactly on the actual Black Shark, but its fully active.. so you can push all the buttons, and they all actually do something... like the real thng:
one
two
three
3) The Black Shark is the only chopper in the world, with an ejector seat, for when things go wrong.
4) The AI and all the physics and stuff, are not only based on Lock On, which was already awesome, but they are being vastly improved. So it should be really realistic.
5) It doesn't *need* a high end PC.
6) Its really modable, so you end up with other players from around the world, making loads of extra missions , campaigns, improvements to graphics, new sound effects packs, etc..etc.. It really prolongs the life of the game. Thats partly why Lock On is so great, and still so popular.
7) Heres a pair of movies. (Low res youtube I'm afriad, but well worth a watch). The first one is really old (was actually released early this year). It still looks great to me, but the game has come a long way since then. The second one is pretty new, and looks brilliant.
old
new.
p.s. Lock On is the only game to ever give me a queezy sensation when flying upside down. I got a real stomach turning sensation when I flew upside down and at various angles. I've never had that in any game before. Its really impressive. Sometimes when you disect the graphics, there where bits that didn't look that good. But on the whole, the game had some uncanny ability to often look like real life, and the underlying physics just made it all *feel* really realistic. I found Lock On really impressive, so I have huge high hopes for this game
DCS - Digital Combat Simulator
Check out the links on the left for screenshots and the FAQ and stuff.


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