IL-2 Sturmovik

Rating:
Summary: Finest Flight Sim Ever Produced
Review: Il-2 is something that gamers and flight simulator enthusiasts could only hope for. It beats anything ever produced so far. The simulator was designed by pilots for pilots. Many of the people in the design team of Maddox Games have experience in the aviation industry. Much of the design of the game was done with the input from gamers in the internet flight-simulation community. Never has a developer been so keen on what his customers wanted.

Even the "newbies" will have a lot of fun with the easier settings which make this incredibly accurate flight simulator an easier "video-game" stile game. However, the fun is really in the realism that IL-2 delivers, and soon there will be a lot more fans of flight-simulation once gamers take a look at the absolutely best graphics ever seen in a World War Two sim.

This simulator includes the Eastern Front theater, in which the Soviet Union fought against the German Forces in World War II. You will be able to play for either the Soviets or the Germans. Many of the aircraft modelled have never been modelled before as an integral part of a flight simulator, like the Messerschmitt Me-321 and Me-323 Gigant, the Fieseler Fi-156 Storch, the Focke-Wulf Fw-189 Uhu, the Polikarpov I-153 Chaika, the Polikarpov Po-2 (U2), the Lavochkin La-7, the Bell P-39 Airacobra, and the Rumanian IAR-80 and 81.

Of all the flight simulators I have ever played, none have better virtual cockpits or flight characteristics. Each flyable plane has extremely photorealistic cockpits. The flight model is impeccable. The handling of each subtype of aircraft is accurate. For the first time ever I was able to feel how hard but how efficient it was to fly a German Messerchmitt Bf-109G-2. One of my all time favorites, the USA Lend-Leased P-39 Airacobra is an incredible machine, but you will learn why it was such a demanding craft to fly. The star of the game is definitely the Soviet ground attack plane IL-2, of which you will be able to fly something like 7 different versions, each accurately modelled, and with the option to play as rear-gunner too. The campaigns in the game are historical.

For multiplayer, you will be able to play through the Internet, both joining sessions, hosting your own, or through the Ubisoft game service. Ubisoft is publishing the game. Anyway, you can have up to 32 people in dogfights, or up to 16 people in full cooperative missions. I already wasted hours and hours playing over the Internet with the Demo. It is just incredible.

IL-2 has many great features. It has a training feature. It includes both a Quick Mission Builder, to allow players to build fast missions to get on with flying (and being able to save and load), as well as a Full Mission Builder, that gives the mission builders the ability to create missions that are as simple or as complex as possible, accessing every feature of the game, all maps, all aircraft (including Aces), stationary objects (parked planes, trucks, tanks, artillery, etc), ships, trains, tanks, vehicle columns, etc. You will be able to build from the simplest single player mission to complex multiplayer missions. You can even build cinema like missions that you can just watch AI play it, and you can take beautiful screenshots. There is a mission recorder so that you can watch your missiohn after you are done, and you can save it to watch later. Finally, you can dstribute your mission recordings, your screenshots, and your custom missions through the Internet for all to see.

If there is a negative point to IL-2 is the fact that you cannot fly every single plane. But a huge internet community already has been formed with modellers and programmers who are producing cockpits, add-on aplications, and even completely new aircraft and other models for IL-2 with the support of the developers, who will actually approve addons and make them available through the Internet as a part of the sim (for free in most cases), as opposed to the usual unfinished feel that many games and simulators get when a custom addition is made. Also, this is no simple game, it is a demanding simulation, make sure you have a descent 3D video card that supports OpenGL (DirectX is also supported), you want to be able to see those incredible details, and the more RAM the better.

I have never been this happy with any other PC product. I played the Demo for days non-stop. I am afraid after you play IL-2, you will simply uninstall every other flight simulator you ever played. I have played just about every WW2 simulator ever made, including Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, Aces Over Europe, European Air War, Screaming Demons Over Europe, B-17II, Battle of Britain, Air Warrior, Aces High, Combat Flight Simulator 1 and 2, and Jane's WW2 Fighters, amongst some others. I have to say that IL-2 has to be the most accurate of all. Not only that, I have not played a more fun simulator since Jane's WW2 Fighters. This is just outstanding, and I am glad a developer finally got it right. After a while it gets tiring to spend money and have a mediocre product in your PC.

Rating:
Summary: WELL....
Review: I love flight simulation games and I love WWII flight games... Yet i am disapointed that this game does not meet the standards of a decent Flight simulator game... the graphics aren't that great and the enemy fighters are so easy to shoot down it takes the honor out of victory... However due to the lack of WWII simulation games I guess this will have to do~

Rating:
Summary: IL2 Sturmovik The Demo
Review: A golden sun shone through the mists of the early morning Russian Steppes, and the stillness was broken only by me starting the engine of this beautiful aircraft I had beneath me.....
Once I was airborne I opted for the easiest choice and pressed A and the autopilot came on. I decided I would take advantage of this moment to jump into the back seat where the rear gunner was.

At this point I became aware of how the water in the rivers and lakes looked, well, cliched as it may be - like water....I swear it ripples if you get down close enough....undoubtedly the best simulated water Ive seen - and Ive seen oceans of the stuff.
I came under attack from marauding 109s and the plane,in trying to avoid the fighters, was jinking all over the place, making a clean shot VERY difficult to get. When a 109 did close on us from behind, I moved to TARGET VIEW and got the him right in my sights. Very good fun and very hard...and yes, I shot me own tail by mistake.

CONCLUSION
Superb interpretation of flight - the best this reviewer has seen.
Great scenery - equal to if not better than recent flight sims.
Hugely enjoyable gameplay with many variants possible.
The sound files are superb.
The graphic detail of objects, even on default settings, is exceptional.
Many skins available for supplied aircraft with the demo.
Opponent CHASE VIEW.
Object modelling (cockpit, ordnance, terrain, weather, static and moving objects).
User flyable combat missions

You have to get IL2 - it really is that simple.

Rating:
Summary: On the basis of the demo....
Review: On the basis of the demo, which was an earlier build of the beta, this sim will be the new benchmark. Outstanding graphics, good flightmodels, and an excellent track recording feature.

I've got about a dozen flightsims on my computer, and about the only thing I "fly" anymore is the Il-2 demo! It's that good.

If you like combat flightsims, or have always thought you might like to try one, you cannot go wrong with Il-2 Sturmovik.

If you felt burned by BoB, MSCFS2, or B-17II, this is a completely different animal. Five stars (and remember, this is just the demo!) :-)

Rating:
Summary: Awesome Game
Review: Damn, this game is incredible. Even if you rev your engine, the plane will rotate a bit from the torque. Try to learn how to recover from stalls on all the different models, then learn to recover the ME-109. It ain't easy but once you recognize how your plane of choice acts when it's about to stall, you can pull aerial maneuvers that really ride the edge of the aircraft's ability. I guess that's where 'flying by the seat of your pants' comes from. This game is just overall unbelievable. It's hard to imagine how people used to actually fly and fight in these things considering the difficulty of just getting up and landing, nevermind combat.

Rating:
Summary: good game
Review: I am not too much of a sim fan but this game is really good. The graphics are beautiful on the higher settings (machine gun shells spill from under your fuselage, vapor trails from wingtips at high altitude, the clouds are amazing, starry night skies etc..) and the many choices of viewpoints are cool as well as very helpful. I am not giving it 5 stars because of the annoyingly LONG and BORING flights to and from the target areas. I know this is a realism thing but it really hurts the gameplay. I have put the game on 8x speed, gone and get something to eat, and come back after five minutes and I'm still not there! Otherwise, this is a must have for all you simmers. Real super fun.

Rating:
Summary: Fly me a river!
Review: This game has been in my collection for quite some time now. I have recently ordered another copy from amazon after giving my two cents to a colleague and getting him hooked. Mildly put, IL-2 is and should be the definition you get when you look up "flight sim" in your dictionary. IL-2 captures the feeling of WWII aerial combat seen through the eyes of German or Russian pilots in campaigns designed from getting you into the air to getting you to shoot down everything in the air...and then some. Gameplay is solid and the controls, even though a bit overwhelming at first, are surprisingly easy to learn. Graphically, the game is stunning. You'll swear you're flying in WWII alongside your fellow countrymen, curse at enemy AA fire and even wipe your monitor during those hard to see night missions through rain, lightning and fog. The few levels included are extremely large, and seem never ending. You'll fly missions where it will take you 15 or more minutes just to reach your destination. Soaring over towns, rivers and even over a fleet of ships bent on making the water your very own grave, you'll gasp at the scenery and begin to appreciate the game's minor details. The AI is so aggressive at higher levels that you'll be checking your 'six frantically every 2 seconds trying to shake that fighter off your tail. Newcomers need not worry, IL-2 lets you customize the game to your heart's content. You can opt to turn off limited ammunition, damage, takeoffs and landings, and much more in an effort to make anyone's entry into the world of flight sims a painless journey. A beefy computer with a good 3d card is recommended if you want the game to run smoothly and look anything like it does on the back of the box. Investing in a joystick, if you haven't already done so would be a good idea. What are you waiting for? Fire up that engine and meet your doom in the skies.

Rating:
Summary: piece of junk
Review: This is arguably the best WWII flight simulation game I've experienced so far, and it is much better than MicroSoft flight simulation series or any other games you can find. Excellent graphic quality. I highly recommend it.