Episode 1: We Wanted Realism:
Episode 1: We Wanted Realism
The moment simulation felt real and why we didn’t see the end coming.
 |
| Falcon 3’s HUD, 640 KB of memory somehow convincing you that you were really there. |
The Spark
The first computer game I ever saw was on my mate’s BBC Micro. It was Spitfire, wire-frame lines and imagination and I was hooked straight away. The only problem was, I didn’t have a BBC Micro of my own. From that moment on I was chasing that feeling: that one day a screen could really make you believe you were flying.
I was a flight simulation guy back then. It’s kind of sad that I’m not anymore but we will get to that, these days I’m more of a tank guy but then, it was flight everything. They were the cutting edge: graphics, gameplay, sound, the lot. I don’t think there was a sim I didn’t own.
The Golden Age
Falcon 3 with the MiG-29 add-on, TFX, Hind, Strike Fighter, Su-27 Flanker, I loved them all. Tornado was another big one; Digital Integration knew what they were doing. The Jane’s line, Spectrum HoloByte, MicroProse, those names meant quality. And M1 Tank Platoon 2, that was just amazing.
And then came three that pulled me outside of flight. Grand Prix Legends still one of the hardest, most beautiful things ever built. Nascar Racing was just as serious in its own way precision drafting and physics that punished every mistake. And then Panzer Elite, armour instead of wings, but the same dedication to realism, terrain, and tactics. That same obsession with believable physics spread across every vehicle type; whether it was wheels, wings, or tracks, the goal was always the same, to make it believable.
 |
| A typical mid-90s rig, beige tower, CRT glow, and a joystick plugged into the Sound Blaster port. |
My setup was a 486 SX 25 with a two-button joystick plugged into the Sound Blaster card, no USB, no drivers you could just download. That chunky beige box hummed and made hard drive noises under the desk, the CRT warming the room. When the sim finally loaded you could almost feel the heat coming off it.
The HIMEM Campaign
I still remember wrestling with Falcon 3. It needed just over 600 KB of base memory, so you had to shuffle things into high memory with HIMEM.SYS. It took the better part of two days and a long call with tech support before we finally got it to fit. Mouse driver, sound driver, joystick driver, each one had to line up just right. When the briefing screen finally appeared I sat back and thought, “Right … now I’ve earned this.” That was part of the magic. You weren’t just flying a machine; you were coaxing the machine into letting you. That’s how far we were pushing the hardware at the time.
 |
| CONFIG.SYS / AUTOEXEC.BAT, the real battlefield before take-off. |
We still had a bit of a procedure to go through, if I remember right, but nothing like what we’ve got today. In most early sims you started at the end of the runway with the engines already running, ready to go. Falcon 3, if memory serves, was the first time I actually taxied to the runway. The engines were already running, but that short roll felt like a huge leap, the moment a game first started to feel like an aircraft.
 |
| Falcon 3.0 Spectrum HoloByte’s promise of the Electronic Battlefield. |
Realism That Didn’t Get in the Way
That’s what realism meant then, seeing how far you could push the hardware. We were testing the limits of the system, not the patience of the player. We didn’t need half an hour of switch-flipping just to get the wheels off the ground. Those older sims got straight to the point, but they still felt every bit as real as what we now call “full simulation.” The sense of flight, the sound, the movement, it convinced you. Sure, the manuals were thick enough to stop a door, but you didn’t need them open on your desk just to get airborne. You learned by flying, not by reading.
Built to Last
A lot of those sims even came with their own mission editors. You could plan sorties, set targets and waypoints, choose the time of day. Tornado, Longbow 2, M1 Tank Platoon 2, each gave you some version of the tools the developers used. Mission planners, generators, editors, ways to build your own battles and keep the game alive long after the campaign was done. They handed the keys to you.
Another thing about those sims — they had to stand on their own two feet. Multiplayer either didn’t exist or barely worked, so the whole thing had to hold you on gameplay alone. The missions, the campaign, the feeling of flight — that’s what kept you coming back. These days it’s different. So much effort goes into systems, cosmetics, and micro-transactions, all the shiny bits around the game, that the gameplay itself often feels like the side dish instead of the meal.
As the new millennium rolled in, publishers started chasing different metrics, retention, engagement, micro-transactions and the kind of depth we once took for granted began to look unprofitable.
The Inversion
Today we have the most realistic simulations ever made. Every switch works. Every system is modelled. You can spend months learning to fly a single aircraft.
 |
| Today’s study-level sims: breathtakingly detailed, but demanding muscle memory and hours of training. |
And yet a small voice in me keeps asking, isn’t this what we said we wanted? Total realism, every dial working, every checklist followed to the letter. We wanted to feel what real pilots felt, the workload, the precision, the responsibility and somehow we built a world where that’s exactly what’s required. It’s an amazing achievement, but somewhere along the way, we lost the playfulness that made us fall in love with simulation in the first place.
Back then, we were pushing the system. Now the system pushes us.
The Dream Before the Fall
Even as we reached that point, the studios kept pushing, chasing more realism, more immersion, more of that feeling that you were part of something big. TFX, then Eurofighter 2000, then F-22 ADF and Total Air War, just one line of sims from one studio, each step pushing the limits a bit further. Then came B-17 Flying Fortress II one of the last of the greats from MicroProse. It let you manage an entire crew, each station alive with gauges and chatter. The progress was staggering. It felt unstoppable, like the Digital Battlefield dream was right around the corner.
Reflection
Looking back now, I realise how deep I was in it, how much of my time and imagination those games took. And it’s sad, really, because all of that went away. We asked for realism, and we got it, just not the kind we wanted. What we were chasing was that feeling of being there, of the machine and the mind meeting halfway. Instead we ended up with procedure and perfection and all the noise and flex that goes with it. And when I look at that old Falcon 3 box art now, I can still feel what we were promised, the Electronic Battlefield, the dream we almost had. We had it so good, and we didn’t know it.
Next → Episode 2 – The Digital Battlefield Dream
How we went from standalone masterpieces to the promise of connected worlds.
