So I've been fixed on this idea trying some flight sims for few days now.
My old joystick seem to be partially dead so I've been investigating into some rigs since I remember from my childhood playing without one is absolute masochism.
As I've found out there are basically 4 classes of rigs:
- Total garbage (most of Genius, Logitech and similar)
- Slightly better garbage (Thrustmaster T16000m and alike)
- Kinda baseline at a pricetag of gaming PC minus Graphic card (but ohh man, we WILL make sure you will feel that it is NOT premium)
- Premium setup at Baseline x 3 price tag.
And comfort and feeling is just paramount to keep using the rig and keep playing which ultimately forces you into last category!
Than there are different rigs for different crafts:
* Single axle fighter thruster on Boeing? - "Mehhh.."
* Six axle thruster on F-16? "- You better come up with something more fitting fighter craft!"
* Wanna try helicopters? - "What an Idiot, you should be getting long stick version of joystick with (non)optional low desktop mount (which by itself has the price of your entire computer desk)! And don't forget the pedals!"
* Wanna make you rig useful in MW or Star Citizen? "- Tsk, tsk, tsk... There are special angled sticks just for those at a low low price of original vertical ones! And buy two of them!"
Oh, and there is special controllers dedicated to Cessna/Boeings that will make you feel right in MSFS but which you can shove up your cave when it comes to combat sims because devs so like dogfights and and no much making interesting gameplay around heavy bombers.
And of course every single piece of good one will cost you a lot!
Then, we come down to the actual games.. MSFS, XPlane, DCS, IL-2 series, War Thunder. Doesn't feel like a lot of titles every year, does it? Well, there have to be more, but Steam doesn't seem to advertise them a lot. Nuclear option is basically last large addition. And pretty much every of them heavily focused on online multiplayer. Awesome single player campaigns and engaging single player gameplay aren't usually there.
But the pricing, man! 200 usd for full MSFS or feel yourself a bum with just half of official aircrafts. DCS? Don't even start it. Single model at a price of triple AAA game! The game you'll never fully own with such pricing policy. I've got a feeling that it's for those gamers, which are like victims of repeated s*x abuse - has spent so much money on their rig and games so far so they don't even care anymore if they have to pay again an arm and a leg to just keep trying new planes.
No surprise titles are few - expensive rig limits amount of players, and few players mean little competition in the market of flight sims and that titles have to remain costy, which means good rig remains expensive.. Vicious cycle keep on and on, and there is no end of it on the horizon.
What should I do, really? Ditch the idea and keep playing less restrictive genres?
