DCS World

 PC
User Score
8.3

Generally favorable reviews- based on 84 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 68 out of 84
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 84
  3. Negative: 9 out of 84

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  1. Lazarus_Long
    Apr 18, 2017
    5
    First, let me say I am not a Pilot, I got the game because of the D-Day Sim that is coming out later in May I think.

    I will update this review as I gain more experience, or if I find it not my cup of tea well I most likely won’t. Just know you’re not buying a game, but a simulator, and there is a big difference in the two. Go for DCS World 1.5 or even the DCS World Beta. Each takes    First, let me say I am not a Pilot, I got the game because of the D-Day Sim that is coming out later in May I think.

    I will update this review as I gain more experience, or if I find it not my cup of tea well I most likely won’t. Just know you’re not buying a game, but a simulator, and there is a big difference in the two.

    Go for DCS World 1.5 or even the DCS World Beta. Each takes hours to download, but are at least somewhat playable and do not require a terrain module. And is free with no other costs to play. This would be the best way to find out if you want to buy into the other planes that are offered.

    Now to download the game be prepared for a lengthy download wait, I have a 10Mbsp Internet connection, and with that, it takes 3-4 hours to download.

    I would suggest not downloading the DCS_World_2_OpenAlpha.exe, -- Another 3-4 hour download -- as DCS World 2 requires terrain module, which costs during the Promo I got it on was $29.95, and I couldn’t get the planes to do anything but crash. -- Note the terrain module also takes some 3-4 hours to download as well. -- Total download time of 6-8 hours. – It is fairly cool to look at as your plane flies over, but this is in real time and you can get bored after a while. i.e. if you have 50 miles to get to your objective and your plane travels at say 200miles per hour, expect to wait 15 minutes to get there, in real time. Don’t forget the 15 minutes it takes to travel back and land.

    Now for the interesting part, this not really a game, it is a very detailed Simulator and is not very forgiving. There is no plot or story, you’re flying a plane, and it is in real time. An hour is an hour, not some sort of speed up of time. Your missions or flying time will take a while, I say an hour at minimum, and so far, I have not found a way to save a spot and stop for a bathroom break. There well may be some way to do so, I hope I find it soon.

    I would watch some of the YouTube videos as they can be fun to watch. And these guys have a few hours of flying time under their belt, and I still saw them making some funny mistakes. The dogfights are very informative and might throw some light on what real fighter Pilots had to face.

    I spent around $90 and I’m sort of disappointed. There is no warning that the downloads will take hours. And you must be careful just where you download to.

    It is also possible to corrupt a file by placing an older module in the wrong place, say DCS-World 2 alpha. Older mods will not play in the DCS World Alpha or so I believe. I downloaded the DCS: Black Shark (English) Deprecated version (Have no idea just what that means.), but after doing so I was no longer able to start the Sim in any form.

    I ended up deleting the files and had to redownload them again taking nearly 4 hours, for each.

    Now if you want to learn to fly any of the planes here, and you are a novice as I am, be prepared for a long and steep learning curve, and don’t expect much help.

    Again I will update this review as I gain more experience, or if I find it not my cup of tea, well I most likely won’t. Just know you’re not buying a game, but a simulator, and there is a big difference in the two.    … Expand
  2. Pielstick
    Jun 16, 2019
    7
    Hands down the best flight and systems modelling you can get in a desktop flight simulator right now. DCS World simulates these aircraft in significantly more detail and to a higher degree of fidelity than anything that has gone before. You will need to spend many hours studying the manuals, watching Youtube tutorials and practicing yourself before you become proficient.

    So why the 7    Hands down the best flight and systems modelling you can get in a desktop flight simulator right now. DCS World simulates these aircraft in significantly more detail and to a higher degree of fidelity than anything that has gone before. You will need to spend many hours studying the manuals, watching Youtube tutorials and practicing yourself before you become proficient.

    So why the 7 score?

    No dynamic campaign. You're limited to missions created with the mission builder. Even if there was a dynamic campaign I think the maps are too small to do these aircraft justice. For a flight simulation which touts the hyper realism of the aircraft, it's strange that the maps are geographically so small as to make realistic missions impossible.

    The aircraft themselves (sold as "modules" which you can add into the base simulation) are excellent, but are a real hodge podge of mis-matching eras and don't complement each other particularly well. For example we have a fantastic F-86 Sabre and Mig-15 but there's no Korean map to play them in. We have a wonderful Saab Viggen but it doesn't belong on any of the available maps (Caucuses, Nevada, Persian Gulf and WW2 Normandy). We've recently got a Mig-19 but there's no other contemporary or supporting modules for it. We also recently got an I-16 but there's no map or other aircraft which are contemporary to it. This extends into the AI plane set too - it's full of combat aircraft of the 1990s, but nothing earlier or later. I really would like to see some more coordination between things so when a new module is released I can fly it against contemporary aircraft and weapons systems.

    Speaking of which, given the level of realism this sim strives to attain, don't count on flying anything which has been built in the last 20 years or so... they simply can't get access to the necessary information to model it properly.

    There's still a lot of niggling problems which have been around for a while - wonky air to air missile performance and the much complained about rendering issues where you will only "see" another aircraft when it is much closer than you would have been able to see it in real life.

    Also a rather long history of trigger happy moderators on the official forum. Then again, it's a flight sim.... overly zealous moderators go with the territory.

    Oh, and the more recent versions of DCS World really need to be run from an SSD otherwise you're likely to get stuttering and micro pauses every few seconds as the map data is loaded from the hard drive.

    I can't help but feel DCS World sits on the cusp of greatness, but for the time being at least, just falls short until the developer can address the problems I've outlined above.    … Expand
  3. strangermoon
    Sep 27, 2019
    7
    great realtic and educative simulator. support gamepad but gampad buttons not enough to assign enough controls like engine righ left start lights opens etc. undterstanding ground bombs kinda hard and bugy in training. game more advance than mfs. ı dont know but only dont have air carrier in free version. you have one plane in free version but ı managed to add f16 and f15 su27 free modsgreat realtic and educative simulator. support gamepad but gampad buttons not enough to assign enough controls like engine righ left start lights opens etc. undterstanding ground bombs kinda hard and bugy in training. game more advance than mfs. ı dont know but only dont have air carrier in free version. you have one plane in free version but ı managed to add f16 and f15 su27 free mods which totaly looks fine and work free flight mode wit others ai only you have to manually select fire arms in detailed edit menu. hdr ,depthoffield and motion blur effects realy rocks in this game when they works you dont feel annoying textures like mfs and others. one of the best jet simulators between novalogic f22 in steam.… Expand
  4. Boumouse
    Jun 6, 2023
    7
    Free but complicated to play it only with the controller and I also have a latency problem and the worst part is that the game was released in 2008 and I manage to run much more recent games, So conclusion the game is not very well optimized ...

    404 not found when posting my review = https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/raft

    https://www.twitch.tv/bou_mouse

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Critic score distribution:
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  1. Everyeye.it
    Apr 15, 2014
    90
    Dcs World is one of the best combat flight simulators based on the Su 25 T and it’s incredibly free. If you own a Joystick you should give it a try.
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