HAWX is an action game, no disrespect to anybody but it's a different league completely. And I simply never really got into modern simulations, jet or heli. They just always seem more like work than enjoyment, but that's just me.
I heard good things about Rise of Flight though, so yeah, every now and then, there's something. No comparison to the days of Microprose, Jane's and then IL-2 though. As it seems now SoW is not coming out until 2011.
HAWX, although inferior in every way to Ace Combat 4/5/Z aside from graphics, is still worth picking up IMO. The co-op in the campaign is fun. Not in the same league, that is true, but arcadey flight games like Ace Combat are still fun, at least to me.
And I'd suggest you look into the Strike Fighters/Wings Over series.
It features aircraft from the late 50s-80s. Even then, the realism is not that detailed. The dog fighting in the game is very well done. Most of the time you are using crappy AIM-9B/D/E or K-13 Atoll/R-60 Aphids anyways, which aren't accurate. Because of this, there is still plenty of gun combat. I understand what you mean, looking at 4 MFDs and messing around with 40 radar modes is not that fun. This is why I like this series of games. The older 60-70s aircraft are more about flying than using computers.
Plus, there are so many mods for the game that you can fly a large variety of aircraft from all kinds of time periods. You can check out my videos in my thread here.
Sorry to go off topic.
