It's definitely worth it to get CFS3 now. The add-ons are really beginning to pour in, there's a brand new freeware Mediterranean theatre of operations that blows the original ETO sky high and then some more. There's a freeware (might go payware in its final phase) WWI add-on that doesn't even resemble CFS3 anymore. Just about everything has been or will be updated - all by users as it's open architecture - and it's basically CFS4 now, only running on the CFS3 engine. I'd buy a new copy myself if I could find one, just as a backup in case something happens to the discs.
As a simulator, there isn't a better choice for a WWII aircraft nut than CFS3. IL-2 might have more aircraft but CFS3 steamrolls it in flight model quality any day of the week. There's a group of guys making flight models that perform within 1% of the performance of the real life planes, taking into account everything imaginable, even the length of the stick to determine how much force could be used to move the control surfaces at high speeds. The weapons are made with the same accuracy, if a real bomb caused blast damage 450 feet away, so will these. It might not be the most entertaining approach for a flight simulator but it's the most realistic and that's what counts. The latest 3D models rival, and in many cases beat, the IL-2 ones and the textures are often far superior. And the end of the updating is nowhere in sight, more like the other way round. CFS3 is living the beginning - the best is yet to come - of its heyday as we speak, seven years after its launch.
