I realise there probably aren't many people interested in the old EA Janes Baltimore team but considering the superb sims they released here is what happened to them after EA pulled the plug on them earlier this year.

CJ Martin and team formed a company "Cryophyte Entertainment" which would hopefully develop new hardcore flight/racing simulations. Unfortunately Chris Martin & Co. received zero interest from existing publishers. Here is a recent email from CJ Martin :

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Quote:

Yes, it's true; I'm back at Pax. I accepted a Staff Engineer position at one of the larger contractors in the area, and I'm back at TACAIR R&M, supporting the Fleet.

It's a bittersweet kinda thing really. Cryophyte Entertainment is for all practical purposes in "hibernate" mode, with no decisions yet as to its future. We had some great ideas, and generated a lot of interest from publishers, but at the end, no one was willing to sign the check. After eight months without a paycheck, something had to give...

My former coworkers are scattered among a few game dev companies in the Hunt Valley area. I wish them all the best of luck; it's a tough biz these days.

My family is doing well; we were able to find a house and move in before school started. We sold our Timonium house in less than a day.

Everything seems to have survived the move pretty well, although we'll be unpacking for some time.

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Sean,

That is sad news. But in addition to the three companies you mentioned, there are other pockets of surving sim makers.

Xicat has shown an interest in keeping Jane's Attack Squadron alive, and the guy that builds X-Plane seems to just keep going. The Search and Rescue games are still plugging along. Microsoft is still behind the Flight Sim franchise, though I don't know how far that will go. Former Thunderseat guy Pat Hunt heads a team that is making sims (Xtreme Air Racing is just out). I know there's a guy working on a flight sim for Windows CE (I know - you want to laugh, but the beta I saw looked pretty good!).

Xicat also just released an updated version of F/A-18 Hornet Korea as Precision Strike Fighter, so it looks like the GraphSim guys are still in business. And Alpha and other companies continue to make add-ons for Flight Simulator. And you got some great stuff in the online market (Warbirds, Aces High, etc.) though I don't know how those guys survive in a market that competitive...low overhead, maybe.

I agree that not ever getting an update to the marvelous Jane's Longbow/F-15/F-18 series sucks. But as far as sims dying? Where there's a will...

>Let me do a rollcall of defunct simulation teams

If you include space sims, Volition's Freespace team is scattered on non-sim projects (although many still at Volition), Larry Holland's Totally Games team (X-wing, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, etc.) is intact and working on Bridge Commander, Rod Nakamoto's Wing Commander 5 team has scattered, and Origin's Privateer team is now working on Star Wars Galaxies.

Stefan

>Microsoft is still behind the Flight Sim franchise, though I don't know how far that will go

It will go on as long as it's profitable, and since the two year old FS2000 still routinely shows up in the weekly Top 10, and with FS2002 on the corner, my guess is that it will go on for quite some time. I once read an article (can't remember where) that said MS's CFS killed many of the other players in the Combat Sim market. Not because the game was good (it was, and CFS2 was even better), but because all the loyal Flight Simulator (in the specific sense, as in Microsoft Flight Simulator) fans who would have otherwise purchased another combat sim opted for CFS instead.

I neglected to mention Oleg Maddox's IL2 Sturmovik. The demo is fabulous.

Also look for Lock On : Modern Air Combat. Matt Wagner is the producer for this simulation. Matt also worked on the Janes F/A-18 team with CJ Martin. He is a very accessible guy and has a real passion for his flight sims.

Plus Larry Bond is still working on Harpoon 4. I am amazed that SSI is still open for business. They have changed owners so many times.

I reinstalled Janes F/A-18 last week to see what effect my upgrading to a Celeron 850 has had. The sim is liquid smooth even during some of the heavier campaign missions. This sim has long legs.

MarchHare - try European Air War. Then see if you can go back to MS CFS or CFS 2. There are probably as many or more mods available for EAW at this point as well including complete campaign settings.

One simulation I was uspet with was Rowan's Battle of Britain - it simply wouldn't run on my machine for reasons I was unable to remedy even after considerable effort. Did anyone here get it working? Was it any good?

Also, there are indie teams of developers out there working on 'simulations done right'. I think I've seen articles about them at Wings of Honor and Frugal's World of Simulation.

Two that stuck out in my mind were a WWI project being developed by RB3D fans and a simulator that deals solely with night bombing in WWII worked on by another group who intended to donate proceeds to charity.

Brian,

I have spent probably 200+ hours with Rowan's Battle Of Britain. I still think it is one of the best in the business. It has the same fantastic flight models as those in Mig Alley.

The big problem with BOB is the lack of individual damage modelling on the bombers. Because there are literally 100's of aircraft active in the air at any one time Rowan had to simplify damage modelling on non-player aircraft.

So for example you damage a bomber and it starts smoking but will not lose engine power until it basically blows up.

This is where EAW has the advantage as each bomber has a much better damage model.

KC Cook over at SimHQ and a number of other guys are currently going through the BOB source code in the hopes of improving the simulation. Should be interesting.

Cheers,
Sean.

Speaking of EAW, what's the name of the group that TK is now leading? Last I heard he was putting together a Vietnam survey flight sim. What happened to that project?

Third Wire. They're still going strong. TK sent out another round of screenshots a month or so ago.

-Tom

I got a chance to talk to TK at E3 earlier this year, and their "Project One" sim is looking amazing. IL-2 will also be awesome, as will Lock On: Modern Air Combat. I can deal with a small amount of sims being released if they're of such high quality.

Also, don't forget the fan-based projects in development, like Target for Tonight (a WWII-based night-bombing sim), the Naval Warfare Project, or StarShatter. All fantastic stuff.

Yep, that's it Tom. Third Wire. Oddly enough I just read a write up on Project 1 in this month's PC Gamer. It actually looks like a winner.

For those of you who don't keep tabs on PCG, it's not actually a Vietnam sim. It's got Vietnam-era aircraft, but it's set in the Middle East.

Get this: you can play as a mercenary. Lest the hardcore amongst us be aghast, it's going to incorporate a real-world sensibility, but with a relaxed attitude as far as �switchology� goes. In other words, if you wouldn�t be able to get a radar lock in the real world (i.e. mountain in the way), you won�t get a lock in the game. But when you can get a lock, you�ll be able to do so with just one keystroke. That�s a paraphrase from Andy�s article.

This sounds most excellent to me. If there�s a title that can put the fun back into combat air sims, it�s project 1. I have high hopes.

If the U.S. bombing campaign keeps up for a lengthy amount of time then I expect we would see the next set of flight sims to come out within a year or so. There were a rash of them that came out after Bush Sr. launched strikes against Iraq.

Wouldn't surprise me, but how interesting can it get flying over large expanses of Desert...again? This is a problem I had with any sim that covered Desert Storm. Besides this, where would the big challenges be? The Taliban only has Mig-23's for crying out loud, not much of a challenge for an F-16. Unless it was more of a bombing sim, there wouldn't be too much excitement.

You've got lots of mountains to fly in, and difficulty bombing in them. You've got some aa, that, if placed in the right place, will make missions hard. You've got special targets in the way of chemcial weapons plants.

You can always expand the threatre to the surrounding countries such as pakistan and bits of the former soviet union.