under rated game ? well you may have noticed the air attack LFS servers and wondered where the name comes from
Air Attack, WW2 flight sim that was the original version of fighter ace, still going online after 10 years despite being optimised for a P90 and a dial up connection and it has survived noves from uk to german to south korean servers to it's current home back with Ketsujin who run fighter ace.
details and game footage here
http://www.airattack.co.uk/portal/
why is it so popular still with such simple graphics and a simple flight model ? game play ! by being so simple it has allowed people to play n differing styles and has allowed organisers to come up with differing events ranging from 1 v1 and 2 v2 to 4 squad battles, air races and historical re enactments. 616 squadron named them selves after the squadron of johny johnson and douglas bader and used real life tactics as much as possible, their leader ended up being invited to meet the real life survivors.
also the game could suport up to 160 players in one arena even back in 1999 on dial up with little or no lag issues. when andy the leader of Zulu squadron (Zulu 9) was killed in a car crash in 2000, we organised a fly past with 160 planes in tribute, which actually got a mention and a screen shot published in the business section of "the times " and the devs surprised us when the next update was released by creating the " Zulu 9" memorial by the side of the GB runway. how do i remember ? he was my squadron leader and got me through a very sticky real life period.
in fact with such a strong community and gameplay being valued over flashy, air attack was / is very similar to LFS and also it's free having originally been provided by BT on a charge per minute played on your phone bill (which resulted in someplayers getting bills of over £600 a quarter in 1999 ! )on top of the per minute charge that was the common ISP business model back then. that people were prepared to run up and pay these costs tells you all you need to know about its appeal