Best WWII Flight Sim...bar None (IL-2 Sturmovik (PS))

Member Name: alichino

Product:	IL-2 Sturmovik (PS)
Date:	20/11/02 (1530 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good Flight characteristics, Many planes modeled, Great Graphics

Disadvantages: Choppy with high details, sometimes to real, Manual

It could be that over the course of the last 10 years or so I've grown jaded toward video games in general, but especially toward WWII Flight Simulators in particular, because they tend to miss the boat in regards to actually being both fun and interestingly historic at the same time. The problem has been that historically, Flight games fall into one of two categories:
1. Graphics fashion shows, in which the design team tried to make everything sparkle and shine with the latest video card system and ignored the individual flight characteristics of the available planes.
2. Arcade games with modelled airplanes, again missing the most important points of flight modeling.
Maddox's IL-2 Sturmovik is the first flight game to come out of former USSR that fits nicely into a vacancy that has hindered most of us in the past. Oleg Maddox loves flying. It's really that simple. When someone in the design team actually loves the idea, from inception to completion, you're bound to at least have something worth taking a look at.
IL-2 Sturmovik has excellent graphics, everything is accurate, body modeling, weapons models, even the tracers are the right colors, something that the compitition has failed to recognize in all of their 'historic' flight sims.
Though using the highest level of graphics is labor intensive on the machine, I for example have a PIII 866 with 512Mb of Ram and with full detail @ 1280X1024x32, I'm pushing ~12 frames a second...that's hardly playable. But I've been able to lower the terrian details and switched to 800X600x32 and had an enjoyable ~20 frames a second. Also note that this includes keeping the cockpit visable. If you turn the cockpit off, the frame rate jumps to something respectable.
I've never been in the cockpit of a real fighter plane from WWII, so I've no idea what to really expect. But if I were to judge my opinion solely based on past incarnations of WWII flight sim'
;s I'd have to say that IL-2 has the best flight characteristics of any game on the market. You won't be disapointed in that regard. And if you find that it's too diffecult to fly the plane it is possible to change the difficulty levels for easier flight.
The campaigns that come with the shipped version are fairly small, but one thing you must note is that the IL-2 community is in love with this game and at present there is a campaign generator that allows you build entirely new campaigns...and it's free.
Online play is excellent as well. You can even play in cooperative flights. Where you fly one plane on-line with others trying to actually complete a mission...and land safely. Of course, you could just play in free-forall's and work on your scoring and shooting ability against real people.
In fact of all the things that are good about this game, the absolute best part is the love Oleg and the IL-2 community in general has poured into this game. More planes have been added, more missions, more everything and in February of 2003 Ubisoft is suppose to be releasing a 'add-on' to the IL-2 system called Forgotten Battles. NOTE: Forgotten Battles won't actually be an 'add-on' but a stand alone game. I use add-on because it's a daughter of the orginal family game and is based on the orginal. Also, FB is going to be released using the latest in DX technology, so the graphics should be even better.
If you like flight Sims, especially WWII genre, this game is for you. A million times better than any of it's compitition...including the newest release from Microsoft. And with the added bonus of knowning that it is supported both by the development team and the players...you can't go wrong.

One final note on the manual. I list it as a disadvantage, but in fact I would list just about any manual from any modern game. It appears that the idea of offering information beyond the basics of the g
ame has become passe. This a sad sign on the business of being human. If this game was a simulation on building a motor from spare parts, wouldn't it behoove the development team to explain what all the parts are, thus increasing the enjoyment of the player, instead of confussing and frustrating the user into believing a sledgehammer would best suit the game? Imagine then getting into the cockpit of a FW190A and not knowing what the little red lights mean on the cockpit dash...and trying to fly around with your gear down? Manuals should be made available for the complete lineup of all the neccessary items in the game...and like I said, this goes for just about any game you buy these days.

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